Page 19 - Dispatches - Winter 2022
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Running the Rift Literary
Adventure
by Naomi Benaron By John Bregoli
t’s easy to find good books on training. When Hutu/Tutsi relations worsen, Jean Patrick
the Rwandan genocide. Just faces increasingly difficult moral dilemmas—like what to do
Igo to the library, head over to about his brother Roger, who has joined a Tutsi-dominated
non-fiction, and take your pick. rebel group; or his own Hutu girlfriend, an activist who is
(Actually, if you do that, don’t miss critical of the Hutu government. And can he really trust
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow his Hutu coach? But through it all, Jean Patrick keeps on
We Will Be Killed with Our Families running—up and down the “land of a thousand hills.”
by Philip Gourevitch; the Rwanda Readers get tied in knots by the sympathetic portrayal of
chapter in Samantha Power’s A Jean Patrick’s character, set against a backdrop of the lush
Problem From Hell; and Shake Hands beauty of the Rwandan countryside—because we know
With The Devil, by Roméo Dallaire, what’s coming. And Benaron spares us none of the horrors
the Canadian general who headed that began on the night of April 6, 1994, when a plane
the U.N. mission to Rwanda in 1993/94.)
carrying Rwanda’s then-President Juvenal Habyarimana
But you’ll have to go the fiction section to find Running the is shot down—setting in motion a Hutu-led campaign of
Rift. Although some would question whether fiction has extermination against the Tutsis, killing some 800,000 of
a place in “genocide literature,” Naomi Benaron’s novel them (along with moderate Hutus) over the next hundred
about a young Tutsi athlete with Olympic dreams proves days. Most were hacked to death with machetes.
otherwise.
As the bodies begin piling up in the Rwandan countryside,
The story begins in 1984, when Tutsi and Hutu tensions are the fictional Jean Patrick—just like the real-life Tutsis—still
simmering just below the surface. Ten-year-old Jean Patrick holds out hope that the United States or other Western
Nkuba is coming to grips with the death of his father in a car nations will step in and prevent further bloodshed. But
accident. When a gang of Hutu boys throws rocks through readers know the answer to that one, too.
the windows of his house while shouting “Tutsi snakes!,” his You shouldn’t be put off that Running the Rift is fiction,
mother decides to moves Jean Patrick and his older brother however. This is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age story
Roger to the relative safety of their uncle’s home near Lake that offers hope amid the horrors of war—and it deserves
Kiva. It’s all very confusing to Jean Patrick, however. He shelf space next to the best non-fiction on Rwanda’s
hadn’t even known the meaning of the word “Tutsi” until genocide. But like every book about this dark chapter of
his first day at school, when his teacher asked for all the history, you can’t help feeling a bit angry after finishing
Tutsi students to stand up. The only thing that’s clear to Jean it—angry at the world for watching a genocide unfold and
Patrick is that he likes to run.
choosing to do nothing.
As he comes of age, Jean Patrick’s passion for running Meet with genocide survivors and see how Rwanda
crystalizes into a dream of representing Rwanda in the emerged as one of Africa’s most magical travel destinations
800-meter dash in the Olympics. His running coach at on our New! Rwanda: Mountain Gorillas in the Land of a
school—a Hutu who recognizes the boy’s Olympic poten- Thousand Hills adventure.
tial—asks him to consider getting a false Hutu identity
card—so he could pass through roadblocks and keep up his Learn More
John Bregoli has been writing for O.A.T. for more than 16 years. An avid reader, his favorite
literary quote is from Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a
dog it’s too dark to read.”
DISPATCHES • WINTER
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