Adrienne Leaving and Rwandan Genocide Seminar

Since it was Adrienne’s last weekend in the country, we just hung out a lot and did some things that she wanted to do for her last days in the country. On Friday during the day, Adrienne and Tacy went to Kariakoo, the big market downtown, but I decided not to go because it’s like going to the most fun/inexpensive mall you can think of… and by that I mean I am always tempted to (and actually do) buy everything I see and spend money on things I absolutely don’t need. Like when I bought two new vitenge (the African fabrics) to get made into dresses which I don’t need any more of really at all. So anyways, I decided to be good and save myself from the urges by not going… but instead I went to the woodcarvers market and bought lots of gifts haha. I guess I failed at not spending money, but at least I got some great gifts for people! Be excited :)

On Friday night, we went to go see a movie at the mall and we ended up seeing “He’s Just Not That Into You.” It was SOO good! I mean a pretty cliché girly movie, but great nonetheless haha. Then we came back to the room and had dinner all together and helped Adrienne start to get her stuff packed up.

On Saturday morning (which went well into the afternoon as well), I went to a lecture that was hosted by the University to commemorate the 15th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide and to honor its victims. There were a lot of opening presentations and the actual speakers didn’t start until almost 2 hours after the planned start time (a usual occurrence at the university). The two speakers were really interesting though, and they talked all about this year’s theme for the anniversary: Fighting Negation and Trivialization of the Genocide. In the middle, there was also a really cool song performed by a few young Tanzanian artists about how to unite as Africans and be proud of your heritage. After the original presentations (made by the Rwandan ambassador, some UDSM professors, and a few people from the UN Human Rights Association) and the speakers, they made the floor open for comments/questions. After the first few questions, however, one guy decided to speak in Swahili instead of English, which then opened the floodgates and everyone started speaking only Swahili. We stayed for the rest of the time and I understood most of what was being said, but it definitely gave me a bit of a headache after an hour of trying to translate haha. There were all sorts of interesting comments being made and people talked a lot about how to stop genocide from occurring in Tanzania, especially considering the recent wave of Albino killings (I don’t know if that is just in local news or if you had any idea that was occurring here… but it is). Also, one professor was talking all about how being an African just means that you care about the issues of Africa, that you want Africa to develop and be peaceful, that you love the people and culture of Africa, etc. Therefore, why do people keep saying that “wazungu” aren’t African? If they love it here and want to live here and care about African issues, then they are truly African regardless of skin color. I liked that… I would like to think of myself as African…

Anyways, overall the presentation was really interesting and fun to hear student perspectives, but I had one HUGE issue with the symposium. In an entire 3 hours or more of discussing the Rwandan genocide and people saying how they need to unite as Africans and “never let this happen again,” NOT ONE person even mentioned Sudan. I wanted to stand up and ask how people can keep saying “Never again, never again” when genocide is happening this very instant in Sudan. Not to mention the fact that the entire theme of this years commemoration was about the issues with denying and/or trivializing genocide, which was EXACTLY what was going on at the seminar by not mentioning/discussing Sudan! I was almost furious by the time we left, but still not daring enough to stand up and say something… not only was it in an auditorium filled with about 800 students/faculty and I’m a little afraid of public speaking, but more importantly I was one of only 3 white people in the entire room. Anyways, I was afraid of being judged by the students and having them think “look, here’s this little white girl who came here to tell us what to do and what to think”… so I ended up not saying anything. I retrospect I wish I had because I really wanted to see people’s reactions, but oh well. In the end it seemed like everyone was saying “unite as Africans” and “we are all the same, we are all Africans,” but they were all still thinking predominantly about Tanzania and its issues. It was definitely a learning experience.

On Saturday night, a bug group of us went out dancing to this bar called “Sweet Eazy” for Adrienne’s last night out (so sad!). We had never been to the place before, but Adrienne wanted to go somewhere with live music and we heard from our Tanzanian friends that that was a nice place. The group was me, Adrienne, Mary, Tacy, and Mac (which was all of the remaining UF program girls… minus the one we never hang out with because she’s crazy haha), Eunice (Mary’s roommate), Eunice’s boyfriend Frank and a few of his friends, Anna (the family friend of a family friend of mine) and some of her friends who are also UDSM students, and two of the woodcarvers from Mwenge who Adrienne is really close with. When we first got there, it turned out to be much fancier than we had expected it to be… and therefore a lot more expensive that we had planned for. Right when we walked in, there was no live music playing and there were just like 10 old white guys sitting at the bar… we all turned to each other and were like “uhhhh, this wasn’t quite what we had wanted.” We were a little bit bummed at the beginning, but the live music started pretty soon after we got there and the bands that played turned out to be awesome. They played a lot of their own music, as well as some covers of famous American songs and covers of popular Bongo Flavor music (the Tanzanian equivalent of pop/hip hop). The boys we were with were all so, so much fun and danced more than half of the girls even did… so different than American boys! We had almost left when we first saw the place, but ended up staying til almost 3 in the morning dancing. It was a great going away night for Adrienne.

On Sunday it rained all day, which ruined our plan to have a Frisbee game at Mwenge with all the woodcarvers. Instead, we basically just hung out inside all day and helped Adrienne get her stuff together. That’s the big problem with rainy season… the rain make you want to do nothing and sit inside all day… but you can’t really do that when it rains every day! Nonetheless, we had a really nice day, and then had a mini party in the dorm Sunday night with some wine and chocolate cake/candy. We intended on watching a movie… but we got wrapped up in talking (and eating haha) and never ended up putting it in.

Adrienne got the last of her stuff organized yesterday morning, we went out to lunch at Hill Park (one of the nicer restaurants on campus), and then said goodbye. She was headed back to the dorm and we had to go to class, so Mary and I had to say goodbye outside in the pouring rain, switching back and forth who would hold the umbrella so the other one could hug Adrienne. It was sad, but didn’t really seem like a real goodbye because of the circumstances…. Last night it really hit us though since her room was empty and all. I can’t believe both her and Laura are already gone… we’re dropping like flies! At least there are a bunch of European girls who moved in recently since the real semester is starting now, so we’re at least a little less outnumbered :)