From Indiana to Rawanda

A Bloomington High School North graduate moves to Rwanda for a year to reunite orphans with their shattered families

By Steve Feldstein,
Special to the Herald-Times

A group of children, some on their way to reunions with family members who lost track of them during the country's years of genocide, take a break from the ride. Photo by Steve Feldstein

EDITOR'S NOTE: Steven Feldstein was born in Bloomington and attended Bloomington High School North. He is working for the International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief organization, and is based in Kigali, Rwanda. He will be contributing regular articles to The Herald-Times describing his experiences. He can be reached at feldsten@hotmail.com.

It is a bright, fixedly clear morning. We race along Ind. 37. I suck in the passing scenery with frenzied interest. Who knows when I will see the Indiana landscape again?

Cornfields, sleek gas stations and massive grids of construction pass by. A haze is forming on the horizon as we race towards Indianapolis International Airport.

It's all a blur now. Ticket counters and baggage check-ins. A hurried slice of pizza and a tube of chapstick. Good-byes to Mom, Dad and my brother. I hand over my ticket. One last wave; Mom is gently crying. I am whisked to the plane.

The engines hum, flaps extend and we're off. Cornfields and grazing cows disappear with the Indianapolis skyline.

The path begins

And so I found myself en route to Rwanda. In retrospect, it seems haphazard. I graduated from Bloomington High School North in 1996 (my circle of high school friends is now down to the single digits). I went to Princeton University majoring in politics. To graduate, I needed to write a 100-page paper on a topic relating to my major. I had already examined Northern Ireland's recent peace agreement and South Africa's attempts to reconciliate its apartheid past.

Early in my senior year I came across Philip Gourevitch's book We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. It dealt with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that killed 800,000 people widely pegged as the 20th century's "third great genocide" — if genocides can be classified as "great."

I became morbidly fascinated with Rwanda. How can a country go completely mad — how can former friends and neighbors become genocidal killers?

But Rwanda fascinated me in another way. How does a country rebuild after experiencing a genocide? Is reconciliation possible? For my thesis exploring this, I found reports and articles on Rwanda, but papers and documents can only teach you so much. I wanted to go to Rwanda and see things first-hand.

"Princeton in Africa" sponsors four students to work in East Africa for a 12-month period. After weeks of essays and interviews, I was accepted. All of a sudden, Rwanda became real.

Back on the ground

The airplane hits a pocket of turbulence and jolts me. I look at the overhead monitor that is tracing our flight path. The red arrow indicates we are flying over Sudan, close to the Sahara Desert. In less than three hours I will be in Rwanda.

At a Rwandan orphanage, curious children gather in the yard to greet visitors. Photo by Steve Feldstein

Sooner than I expect, the captain interrupts my thoughts — "Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for descent into Kigali International Airport."

The airplane swoops lower. Out the window, I see nothing. I am flying into a core of darkness. I close my eyes and we hit the ground. Brakes squeal, lights flicker and we arrive.

I clutch my backpack and walk onto the tarmac. The weather is breezy and humid. Almost in a trance I pick up my baggage and proceed through customs.

Job description

I am now a volunteer intern for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It is a non-sectarian, non-profit organization founded in 1933 by Albert Einstein to address the growing Nazi threat. It provides relief, protection and resettlement services for refugees and victims of oppression and violent conflict.

I will work with the youth program which focuses on two areas: reunifying children who were separated from their families during the genocide and assisting with a youth development program ("Youth: The Future of Rwanda").

The work sounds exciting and interesting, and I am told that I'll be given the chance to go out in the field and observe firsthand the rebuilding of Rwanda.

A city of contrasts

Arriving in Kilgali in a jetlag fog, I'm fed and taken to my temporary quarters. I awake in a state of confusion, groggily climb out of bed and get tangled up in the hanging mosquito net.

It is 10 a.m. and the sun is shining harshly. Outside I succumb to a fit of coughing. There is reddish dust everywhere. A palm tree (with coconuts!) sprouts in the front lawn. I hear exotic chirping sounds and almost step on a small lizard (a gecko).

I'm staying with Swithun — the IRC finance director — and his wife Jane. Both are British expatriates. We hop into a rough-looking Toyota Landcruiser to go out for lunch and then — did he say "go to the pool?"

We edge out the driveway and a guard opens the gate (every expat house has a guard and gate — a necessity in the 10th poorest country in the world). The dirt road is mostly potholes.

There are people walking everywhere. Men, women and children balance immense pots and bags on their heads. The smell of barbecued goat brochettes permeates the air as we bump towards the center of town.

Hotel California

Lunch is sandwiches and maracuja juice (passion fruit-vaguely resembles an apricot). The pool, which sits behind the modern Windsor Umubano hotel. I could be in Hawaii.

Palm trees frame the background. I spy clay tennis courts to the left and a smart-looking bar to the right. A mélange of aid-worker expats and rich upper-crust Rwandans lounge on chairs and frolic in the pool. I spread out my towel and lie down. I'm drifting off as the hotel band begins to play the opening chords to "Hotel California."

I am having difficulty reconciling this luxurious oasis with the teeming poverty just outside the hotel gates, the country's history of genocide and the work of reuniting orphans with their shattered families. It could be a long and interesting 12 months in Rwanda.