Left To Tell Review

          For my Writing and Rhetoric class, we were assigned to read the novel Left To Tell:Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. This is a first hand account of Immaculée Ilibagiza, a Rwandan holocaust survivor. Before I read this book, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what the Rwandan holocaust was all about. I sort of understood that there were two sides fighting against each other: the Hutus and the Tutsis. Until reading this book, I had no idea of the immense amount of hardship this caused each and every member of both tribes. Innocent people were killed and imprisoned, had to pick up and leave their homes, or were forced to find hiding and safety somewhere else.
          The main character of this book, Ilibagiza, was a Tutsi forced to leave her home, split up from her family, and find safety in the home of a pastor who was a Hutu. The pastor had no other place to hide them, but a small bathroom. Ilibagiza and seven other women hid in this bathroom for three months during the terrible genocide that swept the country. What was most poignant to me about her story was her attitude. While she was hiding in the bathroom, she had no idea what was happening to her family. She had no way of knowing whether members of her family had found safety. There was not enough space to even breathe, but her attitude was amazing. She never once forgot to pray to God. She had such faith in God during this incredibly hard time for her in her life.
          This book was amazing. I've never read a historical novel about a holocaust quite like this one. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about this tragic genocide.

N'Dosho Orphanage

          This week's picture is extremely powerful to me. This is a picture of one of the rooms in the S.O.S. Orphanage in N'Dosho, Zaire. This orphanage takes in children that have been affected by the political and racial unrest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is stated that children die faster in the Congo than in all but 10 countries in the whole world. Most of these children don't have parents or families, and are going to die because of disease or malnutrition. If these conditions in the Congo, 515 out of 1,000 children will die before the age of 5. This orphanage takes in children and tries to nurse them to health and tries to make a difference in their life.
     
        In the next few weeks, my sister Annie will have her third baby girl. She has two other darling girls and they are so happy. Because my sister is on my mind, this picture struck an emotional chord with me. I can't imagine what would happen if Annie and her husband suddenly passed away from a disease, or how it would effect the new baby's life if she had to be sent to an orphanage because her parents couldn't take care of her. Because of my beliefs, I know that the family unit is the center of the gospel. I know of the power that can come from a strong and loving family. It is terrible and extremely eye opening to see this picture and realize that these kids have no future, and that almost half of them will die before the age of 5. As always, I end my post with a moment on my soap box--we are extremely incredibly blessed. In America we have so many opportunities and I am grateful for those each day. Raise awareness about these problems and spread the word. We are blessed.

Wasteland

       
          Last week in my Writing and Rhetoric class, we watched this movie called Wasteland. This movie is about an artist named Vik Muniz who travels to the biggest landfill in the world, Jardim Gramacho. This landfill is the home to many Brazilians called "pickers". These pickers work for a business called the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho. Their job is to sift through the garbage and find recyclable materials. Their job is tedious, smelly, hard, and they do not get paid much. In this movie, Vik goes down to the landfill and talks to the people. He gets to know them, their background stories, and their current situations. Then, he photographs them. He tries to get them in their element, or doing things they love or admire. After he develops the pictures, he enlarges them to the size of the floor of a large warehouse and uses garbage to create these pictures. He ends up selling one of these prints at an auction, and then displays the rest at an art show in Rio De Janeiro.
          The main leader and founder of this organization is a man named Tiao Santos. He gave everything to start this organization. Everyone told him it was useless and impossible. He overcame the constant adversity and created this organization giving people jobs. Unfortunately, it was very expensive. He went to the government to see if they would help fund any part of his plans, but they refused. Despite protests from the ARPJG, the government was stubborn and would not help Tiao and the pickers. That is one of the main things that Vik did. All the money from this project went to Tiao and his organization.
          This movie and story is extremely touching. Vik dedicated so much time to these people who were left with nothing.  A lot of these pickers have no family, no home, and this is their life. One lady that Vik spoke with basically lives at the landfill making sure that the pickers get fed. They stick together as a family. I am especially touched by the story of Tiao. Everyone he knew and loved told him he couldn't succeed. They told him he wasn't smart enough, that the organization was a dumb idea, or that it was an outlandish dream. However, despite this constant negativity, he powered through it and stuck to his dream. His determination and sacrifice for what he believed in was so poignant to me.  loved this movie, and would recommend it to anyone who wants to be informed. It is so eye opening to think that while people in America complain about finding a job, or having to do jobs they don't particularly love, people in Rio De Janeiro are sifting through garbage day after day to try and make a living. I know that every time I talk about refugees, or people in other countries, I say this but we are truly blessed in America. Our struggles and trials that we endure are nothing compared to the problems that attack other countries in the world on a day to day basis.

