Prisca

Despite the fact that I finished a Masters program in May, I’ve still struggled with what my niche is in the conflict resolution field and how to put it into words. As a history major in undergrad, I loved oral history and hearing people’s stories. As a Resident Assistant and within my friend group, I was always there to simply listen. As a grad student, I honed my listening skills and learned about mediation, conflict coaching, and the importance of narrative in conflict resolution. And even though all these threads are related, I still can’t figure out what all that means for me for a career and a vision for my life’s work. It’s been something I can feel in my heart, but articulating it has been an entirely different issue.

That is, until a few weeks ago.

A friend had come to visit for the afternoon, and she shared this song with me. As soon as I heard it, I knew that it expressed the deepest desire of my heart – the call to bear witness to what I have seen and those I have met. Carrying the stories of those who otherwise wouldn’t be heard to those they will never meet face to face. To stand in the gap, to serve as a bridge, to humanize the “other” and the “different.”

In her song, Brooke Fraser tells about a life-changing encounter with an orphan from the genocide named Albertine. (For more about the background of the song, check out this video.) As I listened to the song, I thought back to my own life-changing encounter in Rwanda. And although I can’t bear witness to what I’ve seen by writing a song, I can do so in writing. There’s not a whole lot that I don’t journal about…this is what I wrote just hours after I met Prisca:

As it was getting dark we caught the bus to Gisenyi. I ended up sitting next to a young girl my age…She was so eager to talk to me and insisted we continue speaking, even as she forced numerous pieces of gum upon me. Prisca, who is 25, studied accounting at university in Goma and lives now in Gisenyi. As we were driving through one village (I can’t remember what it’s called now, though I know it begins with an “M”), she leaned over and told me the name of the town and said her mom died there. Then she leaned over, and with a flat hand made a slashing/chopping motion across my neck. This awful shudder went right down my spine…I then asked how old she was when it happened, and she said 7 years old. The genocide. I had no idea what to say…even if we could have easily communicated in the same language I wouldn’t have had any words, so all I could come up with was “I’m sorry.” I was so overwhelmed in that moment…here I was, face to face with a woman my age who had lost her parents – her entire immediate family – in the most brutal, unfathomable way possible. And yet right after she said, “It’s okay – God,” and pointed up. What faith! I don’t know if I’d still be able to believe after that. It was such a brief meeting on the bus, but I don’t think I could ever forget her.

I have never seen Prisca again, nor do I think I ever will. Honestly, even if I passed her in the street next week, I’m not sure that I would know her. But our brief meeting on the bus has changed my life in ways she will never know. Our exchange made the genocide horrifyingly real to me…at the time when I was first learning what death meant as my grandparents fell ill and passed away peacefully, a girl my age on the other side of the world lost her parents in mass slaughter.

As Brooke Fraser’s song says, I believe that because I have seen, I am responsible. And so here, through this blog, I bear witness for her experience to anyone who might read this blog. While this may not reach many, it is imperative to me that people know. Genocide isn’t just a legal definition or a theory or a political issue – for so many, like Prisca, it is a lived experience that impacts them to this day.