Timing is everything

Yesterday I attended a free screening of the documentary on James Orbinski called "Triage". The film is about his time spent on the frontlines of the genocide in Rwanda while working for Medecins Sans Frontiere. Concurrent with the screening of the film was a separate but related photo-journalistic installation in the lobby of the building highlighting HIV/AIDS work in Rwanda called "Living With" by a Canadian group called "Photosensitive". There are probably 75 photos throughout the extensive first floor of the building, and every time I have gone down to the coffee shop there are at least a few people milling about the photos, reading the captions. The black and white pictures chronicle the effects of HIV/AIDS in a country devastated by a genocide where systematic rapes were used during the killing campaigns. I myself went through the whole installation a few days ago, and so when I found out very last minute about the "Triage" documentary, I decided to watch it. This is a definite change of heart for me, because although I know about the genocide (numbers killed, the ethnic groups involved, the rough timeline, etc.) I have, until a few days ago, completely avoided media about this event. Don Cheadle did a movie called Hotel Rwanda which I could not watch, and I have avoided both the autobiography and subsequent film based on the experiences of Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire (who used to maintain a summer cottage literally down the road from where my mother grew up) called "Shake Hands with the Devil", because I can't handle it. But these instances where I can educate myself about the past and current conditions of the genocide keep throwing themselves in front of me, and I cannot avoid them any longer. In a way, this is my tiny effort to honor those who died for nothing - to acknowledge the circumstances and be able to recite to others who may not know as much. And if the timing of these events were coincidental, they keep happening: Romeo Dallaire himself will be speaking at the university in two weeks.

Oddly, about 1 1/2 years ago he was to present as well, and although myself and some other students tried hard to get tickets to the extremely poorly organized event (Shout out University Student Union!) and failed, the talk was cancelled last minute anyway. So now I see that he is scheduled to speak again, and I would very much appreciate his talk in the context of my new knowledge surrounding the genocide. But lo and behold - he is speaking the week we will be in Vancouver. So sadly, I won't be attending this time either. Perhaps one day the timing will be right, and I will pay money to a non-profit organization to get the privilege of hearing Lt. Gen. Dallaire speak about the most horrendous human-lead tragedy to occur in the last fifty years.