To think these beautiful peaceful mountains played witness to the most atrocious killings as the Hutu tribe slaughtered 800 000 Tsutsi people over 100 days in 1994- just like the rest of the world stood by and watched.
But...such is the spirit of Africa's people...they cling to hope, and hope is what makes us conquer the unimagineable.
Nothing was a more touching example of such hope than the story on the front page of today's Sydney Morning Herald. I can't repeat it all here, but someone could not dream this up...an example of how the truth can be so much more fantastic than our wildest hopes and dreams...
...that a man, beaten to a pulp and left for dead along with his 11 brothers and sisters and another 140 murdered family members, as his pregnant wife scrambled with a 3 year old toddler to escape the clutches of panga-wielding genocidal villains, could find one another 12 years later...2 continents and 2 hemispheres apart...and everything that they have endured inbetween including his incarceration in illegal immigrant centres for more than 10 years...that is a story that I will revisit everytime that I am even beginning to dwell on my own dramas.
It was a moment that demanded action. My action. I went from the coffeeshop where I read the paper to the computer, googled the Red Cross who assisted Damascene and his wife Jeanne to find one another through registries and the tireless work of wonderful compassionate people, and made a donation so they can help unite more in this situation. The earthquake victims in Pakistan. The Tsunami. The Middle East. The floods in Asia. The war in Sudan and Ethiopia. The ever-present food crisis in East Africa. The refugees that will still come. As our planet scorches.
My contribution felt hopelessly insignificant. But, thats not the way to think.
Its contributions like these that have made ALL THE DIFFERENCE to one family...and their story has brought a lot of happiness to my day!
God bless them that there will be nothing but happiness ahead.
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