Forgiven

Forgiveness is a major issue addressed in the bible and I think American Christians can learn many things from the Rwandans in this light. In 2002 Rwanda was still recovering from genocide and the court system was overwhelmed with cases that would take them a hundred years to finish. They decide to do something unheard of, “set the captives free”. Over 40,000 perpetrators of genocide were released back to their communities to hand down communal justice called the Gacaca Courts. These courts gathered members of the community to set the record straight on what had happened during the genocide and figure out the best way to reconcile the situation.

Although I would like to say that things went perfectly, after several months here, I am starting to see the real picture of Gacaca. There are ups and downs but overall I think Gacaca has had an immensely positive impact on the country. It has instilled the importance of forgiveness in the children and it shows all throughout society.

I noticed this immediately when I first arrived, the people and students hold forgiveness in deep importance. A student might come late to one of my classes and after class come up to me and say “Mr. Davies, I’m so sorry for being late, please forgive, please forgive”. If you don’t grant them forgiveness immediately they will hang around asking what they can do receive your forgiveness.

Last night me and Z were coming home and I paid my moto driver with a relatively crisp 1000 franc note and he gave me a relatively ratty mangled 500 franc note as change. A common gesture of disapproval in Rwanda is to do a hard tiss slapping your tongue against the back of your teeth. Joking around, I made the tiss sound of disapproval seeing the mangled bill. The moto driver would not leave our house until he received forgiveness from me. He started to search his pockets for another bill to give me in exchange and in rapid fire succession asked for forgiveness many times. I quickly told him that I was just joking and that of course I forgive him, and tried to explain in broken Kinyarwandan that I was just joking and that it was naki bazo (no problem).

I was intending on this post to be a little more serious about Gacaca but obviously its not so much so I’m going to throw on a to be continued here…..