#73 The Visit to Gitega Prison 11/08

The context: In August 2005, a group of people who participated in a
Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (HROC) workshop, wanting to put their
desire for reconciliation into practice, decided to visit the prison where
people accused of participating in the violence in their community were
being held. This is Marius' story of their visit and its aftermath.


The visit to Gitega prison

What we got from the HROC workshop has really made a big impact in our
hearts. Before it, I would never think of going to visit the people who
were in prison in Gitega, because one of them had killed my brother. But I
did it because I have been changed.

For me, when we did the visit, it was like putting down a heavy load I had
been carrying. If you are traumatized and you see the one who caused your
trauma, it continues to re-traumatize you, or might cause you to just run
away because it is too much. But choosing to reach out was a way of digging
out—-you know this root, the root of war, the root of killing—-it is deep in
our hearts. And we need to uproot it, and in order to uproot it we need to
start by forgiving those who are close, who are in our communities.

For example, if I have purchased something on store credit, but then I
delayed to pay back my debt, I would always feel ashamed, and if I came upon
the shop owner I would want to change my path because I feel he is accusing
me. The same way, when someone has done something wrong to you, especially
these killings, he or she will come to avoid you, whatever he or she did,
but it’s up to us to start because we are the victims, to start letting them
approach us, because we have loved each other, and we need them to see the
love we are carrying for them and draw them to us. So that’s what we did.

We say in Kirundi, “The medicine of bad actions is not more bad actions.” I
learned this to be true—-now our relationship is like brothers. The man who
killed my brother now comes to help me cultivate my plot and I go help him
to cultivate his. This makes other people in village question themselves,
saying, “Hmmm, Marius is a Tutsi and the other man in a Hutu, how is it that
they are helping each other when they know what happened between their
families?”

So the visit to Gitega was very, very fruitful. Fortunately, after the
visit some of the prisoners were released and now they are back in the
community. And now we are sharing. When we meet at the bar, we share the
same beer, whereas that was never possible before. So it has really
strengthened our relationship and it has created a sense of forgiveness in
our community. That’s why I am asking you to do more HROC workshops for
everybody living in our community.

Marius Nzeyimana
www.aglionline.org




Choice

Choosing this stop
to get to work
requires a longer walk
but gives a stretch of loveliness—
a park, with grass, trees, flowers, peace.
I soak it in
do not regret the extra block of gray
where office towers soar.

Once past the park my eyes
no longer see.
This block is just
a means unto an end
the price I choose to pay,
invisible.

And then one day
my clouded vision clears.
I notice what is there
and I see—-trees.

Slender oak and birch,
ambassadors from living earth
to this alien place,
reach up the narrow canyon
fresh green amidst the gray
unpretentious
brave
resilient
full of grace.

My choice was good--
to take in beauty that I knew was there,
but better still
to look beyond the known
beyond the easy focus point
to train my heart and eye
to see the rest.