When I think of Rwanda now, I don't think of genocide. I think of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. It seems not to be the place of genocide anymore but a new place, lawless, angry, and increasingly controlled. I came home from South America, useless and unhappy. I hated every minute of the 2 months I spent there. I think I could never do that again, feel that searing fear, be paralyzed by it. The worst thing you can do is spend 24 hours a day stuck in your own stupid head.
Africa, with its challenges and its roughness. I could do it all again. I could be stuck in a city like Santa Cruz in Africa and do it over. I can taste the misery, I can taste it all, and I can feel nauseous at the thought but who cares? I miss the hardships of growing up, the hardships of escorting. If I could go to Rwanda, I would be happy to be miserable.
My dad took photos exactly like this, of these deflated 2 dimensional bodies. I swear to god it's not like this anymore. It can't be. I rifled through his photos when I was ten and he was just back from Rwanda. Who could recognize these photos as anything but false, doctored? Don't remember anything of my dad after that. Before, he had been one person. After he was a different person and I knew him not at all.
Which shows -- not that we had any doubts -- that there are not only primary and secondary victims of atrocity. There are also tertiary victims. In order:
ReplyDelete1) Those who have suffered the unspeakable;
2) Those who have witnessed the unspeakable; and
3) Those who are intimate with those that have witnessed the unspeakable.
Thankfully, the savagery of humans is counterbalanced by their amazing resiliency.
(signed) a quaternary victim (whatever that's supposed to mean)