| At the university, students have
recently been required to learn both English and French. Among
other advantages, this allows the university to recruit guest
lecturers from English-speaking countries. (I recently gave a
course at the university in American literature.) With the latter
advantage in mind, the Faculté has recently considered
moving to bilingual education: that is, using French and English.
This would be a huge advantage for a Protestant seminary in regular
need of guest lecturers, because the English-speaking countries
are the greatest supporters of the Protestant religion, and because
most Protestant literature is written in English. Despite the
sanguine hopes of the Faculté’s leadership, I think
it will probably be at least several years before the students
will be able to profit from courses taught in English.
Last December, between Christmas and New Year’s, I was
reminded of how fresh memories are of the genocide here. I traveled
with a friend to the north of the country to the little city of
Ruhejeri, whence we could climb up into the mountains to visit
the mountain gorillas made famous by Dian Fossey, author of Gorillas
in the Mist. We visited Fossey’s gravesite deep in the forest,
climbed up Bisoke (one of the six volcanoes in Volcanoes National
Park), and wandered into the woods to sit for an hour amongst
about 25 gorillas. Our guidebook suggested that while we were
in the area we might want to explore Musanze Cave, which is about
a quarter-mile long and located just outside of Ruhejeri. The
cave was close to a school where a lot of children of various
ages were hanging out while older children played soccer. The
cave had a great cathedral entrance, and not more than about twenty
feet inside it became completely dark, as one turn soon followed
another. The cave was dank and filled with screaming bats overhead,
and we walked on rocks made slippery from moisture and bat guano.
We also found numerous skeletons, the remains of those who had
hidden in the cave during the genocide but were found out and
killed. To our surprise, after we had emerged from the cave and
returned to our car, a large mob was there to greet us as well
as about five men who claimed to be security guards for the cave.
Apparently the cave is off limits to tourists without special
permission. We didn’t know this because the guidebook said
nothing about it, and there was no sign indicating that the cave
could not be explored. There was, however, supposed to be a security
guard present, who in fact soon showed up smelling of alcohol.
As I was discussing all this with the security people, the person
I was with refused to get out of the car and soon drove off. This
left me in the middle of a crowd that was growing increasingly
restive. Several of the people had batons, one was waving a gun
around (possibly a security guard, but who knows?), and while
the car was present many of the children were threatening it,
poised with rocks in their hands to be thrown if the right moment
presented itself. Fortunately, my friend soon returned with the
police, and we all went down to the police station for a nice
long chat. The only upshot was that the film in our camera was
confiscated. No reason was given for any of this, and I can only
surmise that the Rwandans do not want people disturbing their
genocide sites. The really perturbing thing for me was to see
how quickly a mob could turn. When we entered the cave the people
in the field around it were extremely friendly, but when we exited
they had become our ardent enemies. I imagine that during the
genocide it was just such fickle mobs of young men who committed
on their own neighbors the enormous atrocities from which the
country is still trying to recover.
Please pray for me and for the professors, administrators and
students of the Faculté as we enter the last trimester
of the academic year. In general, I have found them to be a dedicated,
hardworking group, and I’m sure they would appreciate knowing
that American Christians are praying for them. Pray especially
for the leadership of the college as we consider ways to improve
the institution (such as with a bilingual program) and enlarge
on the work already well started (such as by expanding the fledgling
library and the number of permanent professors).
Que Dieu vous benisse – God bless you,
Michael Parker
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, page
35 |
