Day 6 - Kigali

First thing this morning, we had a television interview on TV Rwanda (which is a government-run station, and the only tv station in the country - they are way more of a radio culture right now). Good lord, do I hate being on camera. The interview went well (though I hope to never see a copy of it, and I hope you don't either.) The interviewer (Emmanuel Munyarukumbuzi! See what I mean about the language!! - where do I ever start with that last name???) was fun and smart and he's coming to DC in a few months to attend a training for journalists on climate change, which is great and I hope I get to take him around. I hope he just gives me a few months to practice saying his name right before he gets there.

Later, we taught our final workshop at the Embassy for independent filmmakers who were a little bit more advanced than the groups we've had earlier. It's kinda sad, just when we get our teaching shtick down, our classes are over.

After the class was finished, we went to the Gisozi Genocide Memorial, which is the main genocide memorial in the country (although each town has its own and you see many memorial sites as you drive past the villages.) It's a powerful place, and over 300,000 people are buried there, and they are still adding more bodies to the memorial - they locate new ones all the time. I'm glad we didn't go there until the end of workshops -- there's a special section about some of the kids who were killed, and I don't think there is any way I could have gotten through classes looking at the sweet faces of the students without breaking down when I think of what almost every one of them has been through in their short lives.

While we were walking through the memorial, Charles from the US Embassy started telling us about how just this May, he finally located the remains of his mother and niece. They had been killed in the genocide and their bodies were hidden until 16 years later. The bodies were uncovered after some of the perpetrators testified in a regional reconciliation trial called a Gacaca. Since it's such a small and condensed country, and so many people were involved in the killings (often against their neighbors or even members of their own family), they have had to figure out a way to administer justice and at the same time create a way for reconciliation and forgiveness. These regional courts were conducted for years (until very recently) and have played a big role in helping communities to heal so they can live together once again.

At night, we attended the closing party of the Rwanda Film Festival which was really fun. They screened two African films - one an African Sci Fi with an environmental theme (who knew?!), and the second was a really good feature called Soul Boy, which was made in the slums of Nairobi and was a partnership between a German production company and young filmmakers in Kenya. Both films had really high production values and were quite impressive.

They followed up that with an awards ceremony, and Soundtrack for a Revolution won "Best Documentary", which was super exciting. We accepted the award on the filmmakers' behalf - the trophy was a beautiful metal sculpture of a man with a shield and spear and the award for documentary was called the "Shield of Protection" to honor the non-fiction films that protect society. (Each trophy was unique for each category). It's a fantastic film, and I'm so happy that it was so well received in Rwanda. (I'll write more at length about the Rwanda Film Institute and the men who run it, it's really an inspiring organization and they deserve a little more attention than I can do justice with my tired brain right now.) After the awards, they held a concert with some fantastic music by a Rwandan/Congolese singer named Lokua Kanza... it made me wish that all my Boulder music buddies were there with me - we've seen so much great African music together at the Boulder Theater, and it was so fun to be there surrounded by Africans, but it did make me miss my friends. I know you all would have been dancing up at the front, as usual.