The Beginning

So this is it. Finally, I'm leaving Seoul, and off to Kigali, Rwanda. After two (rather long) months in muggy Seoul dreaming, complaining and bragging about my (potentially) incredible trip to Rwanda, I am finally, actually, leaving. Excited? Obviously. Terrified? A bit.



"What are you exactly doing in Rwanda?" My rehearsed answer is that I am going to Rwanda as a research assistant for Prof. Meierhenrich, an Associate Prof. at the Harvard Gov Dept. I will be researching about, primarily, the genocide memorials in Rwanda, raising (pseudo) academic questions like: what are the role of foreign donors in the reconciliation narrative? who is being "memorialized"? how are the narratives consistent with patterns of mourning in Rwanda? etc, etc.



But my honest answer is - I have no idea, on so many levels. Why Rwanda? Well, why not Rwanda? (But huh?) Why those questions? (GOOD question!) And what does this "research" entail? (BEST question yet!) Some long-dead, white male European philosopher once said that life is the only thing in life that we must find the meaning for retrospectively. (I know, really pompous to explain a summer trip, but hey, I got to use my education on something) Maybe that's the right answer. This whole genocide research, Rwanda obsessed summer just kind of happened on me, like an accident - and maybe I'll figure out what it meant later on, back in Cambridge, sipping my iced espresso at Pamplona, and then WHAM! BAZOOKS! LIGHTENINGANDTHUNDERBOLTS! DISCOBALLSANDGOGODANCERS!



I feel like a traitor somehow - going to a place like Rwanda, studying something like genocide,I feel the pressure to have that rosy-hued, optimistic bravado people expect from any other "human rights" "activist." Not that I am critical of such people - I have many a friends who fall under this category, and I respect all of them a LOT. There is a lot of times I wish I was more certain about what I am interested in as they are, instead of being at loss when someone asks me "why something so gruesome/depressing/etc?" But the truth is, I am no "activist." I cringe inside when my friends jokingly say I am working for world peace. I am but a student, and grotesque as this sounds, (compassionate) curiosity and intrigue often trumps the quest for a "solution." Lets just say, I'm taking the long route. Trying to understand before I prescribe. A cartographer before an explorer.



So two months (strictly speaking, two years) and dozens of books, a handful of Harvard courses, hours of contemplation and even more hours of wild gesticulating debates later, I only have a haphazardly packed suitcase and a Kenya Airways ticket left. What to make of this?

Sigh. Let's talk after I have my first banana beer, shall we?


PS. Here are some options to how you should contact me, in case you are wondering
whether I am alive, have malaria, liked the beer, ate my first goat, speak kinyarwandan, etc etc. email: yunahan87@gmail.com ; phone: I have one, I just don't know my number yet; and this blog. If you want a postcard from Africa, ask nicely.