HOTEL RWANDA

last night i watched Hotel Rwanda for the first time for my racial/minority group relations class.  having done a report on the genocide back in 8th grade, i knew what an awful and horrific experience it was.

sort of.

i knew the movie would be so sad.  i thought i could handle it.

i was wrong.

these things should not be talked about lightly.  all these deaths, these awful things.... please read this with respect.  

Hotel Rwanda was the most sickening, disturbing, sorrowing, awful, humbling thing i have ever seen in my entire life.  as i watched fathers, mothers, children, babies, grandparents, aunts, uncles be brutally murdered before my very eyes, i felt like throwing up.  i watched these people cower under machetes, sob for family members and friends they had lost, live in fear of being found, cradle their children close to them, desperately place phone calls for help, and pray to God that they would be delivered from this awful genocide, i couldn't help but sob out loud.  even now, i can't help but be choked up at the merciless things these people did to one another.

when the movie was over, i felt numb all over.  i went back to my apartment alone.  it was late, and all the lights were off.  i sat on the couch, hugging a blanket, and fell apart.  i bawled.  my heart literally aches for the million people that were killed in this horrific event.  i feel frustration for the United Nations who evacuated all the white people and left these Africans to deal with it themselves. i feel so much compassion for those people -- both the perpetrators and the victims.  how can people have so much hatred in their hearts?  how can they get to that point in their lives?

i feel so humbled by what i have.  i live in the United States of America.  i will probably never have to deal with anything even close to that in my life.  we are so blessed here. 

and so, i ask you.  please remember what you are blessed with.  perhaps we are unhappy with who was elected.  perhaps we think we do not have enough.  perhaps we feel hatred for others.  perhaps we have hard trials.  perhaps we ask God, why this? why me? why now?  

think of those that had to go through this awful genocide and put all this aside.  let love govern your actions.  let peace enter your heart.  love, forgive, be selfless, and show gratitude.

i know i will.