“ Think that if people see this footage, they’ll say Oh, my God, that’s horrible. And then they’ll go on eating their dinners.”
- Jack, Hotel Rwanda
Thump! Thump! Thump! I can’t believe it is going that rapidly. My heart is beating fast, beyond a Ferrari’s speed capabilities. Is this the end? My head is hung low at a sad angle. My neck hurts, but not as much as the hearts of these people. Tears are streaming down my face like a child’s tears fall when he first learns that the Easter Bunny isn’t real. I don’t recall the last time I cried like this. I am sitting at home with my laptop, cell phone, and my favorite snacks, and yet I will be okay. Their problems will only make me feel a temporary sadness, but what about them? I’m here with everything I need; they have nothing.
Jack’s role of capturing the action-packed war zone in Rwanda played a significant role in changing the way that I look at the world. Jack plays a cameraman who was actually there and experience a view od the refugees’ lives day to day. From children being raped, to the elderly having body parts chopped off, Jack has seen it all. The movie, Hotel Rwanda, brings the pain and suffering of the Tutsie rebels to life.
Before watching this film, I was one of the people in the world that Jack was talking about. I was the one who said, “Dang, their life sucks.” But now when I see tragic events like these on television, I say to myself, “ I want to know what I can do to help.” Imagining myself in their shoes for a day while watching that movie, gave me a perspective of a life that I could never dream of experiencing. These Africans are being tortured and killed for no reason. I used to look at the world as mostly prejudiced. Like Ice Cube said, “ The only sin is my skin.” However, being African has nothing to do with the refugees’ struggles. While Africans are supposed to be conjoining together as one, they are separated by their differences in governmental rule. Now when I look at the world, I know that the lives that theses people are living is real. The raping, the killing, the torture: it’s all reality. These people are still living in this inhumane environment to this very day. My perspective has changes. It will never be the same. I will never be able to un-see that movie.
Slash!, goes the Machete slicing the throat of an innocent man. To me these killings are real; this is no movie. What do I see when kids are getting killed for no apparent reason? I see the world falling apart. What do I feel when sons are forced to rape their mothers? I feel the deepest sadness. What do I smell when I am watching a street filled with thousands of dead bodies and trucks driving over them? I smell rotten and deteriorating corpses. Crack! Crack! That is the sound of what I hear when the heavy trucks roll over the bodies while crushing bones of thousands of innocent people. What do I hear when the Tutsie rebels are banging down the doors of families who are sleeping in the middle of the night? I hear the screams of mothers trying to hide their children from harm’s way. What do I want to touch when all of this is going on? I want to touch the hearts of all the Tutsies and let them now what they are doing is wrong. I want them to know that these are innocent people they are killing.
This movie, Hotel Rwanda , brought the perspective of the world’s suffering into my living room, my comfort zone. I guarantee that if everyone saw this movie, they would look at the world with different eyes, just as I have. I see the world as a place that wants to improve, but is going nowhere. Before watching this movie, I knew that all locations in the world had their share of issues, but never like this. When I find out that kids are being killed for what their parents believe, I look at the world and ask, “ What have you come to?”
Now, I do what I can to help those who are less fortunate then me. I am not the richest person in the world, but I donate money to all types of organizations, such as UNICEF, and to my church when they adopted a child from West Africa. There was nothing more satisfying than seeing the picture of the girl in West Africa smiling in the photo that she sent us. Just to see her smiling brightly, instead of having her head held low and crying salty tears, is a genuine feeling. I have also helped children in other parts of the world such as Hungary. My church and I decorated shoeboxes and placed Christmas gifts in them for the children who wouldn’t be getting any presents because of their poverty level. Some of the boxes contained toothbrushes and toothpaste. Little things like those are considered luxuries to those children. These are children who have never had any kind of health care; so to receive a toothbrush is a blessing to them.
The world is a place for people to live, not to die. It is just unfortunate that people cannot live their lives to the fullest. Instead, they are being killed by either brutality or poverty before they even have a chance to explain themselves. I don’t want to live my life that way. I want to help as many people that I can, because now I know that reality is not what people make it, it’s what people are born into. Sometimes a person can’t help what kind of environment or situation he is placed in; it’s not his fault and it’s our responsibility to help.
- CMOOSE
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