By rohitaj
Hello all, this is Rohita speaking from Kigali, Rwanda. I’m currently here with SIT’s Post-Genocide Restoration and Peace-building program. This last month has been incredibly challenging. We’ve visited jarring genocide memorials, a women association of genocide survivors, spoken to former perpetrators and spent two weeks studying the LRA conflict in northern Uganda. It’s been a lot to take in and to be honest I don’t think I have taken much of it in just yet.
Visiting the genocide memorials is not something that I feel I am competent enough to describe in words. All I can do is encourage you to make the trek to Rwanda to visit one of the most powerful testaments to loss and forgiveness that I have ever witnessed. On a more uplifting note, visiting the Women’s Association was absolutely incredible. There are these groups of women, some whose husbands have died in the genocide others whose husbands are in jail for crimes committed during the genocide, but regardless they live together and support each other. Visiting them and hearing their stories is once again indescribable. All I can say is that I have never met a tougher group of women!
The next phase of my program is for independent research. My research is going to focus on the role of the village in conflict mediation. I plan on speaking with village chiefs, the ministry of local government and just regular citizens to hear their take on the matter. The reason I find this concept so fascinating is because it s so different than anything we have in the US. So imagine this: Your neighbor is building a house and he without realizing it builds on your land, but you haven’t been in the area for like 10 years so he tells you that too bad deal with it! Instead of suing him for all he’s worth you take it up with the abunzi. This literally means the one who reconciles. The abunzi is a member of your village who is of “honorable character”. He assembles a table of witnesses and you all talk it out and come up with a solution. No government; no lawyers.
I find this absolutely amazing. There are many other means of reconciliation used in the villages. In one of my earlier posts I talked about the umuganda, the day of mandatory community service occurring at the end of the month. The village in Rwanda does so much. It operates where the national government cannot and strives to fill gaps in development, security, and peace.
So that’s the focus of my research. I can’t wait to get started