Rwandan Diary

I Never Cried In Rwanda

10 Years ago

I turned on the television and immediately immersed myself into visions of hell not inside planet earth, but on its terrain meme. Tears rolled from my eyes as if to say help me, help me help them. Those images of bare-footed Black people running, walking aimlessly to places other than places of the heart rotted me. Life existed elsewhere as they fled the machete cuts of the achilles. They paraded around the streets of Kigali and countrywide as they searched for the abode of the heart.
 
Across the world I sat in a soft sofa, comfy and warm, enveloped and secure as I watched impressions of a world gone wild asking for me to come and wipe some tears from the innocence, from the slopes of the cheeks that no longer mimicked expression in the paralysis of their mysterious misery. From where did it come? How did it happen? And where would they find solace.

I called Doctors Without Borders immediately the morning after and found myself on a plane to be part of history in the indelible expression of man gone mad. But who cared to know? So, I closed the chapter. Sending my diary to people with supposed interest, not a single friend or foe commented on its content. So, I assumed the chapter would remain a dusty memory in an unwritten book somewhere on an imaginary shelf in an imaginary library. But last night, a radio show tore my heart open as a man also in Rwanda 10 years ago brought out his book and dusted the cobwebs from the unseen form. He formed it, printed it and exposed his heart, daring to relive the moment by sharing it with you. And so I do the same. If there is interest in this brief moment of history then let me give you our story.

I am a physician. My name is Cary Rasof. I’m 45 years old. Ten years ago, I was 35 years old. I just completed a journey around the world and returned to work to be a productive citizen in the country of plenty where dreams come true if you dream. If you don’t dream, they still come true, as it seems to be the land of milk and honey. America. It’s where my grandparents fled to and sought refuge when the czar made life in mother Russia intolerable. It’s the place where my life was privileged.

My journey around the world was part of that privilege. A pang in the heart watching children sift through soot in the sanctuary of the insane in countries forgotten, made committing to a life of service logical and practical, ethical and laudable.

So going to Rwanda was only part and parcel of my perennial passion.
 

31 years ago

31 years ago, I sat lonely in my room. I had no friends or the tools at hand to be a friend. The diary of Anne Frank became my brief companion as Kitty became Anne’s brief companion. And as I turned the last page of her imaginary world, I began my own imaginary world with my new companion, God. Without any other caring soul in my life, I started my companionship. Every night, for the past 31 years, I have convened with God seeking refuge, console and resolve. It is, therefore, only deducible that I would bring my companion with me to Rwanda.

26 years ago

26 years ago, I queried the unquestionable and quit college. Mom and Dad warned me that the real world was brutal and that without a college education I would amount to nothing. They had always given me sound advice, mature council aged like cheddar cheese in a Swiss cavern, but my life was lost, my heart heavy and my soul raped. I left home at 19 years old in search of my self. Around the globe I trotted, saying no to nothing and watching like a child children munching on refuse in ruts and ruins of Turkey, Siberia and Egypt. I never saw poverty. I never saw people sifting through soot relishing tiny morsels of nothingness that filled their balling bellies. How long haven’t they eaten? Why had food been served me graciously and copiously as I ordered my meals from the restaurant menus expecting polite and polished professional service for a 15% gratuity? Why did I have and why didn’t these children have? What happened? Where did it go wrong? I went around and about, looking for answers across the streets and through Siberian birch, into Egyptian pyramids and ancient Jerusalem. Transported on horse drawn wooden wagons through blazing deserts, donkey’s backs over unpaved earth packed by unshoe-horned hooves and ultra-fast bullet trains through exquisite terrain passing by too quickly to catch a glance...where did those children come from and go later on? Why was I different from them and where were my answers? Where was the sense, the justice and the happy ending that usually follows those television dramas where the good guy always comes at the end as high oh silver or batman and Robin? A funny thing happened to me on the way to the theater that day. I somehow was cast my role in the play. I somehow had a call. I was looking for the answer and I understood that all along I was it. Be a doctor and go to the developing world welled up inside me. I immediately called mom and dad from Turkey and told them that I was returning home and going to be a doctor. “It’s too long. It’s too hard. It’s too competitive. You’ll never get into medical school. Be a lawyer. Be an accountant. Be a teacher. You can’t eat tomatoes because they remind you of blood. You can’t see needles. Be an architect. Be a pharmacist. Don’t set yourself up for failure,” they said. “I know. I know. I know, but I know I have a calling. I have not chosen this path. I am simply listening to my heart’s content. I have been asked to do this and if I am reading this correctly, then God will do the necessary. And so it came to pass. Yes, I needed to take summer school and yes, I needed tutors, teachings assistants and coaching from professors. Yes, I needed to retake exams, go through back doors and sometimes teeter tight ropes over treacherous terrain with inclines too steep to ever dare to go that way again. But I graduated. And I held my hand in position as I swore the Hippocratic oath in front of my proud mother and father and tear-filled professors as they endorsed my doctoral thesis awarding me taxi cum laude for the war I waged against the billionaire beasts daring to tatter and taunt the indigenous people of the Sioux Nation on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. And true to my word, I returned to cradle civilization in the heart of Africa.

In the beginning...

10 Years ago...

It’s the anniversary this year of 1.5 million dead. Do we celebrate making it this far? Do we commiserate, delineate, castigate or segregate? I was told to leave it rest. I was advised to bombard you with happy, because the world doesn’t need sadness now. The world needs upliftment, renovation, rejuvenation.

This morning, I dared to take it from its sarcophagus where it waited silently and patiently on a shelf in mom and dad’s garage. It waits for audience. You give it that now, as I give you it.