Here are just a few of the pictures Vik Muniz took:

Pack Up and Move

       
       
          I have just recently started the book Left To Tell-Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust for my writing and rhetoric class at BYU. This is a detailed and moving story of a girl who survived the Rwandan holocaust living in a bathroom for three months with 7 other woman. Although I am not very far, I am already feeling the power of her story. I chose this picture for the week because of this sudden interest in the Rwandan holocaust.
          This weeks photo is a picture of Rwandans walking to the refugee camp in the region of Ngara just outside Rwanda, Tanzania. In 1994, the country of Rwanda was hit with one of the most devastating genocides in the history of man kind. It was a bloody battle between the two main tribes in Rwanda-the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Tutsis had been in power, and persecuting the Hutus, until 1962 when the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy. That was the straw that broke the camels back. After that, persecution upon persecution persisted. Eventually the persecution got so bad that the Tutsi people were fleeing the country. The tutsi's, much like the ones in the picture above, would try to escape to any country but their own because the persecution got so bad. They had no two week moving warning, they had to pick up what little possessions they had, and flee. 

          When I saw this picture, I thought of the mormon pioneers as they fled the persecution in Independence, Missouri. They had to pick up what little possessions they owned and carry their life across the country in a handcart. Although it may seem like these are two completely different scenarios, they are actually quite similar when you think about it. Both of these groups were forced from their homes because of religious, ethnic, and social persecution. Neither of them had time to make a game plan, they had to leave as quickly as possible. Both of these groups had various ages traveling with them. If you look at both of these pictures carefully, you can see that there are older people, parents, kids, younger kids. I think sometimes it is hard to fully understand hardships that happen in other countries. Comparing the Mormon pioneers to the Tutsi refugees helps put it into perspective and helps us understand that these people fleeing Rwanda are just like us. 


Salgado, Sebastiao. Photograph. "Migrations: Humanity in Transition." Aperture. New York, 2000. 
170.

"Rwandan Genocide." History . N.p., 2012. Web. 1 Oct 2012. <http://www.history.com/topics/rwandan-genocide>.
    

A Second Birth

         Last week I went to a play called "A Second Birth". This play was written by a BYU student and was put on by BYU actors and actresses. The basic plot line of the play took place in Afghanistan, and involved two separate families. One of these families has all daughters, but needed to make enough money to support the family and so the daughter Nahima dressed up as a boy (and went by the name Nahim) from the time she was 5 until one day her parents tell her she must get married. Her whole life has been spent acting as a boy tutor for the older brother of her best friend. The first act of the play consists of her trying to learn the customs of being an average Afghani woman. She must learn to cook, hand sew and embroider, clean, and wear traditional head scarves and burkas. The play is sent for a whirlwind when at the end of the first act, Nahima figures out that she is engaged to the boy she has been tutoring for her whole life, and he still thinks that Nahima is the boy Nahim. This sets her for a spin, and she runs away to escape the social pressures of her family and society to get married to this boy. However in the end, she returns to her family, and fulfills her duty to Afghanistan and to her family, and she marries this boy.
         One of the points in the play that stuck out to me most is the fact that as a boy, she could continue her studies, but the minute she was a girl, she was no longer allowed to study. I complain about schooling a lot, and wish I didn't have to do homework. In this play, Nahima does not complain about doing her studies, she wishes to be reading and learning all the time. When she becomes a girl, she realizes this freedom will be taken away from her in the blink of an eye. At the end, her husband (and friend) agrees to let her travel to university and finish her studies, which was practically unheard of in the Afghanistan world.
         What struck me most in this play was the fact that the Nahima had no choice. She had no choice when she was 5 if she wanted to become a boy or not. She had no choice whether she wanted to be the one raising all the money for the family. She had no choice at what age she was ready to be married. She had no choice who her spouse was going to be. Basically, her entire life was run by the usual societal expectations of the Afghani government. This play made me realize how lucky we are in america, and not just men and women, but especially women. In Afghanistan, women are required to wear a burka whenever they are in public. The government says it is to protect the women from being taken advantage of. However, I choose what I wear every day and am perfectly safe. I have the ability to choose what I study, to go to a university, to wear whatever, to date whomever I wish, to live where I want, to do what I want on the weekends, to vote in elections, and to have complete freedom of speech. In Afghanistan, they were not allowed these seemingly simple freedoms. I am grateful for the freedoms I have, and am grateful for the fact that I live in America and have the ability to make choices based on what I want, not based on what the government wants.