Checheka is the command form of guchecheka, which in
Kinyarwanda means to be quiet. Checheka is what mothers say to their children
when they cry. Checheka is what the battered woman told her beat up twelve year
old daughter when they came into the health center at 3AM after a domestic
dispute. Checheka is what my local leaders told an old man during Genocide
Memorial Week when he began to name names during a community meeting. Checheka
is what a coworker and friend told me after I finally lost it following a staff
meeting during which, once again, personal interests and gripes of a few were
put before poor, sick patients, most of them children.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer, it is very much not my job to be a whistle blower. In
fact, when I have brought up corruption issues to my supervisors at Peace Corps
they have specifically told me to stay away and essentially, checheka. This is
of course, for my own safety and the safety of others in my community.
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| Lake Kivu |
Those of you who know me (at all) know that it is not at all
in my nature to checheka. My senior year of high school, I walked into the
superintendent’s office to demand administrators give fewer, shorter speeches
during graduation to allow for more student speakers. The request was denied,
but brought up during said administrator’s long speech. After a Trustee dinner
at Cornell, I walked up to University President and asked him why his table
included only male students. The observation was noted, although I was not
invited to the next dinner so I can’t tell you if it made any difference. I
regret neither bold, unfruitful move. I am not shy about voicing my opinion. I
have a blog after all, don’t I?
Rwandans, on the other hand, are extremely private and
reserved. Keeping quiet about everything is very much part of the culture.
“Rwandans, if they have something against you, they will take it to their
grave!” a Burundi-raised Rwandan told a friend of mine. Besides being
potentially dangerous, the probability of my foreign opinions making a
difference on most larger issues here is very slim.
Still, I find myself extremely conflicted. Not only because
checheka-ing goes completely against my very opinionated and vocal nature, but
precisely because the culture of checheka-ing has caused literal devastation in
Rwanda already.
Throughout April I am reminded how my countrymen sat by
eighteen years ago and checheka-ed as almost one million people were
slaughtered here. There is no denying
the horrendous role the United States and other European countries played (or
didn’t play) during the 1994 Genocide. Yet, I also –quietly-- wonder how
productive it is to be so critical about the silence of foreigners millions of
miles away eighteen years ago, when right here in Rwanda, today, the culture
remains one of silence and, at least outward, complacence.
