Citizens of the world.

Wita, far right, with her sister and another member of their doll making association.


Beatrice, on the left, during bag making training in 2006.

Last year I wrote about Dancille, my lovely friend in Kiziba Camp who was resettled with her family to Australia.

Last week, it happened again.

I arrived in Kiziba to find that Wita and Beatrice have also left, this time, thanks to the good hearts and open arms of the people of Finland.

I have a special fondness for these two women and also for the country that they will now call home.

Wita has been in our Income Generation Program since 2004, making charming dolls that portray the lives of refugees from a woman’s point of view. She went to Finland with her daughter and baby granddaughter, and is working to have her 18-year-old son join the rest of the family as soon as possible. In the meantime, her son has remained in the camp, joining a group of teenagers in another IGP association, carrying on his mother’s work by teaching the members of his group to make dolls.

Beatrice is the energetic, talented and tenacious leader of a group that learned to make nylon bags, and then baskets, and convinced us to rehabilitate a shelter for them to use as their workshop. I don’t know the details of her situation but I do know that she will make the most of the opportunity that she has found, just as she did here.

Amazingly, both of these women have already spoken by phone with family members who are still in the camp. They say that it is very cold in Finland, but that they are happy to be there, and the children have started school. Somehow having this connection with those who have left gives others hope that, as one of my friends said today, “God may open the door for me and my family, too.”

My fondness for Finland dates back to Steven’s junior year in high school, when he was an AFS exchange student in Espoo, near Helsinki. Finland was very good to him, and I know that it will be a good place for my Kiziba Camp friends as well.

Safe journey to all, and may we meet again.

Time Marches On.

And I simply cannot believe that not only has the month of March come and gone, but a good chunk of the month of April as well. I'm grateful to have been able to extend my volunteer agreement to allow me to be here another couple of months, as there always seems to be more work to do.

Sorry not to have been a better correspondent these past few weeks, but I promise to post some updates with photos in the next few days.

Today is a holiday, one that begins a period of national mourning in Rwanda to remember the victims of the 1994 genocide. On a normal day I would hear voices, music, singing and the sounds of daily life rising up the hill from the houses below, but today even the birds are quiet.

If you have not seen the movie "Shooting Dogs" (released in the United States as "Beyond the Gates"), I can recommend it as a realistic, disturbing and important film about the Rwandan genocide. The film, which stars John Hurt as a Catholic priest who decides that one person can make a difference in the in the face of such evil, was shot on location here in Kigali, and many genocide survivors appeared in the film or were involved in some way in the production. I've posted a link to the film's website and I hope you'll take a look and pause to reflect.

No matter how many times the world says "never again," these things not only can still happen, but are happening today, this afternoon, to people no different than us except for the place in the world where they happened to be born.