Oh Rwanda

I'm in Rwanda for the weekend for a small break. Today we visited a few memorials from the genocide that occured here in 1994-it's so crazy to see the recovery that Rwanda and it's people has made in such a short time. I was at a restaurant here last night and began talking to one of the servers there. He's 18 years old and only spoke French and a tiny bit of English. So it was pretty interesting and fun to use my French, after spending a while talking I asked him how many brothers and sisters he has. It was hard to understand, but he said something like "ehh...j'ai une tante et un oncle..." "I have an aunt and an uncle..." So I asked him again about brothers and sisters. He was really hesitant, but then he asked me if I know about the genocide that happened. And then he told me that both of his brothers were killed by their neighbors who they used to be friends with until the huge political uproar between the hutoos and tutsi tribes. He also said that his mother was killed, and he didn't tell me about his father. He was only 3 years old, but he remembers. He didn't want to talk about it anymore, and I asked him if he has told many people his story. He said that he doesn't ever talk about it because everyone else has been through the same things so people talking to each other only brings back the pain that they are trying to forget. And he said it's especially hard to forget because the Hutoos that killed so many of their friends, neighbors, and even family members are still here. It's pretty hard on both ends; those asking for forgiveness, those trying to forgive, and those still holding on to hate.
He's such a cool kid. I can't help but look around me and know there are probably many of those people involved with the genocide. So so so many were killed in horrible ways.
Well, on that happy note....I'm having an awesome time, learning new things everyday, and am grateful for more and more things everyday. We are so lucky to live in America.