Oh Sardy!

When I first moved to Rwanda, which now is many months ago, I thought it was cute that whenever an accident occurred many people would almost yell out, ‘sorry!’ Anything from dropping a piece of chalk to a slight stumble, and you receive a roomful of sorrys. At first I thought it was funny and just a little English misunderstanding but now I am starting to think that it’s related to a much bigger problem, the concept of self responsibility. In normal British/American English sorry is meant as an apology for doing something wrong to somebody else but here it is used pretty much only as a response to an incident self-inflicted and hardly ever used when someone does something wrong and a sorry would give responsibility to someone.

The other day in class, I dropped a piece of chalk and it broke into a couple of pieces, so to sympathize, everyone said sorry. I took a minute to explain to the kids a closer meaning to sorry and that in the context they often use is actually wrong. When I spoke of taking responsibility they weren’t really tracking. I think responsibility has been muddied in this culture for a long time to where it’s a relatively foreign concept which I think has caused some problems.

The other day my moto driver Claude pulled up to the house with some fresh gashes in his motorcycle. When I asked him what happened, he explained to me that his motorcycle decided to run off the road and crash.

I know that was a silly example but when you talk to many genocide survivors, and they’re is a retelling of what happened, I have noticed both victims and perpetrators both use the phrase “witched” for the time that atrocities were actually committed. They don’t give responsibility to anybody. I feel like many people describe things this way, “yeah, I was living here and doing this but something witched me to burn this person’s house down” or “I could tell that they were witched when they came into the church looking for my father”. I feel like responsibility is omitted by both sides.

To receive a legitimate apology is relatively rare. I accidently blew off a friend the other day and I really did feel bad about it. I was intending on seeing him but I totally forgot. When I called him and apologized, he was really appreciative and mentioned how rare it was for someone to really apologize. Hmm many feeble sorrys and not many legitimate sorrys.

I really think that this is a problem. People struggle to accept or give responsibility for many things. Blame or responsibility is placed on inanimate objects or supernatural causes instead the people whose responsibility it should be. I think this hinders moving forward in many ways. If responsibility is not taken for actions, then how can people learn from mistakes. It’s childish to push responsibility to everything but yourself and I think it has become culture here. I’m not sure how this can change besides chalking it up to another one of the growing pains of trying to become a developed country.

PS- I’m super judgy in this post but I have been building this idea in my head for many months now and see examples of it on a regular basis. Regardless, I could be completely wrong here and am open to conversation.