Archive for the Rwanda Category

Day 8 in Rwanda When I read the first page of Toni Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon, I joined the multitude of disciples who followed both her work and her career. The content of her stories. The complexity of her characters. Her mastery of language. Her abilityRead more →

Day 4 in Rwanda There’s a slight incline on the street that stretches along the side of my house. I jog up this street to start my pre-dawn runs. I don’t go full stride. I don’t challenge my lungs to deliver my oxygen to my body. IRead more →

Day 3 in Rwanda Growing up, I wasn’t easily moved to tears. I was an emotional boy--sensitive, but seldom expressive. I remember how the cartoon Bambi caused a teary reaction in some of my friends. I can’t remember any others. I mostly watched cartoons like He-Man, SuperRead more →

Day 2 in Rwanda Rwanda had a population of 7-million people when the genocide happened. One-million people were killed. Two-million people fled the country. Two-million orphans wandered the country, looking for someone that they knew in their past life.Read more →

Day 2 30 Minutes Before Landing in Kigali The flight to Rwanda has two legs. Atlanta to Amsterdam. Amsterdam to Kigali. Both legs are just under nine hours in the air. Maintaining my low carb diet was more of a challenge than keeping myself entertained and preoccupied.Read more →

Day 1 I visited home a few months before my first daughter’s birth. It had been a while since I had smelled the green and concrete essence of my neighborhood. Gentrification and neglect were becoming culturally fashionable in the early 1990s, and I wondered which of theRead more →