Poetry

Since I've watched, Munyurangabo I've been thinking a lot about it. Well I take that back, just the end. Edouard Bamporiki (a well-known Rwanda poet) reads his work, "Liberation is a Journey" & it is beyond moving. 6 minutes of pure beauty. 

I found myself getting lost in the flowing and powerful sounds of Kinyarwanda, then scrambling to read the subtitles. The poem talks about beautiful Rwanda and the aftermath of genocide. It touches on peace, violence, history, landscape, education, child soldiers/victims, propaganda, moving forward, set-backs, liberation, needs, wants, pride, Hutu, Tutsi, children, orphans, domestic abuse, poverty, goals, prostitution, one culture, etc.

I want to copy it to you alllllll, but, I cannot find it anywhere. I've read/searched interviews, youtube, indie movie reviews, and even a handful of spirituality websites (?) in attempts to find it. No luck. I've resorted to re-watching the poem scene a few times, here is a taste : 

"...That our Rwanda, its beautiful rivers and pools Its beautiful fields with roads and no famine 
Became a cemetery and a shame 
Don't you know that this is injustice? 
... Free us from poverty and illiteracy since liberation is a journey 
I'll start with the family, the foundation 
I condemn the many men 
Who don't allow their wives to have a voice
They hit them and think they're mindless 
Who gains from this? 
... You are killing our vision of a strong nation"* 

Trust me on this one. See it, & feel the aftermath of genocide and the power of revenge through the eyes of one young boy. 

Cheers to Rwanda! & its tea that I'm drinking right now. & tonight's new episode of LOST / African movie night & tomorrow's Rwanda reunion! Obviously, I've had a tiny little country on the brain lately.

*original words by Uwayo Bamporiki Edouard, translated by Ahishakiye Emmanuel, from Lee Isaac Chung's Munyurangabo