On the road…again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

 

R is Rwanda

 

Never will the Footloose Forester be able to tie the events in Rwanda and Burundi together in a historical or insightful way. But since he traveled to both countries on various occasions, the personal memories of the genocide in those neighboring countries will always remain as linchpins of reverie. The Chronicles of a Footloose Forester was always going to be more than a travelogue of an adventurous gadabout.  Some day someone will actually use the words Rwanda and Burundi in the same sentence when describing the killings of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and Hutus in both those countries that share a common border.

B for Burundi was easier to write, partly because there have been no movies depicting the genocide there.  And the fact is that the Footloose Forester always liked Burundi better, for a dozen reasons.  So it was no simple act or knowing choice to write R ... to Russia with gloves before R is Rwanda. 

Dark thoughts are coming out of his subconscious just lately, and he knows it, many years after the 1993--94 genocide there.  Once in a while, he would start to tear up and not be able to see the monitor screen, like the moments when these thoughts were first written down.  Memories, made more vivid and lasting when they are bound for the long-term memory cells of the brain.  Movies help to recall events, thus it is helpful to note that the movie “Hotel Rwanda” really captured the horrors of such tragic events.  If you ever get a chance to see the movie “Hotel Rwanda”, do it!  And the film “Sometimes in April” is also an excellent portrayal of historical events in Rwanda. 

The Footloose Forester always thinks back to the early 1990s and his time spent there.  One vivid memory is of the CNN news video taken from inside the Hotel de Mille Collines, and of the Tutsi refugees drawing water from the swimming pool, for drinking, and for bathing. The actual locale of the events that took place in “Hotel  Rwanda” was within the Hotel de Mille Collines, where the Footloose Forester drank beer by that swimming pool the last time he was in Kigali.  See it for yourself with Google Earth at S 1° 56′ 48.01″ and E 30° 03′ 44.21″ and notice that the beach umbrellas are still standing guard alongside the swimming pool, at least in the version he archived on his computer.

 

The swimming pool where Tutsi refugees drew water for cooking

Before R for Rwanda was put into a final edition, Footloose Forester was drawn to yet another movie about the genocide.  “Beyond the Gates” also tells the dramatic story of genocide in Rwanda, but he discovered that he could not watch it.  As a boy, he was told numerous times that GIs returning from World War II did not want to talk about it and often could not read about it.  After living through the war in Viet Nam and later traveling in Rwanda and Burundi, he discovered that he also was so repulsed about the genocide that he was reticent about details that were too closely linked with his memories.                                                

There were fun times in Rwanda, as well.  On the occasion of the visit to Rwanda of Pope Jean-Paul II, the Footloose Forester was staying at a different hotel.  When he received a phone call that he would be picked up early for departure by a USAID driver because they were going to close the airport during the Pope’s arrival, he changed into slacks and a white shirt to await the driver.  The road to the airport was lined with thousands of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the Pontiff.  But the circumstances were too perfect to pass up and the Footloose Forester, a white man in a white shirt stood up through the open sunroof of the Chevy Suburban and offered blessings and papal-like waves all the way along an otherwise empty highway.  How many people wondered why the Pope was coming from the wrong direction?