Better late than never, here’s my video profile…

In 1993, when Eugine Mussolini was fifteen years old, he stepped on a landmine while trying to join the RPF forces in Rwanda’s eastern province.  Doctors performed successive operations on his left leg, amputating more each time.  Today, he must replace his prosthetic leg yearly to avoid further infection, and he must pay for this out of his own pocket.

“My first thought was, ‘I am crippled.  My world is over.’” Mussolini told me yesterday afternoon as we sat in the restaurant at Chez Lando.  “But after talking about my challenges, I faced my problems, and accepted how I am.  There is nothing I can do but overcome.”

And overcome he has.  Besides working full time for the Ministry of Finance, he runs the Association of Landmine Survivors and Amputees (ALSA) on a volunteer basis.  ALSA does not have the money to hire staff, open an office, or create brochures and advocacy materials.  Despite these significant setbacks, a group of over 30 ALSA members meets every Saturday to support one another – they have begun using the peer support methods they learned during Survivor Corps’ recent training – and contribute whatever amount each can give.

I will be working with Mussolini to develop a business plan, create a budget, design a web site, and strengthen ALSA’s advocacy efforts.

Mussolini ended our meeting on a high note. “Life continues,” he said, “When we can change a survivor’s mindset, teach that person to overcome, and to help himself, we call it a ‘resurrection,’ both for the him and for us.

This morning Albert and I got his new Survivor Corps blog up and running.  It’s still a work in progress, but check out his first post!

Rwanda is the land of a thousand hills. Or so I’m told.

I’ve also been told that the country is rapidly rising - economically and socially - through investment, technology, and an impressive work ethic.

I know I’m not allowed to bring plastic bags into Rwanda, nor can I get on a motorbike taxi without a helmet. If I want to go see the gorillas in Virunga National Park, I have to make reservations months in advance. Friends and colleagues have told me that Kigali is one of the safest cities in Africa and that it’s a relatively easy place to live.

I also know about Rwanda’s darker history; the genocide that began in April 1994 and that resulted in the massacre of almost one million Tutsi and moderate Hutus. I have read about the Arusha Accords and the plane crash of President Habyarimana that eventually incited the events of 1994 for which Rwanda is most well known. Over the last semester I have researched the current political situation in Rwanda and written about the political and social rise of women after the genocide.

Courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

I have done my homework and learned a great deal about what I will be doing in Rwanda as an Advocacy Peace Fellow working with Survivor Corps, an international organization, formerly known as the Landmine Survivors Network. I’m excited to meet Albert, my Survivor Corps colleague based in Kigali, and begin working on a survey project and documentary about Survivor Corps peer support program.

All in all, I consider myself well informed about Rwanda’s history, political and economic situation, its potential for growth, and the organization I’ll be working with this summer. Yet, as I pack my bags, make housing arrangements, pick up my malaria prescription, and begin saying goodbye to friends, I have no idea what to expect when I arrive in Kigali on June 2nd…