Day 5: Prison Fellowship Rwanda

Today we visited Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR). Essentially, PFR is a nonprofit that was created the year after the Rwandan genocide in order to build a bridge between genocide offenders and victims. PFR’s major accomplishment is building 6 reconciliation villages in Rwanda where both offenders and victims can live together. This can only happen after the victims can learn to forgive the people who killed their loved ones or tried to kill them and after the offenders can learn to forgive themselves. Although the organization is religious, the director stated that the program is more about peace and life than religion.

After we visited the PFR building, we were able to go to an actual village. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when we arrived. Everyone seemed to get along. We were told that everyone worked together to build the village and everyone continues to help each other now. This just seemed astonishing to many of us. After a quick tour, we sat down outside among many village members to watch as kids and teenagers performed a dance.

After the dancing, we heard from both a perpetrator and victim of genocide. When the perpetrator stood in front of us, he fully admitted to taking part in the genocide by killing. He spoke without much emotion and a translator from the PFR translated his words for us. We later learned that PFR brings visitors the village multiple times a week, so although we what we heard was incredibly special, the people in this village had told their stories many times. When Dave asked if the offender was able to forgive himself, he said he was. He had obviously done a lot of thinking as well as forgiveness work in the village. Personally, I am not sure if perpetrators should fully forgive themselves, or at least I don’t know if I could. I am glad that he is part of this village though. This unique model of reconciliation definitely struck me as a positive option.

When the victim stood up, she spoke about the horrid year of 1994. Thunder cracked over our heads as she told her perspective of the genocide. I am curious about how she could forgive something so horrible. I realized that I don’t want to doubt her though. Just because I can’t fathom that level of forgiveness does not mean that she was unable to achieve it.

After we heard the two stories, the dancing began again. This time, dancers grabbed us, and we began to dance with them! It was a sharp contrast from the dark words that had just been spoken, but it also fit into the theme of reconciliation and everyone working and playing together. While there was an ethnic divide in Rwanda 22 years ago, now, as many Rwandans like to say, there is just one Rwanda.

-Sophie