Outside Reading #5: An Ordinary Man

This week in my reading of An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina the experiences that Paul went through from the 1994 genocide were described in great devastating detail. The president of Rwanda did not care that his people were killing each other. People were getting "brain washed" and sucked into being a soldier. Rusesabagina expresses, "'Do your work.' It made killing sound like a responsibility. Like it was the normal thing to do"(Rusesabagina 82). Messages would go over the radio saying things like "'Clean your neighborhood of brush. Cut the tall trees'"(Rusesabagina 82). This referred to the Tutsis that were commonly know to be taller, hence the tree metaphor, and the sympathizers who were portrayed as the brush, around helping the trees. People everywhere were being murdered, even by their close friends that they saw every day. Even UN officers stopped escorting people because it was not safe. People were so influenced by fear that they did crazy things that they would never have done if they were not under these circumstances. People changed. Where have I seen people changing in a negative way? The first thing that comes to mind is when soldiers form Iraq come home with post traumatic stress disorder. They change and become different people just because of their environment that they were living in over seas. This is not necessarily the same type of change as people had to face in Rwanda, and most definitely not to the same extent at all. But still the fears and chaos of war almost always makes an impact in one way or another. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was a terrible time in Rwandan history. It was scary, confusing and just plain out of complete control. I wish our society could help to prevent war and to help all the people involved.

Outside reading #4: An Ordinary Man

This week in An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina I found a connection with population, and numbers. "Kigali itself held about 350,000 people a the time-a city about the size of Minneapolis, Minnesota-and the strain on the infrastructure was very great"(Rusesabagina 68). This just shows how many people really were effected by this genocide. 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered. Over double the population of Minneapolis was killed; but to add to it, it is completely unimaginable how many people were affected by this terrible genocide. People's whole families were ripped apart and their neighbors quickly became enemies. Rwandans knew that this was going to happen for a while, but it didn't add up to anyone until it was too late. Rusesabagina expresses that no one even made a protest against these horrible events. Fear won in that time and nobody spoke up. This was a terribly scary time for citizens of Rwanda and the not even the government was helping them. The government was simply turning their citizens against one another, ending in a confusing mess of anger.

Numerology Story: 4

The quartet of quadruplets were the fourth best in the nation.
However, 4 people were riding quadrilateral quadcycles and feel.
They sadly became quadriplegic.
Doctors tried to cure them by giving them 4 doses of carbon tetraoxide.
But, this did not help the quadriplegics.
The quartet came to visit the quadriplegics and it made them feel very happy.

An Ordinary Man Outside reading #3

This week in An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina we learn about a new rule that came into play in the Rwandan culture before the 1994 genocide. All citizens were expected to wear a pin with the president's portrait on it. Again, Paul is a hotel manager and is seen by many important people daily. He chose not to wear the pin and people got very mad. "'You are not wearing your portrait of the president,' he told me"(Rusesabagina 56). This is a great example of standing up for what you believe in and not advertising something if you do not agree with its view on things. A connection to this in everyday life could be a proud American wearing something like Canada socks. This American might not want to move to Canada, but they just got the socks form a friend. However, a Canadian might see this American and think he doesn't like America, or likes Canada better. In An Ordinary Man Paul simply just did not want to be viewed as someone who agrees with his government at that time. He did not want to support the government because I believe that he thought it was wrong. This is an important lesson and people should always remember to show what they support, but keep away what they do not agree with. Although, just like all ideas that are important, people should not take this idea to extremes. For example, if you don't like the color green I do not think it is right to yell at everyone wearing green. Important lessons are shared all throughout this book, and I highly recommend reading it.

Number Poem

Eight cold October nights there were eight beautiful octuplets born
On October 8,1888 the eighth of the octuplets were born
One of the eight octuplets formed a beautiful octet in their octagon shaped school
Another formed a group of eight octopus, swimming in the shape of figure eights
One of the eight was a great inventor and founded the octacycle,
Which found its way into the top eight best inventions
Each group of eight was most definitely great!

Outside Read Blog #2: April 29th

In a section of my reading this week from An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina they explained a new radio station that went on the air on August 8, 1993. This radio station was called Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines. It was very influential and everyone listened to it. They described it as the radio of the side walk because you always heard it throughout the village. This reminds me of my own life because the radio is very influential to listeners and can tell a lot about a person by the radio station that they listen to. For instance, if you listen to 98.5KTIS you are most likely a Christian who enjoys a variety of Christian music. The music influences you because something that you heard on the radio might effect a decision you make during the day. This was very true during the genocide in Rwanda. They would send messages over the radio telling stories to persuade people that they should dislike the Tutsis. For example this was a story that they shared in the book as a typical broadcast: "Jeanne is a sixth-form teacher at Muramba in Muyaga commune. Jeanne is not doing good things in this school. Indeed, it has been noted that she's the cause of the bad atmosphere in the classes she teaches. She urges her students to hate the Hutus. These children spend the entire day at that, and it corrupts their minds. We hereby warn this woman named Jeanne, and indeed, the people of Muyaga, who are well known for their courage, should warn her. She is a security threat for the commune"(Rusesabagina 52). Stories like these caused people to grow tension between Hutus and Tutsis. These never ending stories influenced the people of Rwanda daily and contributed to the 1994 genocide.