TCNJ

24 The College of New Jersey Magazine Matthew Bender, history professor Rwanda is a beautiful and complicated place. The process of rebuilding has been inspirational, at times controversial, and by no means easy. One thing that is clear is that people have a genuine sense of pride in what they have done to rebuild, and a sense of optimism about the future. I developed the idea for this travel course nearly three years ago. From the start, I envisioned the course not only for faculty and undergraduates, but also for graduate students, alumni, and friends of the college, so that we'd have a diverse group of participants who could learn together, and from one another. Much of our trip involved meeting with everyday Rwandans. We met with genocide survivors and perpetrators. We met with older people and children. We met with community organizers and people working for government and civil society organizations. These experiences were tremendously powerful, and were by far the moments where we learned the most. " I believe strongly in bearing witness to trauma, comparing societies that have experienced genocide, and assessing the dangers of prejudice and hate speech in our own culture." — Cynthia Paces Cynthia Paces, history professor Experiencing the memorial sites in person allowed us to think about the long-term effects of trauma, the decisions societies make about how to remember traumatic events, and our personal perspectives on how best to commemorate violence and genocide. I believe strongly in bearing witness to trauma, comparing societies that have experienced genocide, and assessing the dangers of prejudice and hate speech in our own culture. I loved visiting the grassroots organizations that often grew from the ideas and passions of individuals and small groups. A highlight was the Women's Bakery, which provides nutritious bread for elementary schools and employs women who can bring their babies to work in a setting with an on-site day care. We also visited a former orphanage that is now a community center and preschool, and we learned the powerful history of how its staff rescued hundreds of Tutsi during the genocide. Interacting with children at these places was a highlight and reminded us of humanity's resilience. Louis DiGirolamo '22, high school history teacher In class today, we discussed how the categories of Hutus and Tutsis came to be. Originally, they were simply social classes that defined a line of work. The Rwandan people were easily able to change their class through marriage or taking on another line of work. Being Hutu or Tutsi was not about anything related to race or ethnicity. The Rwandans all had the same skin tone and lived in the same country. The entire meaning of what it meant to be Hutu or Tutsi changed when the Belgians colonized Rwanda. The Belgians implemented this ideology that the Hutus and Tutsi differed, that the Tutsi had physical features that made them more European. Therefore, the Belgians started

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