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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
September 12, 2006
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| August 14, 2006 |
One Love in Rwanda – Gatera and Mami Rudasingwa |
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| Gatera and Mami Rudasingwa enjoying a meal during a break from their onboard program |
Gatera Rudasingwa and Mami Yoshida met in Kenya while he was a refugee there during the genocide in Rwanda. They told us about their romantic encounter, when he offered her the shade of his home and something cold to drink after finding her waiting outside a friend’s house in the hot sun. Mami had been studying the Swahili language in Nairobi after quitting her office job in Japan. |
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During the 100-day genocide in Rwanda, which started in April of 1994, more than a million people were killed. Many ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed or lost their legs and arms to ethnic Hutu militias. Also, there continue to be accidents due to landmines left behind from the conflict. Mr. Gatera lost his leg to a malarial infection. Wanting to help in some way, Mami became an apprentice to learn how to make prosthetic limbs after returning to Japan.
When the genocide ended in July 1994, Gatera returned to his devastated homeland and asked Mami to join him. She did in 1995, and they were married. Together they worked to utilize Mami’s newly-acquired skills in making prosthetic limbs for people in need and eventually were able to open a workshop and provide the service for free through a great deal of support from Japan.
In 2000 they were given a piece of land by the Rwandan government and built a center there from scratch, using the mud on the land to make bricks to construct the first buildings. This complex, called 'One Love' now has a clinic, a prosthetic limbs workshop, two classrooms, a conference hall, restaurants, guesthouses, and beautiful gardens. To date, they have provided 4,000 Rwandans prosthetic limbs for free.
Gatera and Mami Rudasingwa gave a series of lectures about the genocide, post-conflict Rwanda, and One Love, as well as a screening of the HBO movie Sometimes in April. They could often be seen sitting together on the top deck in the sun, or at Hemingway (the lounge onboard) in the evenings. On one such evening I joined them with Basel Nasr (International Student from Palestine). Here Gatera told Basel that Palestine and Israel must come together, outside of international intervention. He explained his perspective that Jews and Arabs are family and that outside forces are pulling them apart and creating conflict for their own selfish benefits. He told us that since the conflict ended in Rwanda, people have united as Rwandans, and are no longer separated as Tutsi and Hutu. Tutsis and Hutus are marrying and together they are trying to erase the scars of the Hutu/Tutsi apartheid that was created during the period after Belgium became the administering authority under the mandates system of the League of Nations in the early 1900s.
The Rudasingwas left us in Mombasa, expressing their hope that people will come to visit One Love and work with them. |
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