Voices of Rwanda documents the testimony of survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Oral histories are a very powerful tool in the protection of human rights.
December 5th, 2008
...now browsing by day
After the Forgetting
Marj; Image courtesy of transom.org
This is Marj. In a gorgeous and moving audio piece called After the Forgetting, produced by Erica Heilman, we listen to Marj’s son Greg and his husband Bob (who both work for the Vermont Folklife Center) talking to Marj about what she remembers and what she doesn’t. At one point Marj says she doesn’t know how old she is and when Greg tells her she replies:
I’m 91?! Holy Mackeral!
Sometimes people tell me they are afraid to be interviewed because they worry they won’t remember names and dates and maybe even whole chunks of time. The thing is, usually those details have a way of popping back into our minds when we have someone listening intently and drawing out fine points we don’t often have reason to explore. But the truth of the matter is, often we don’t even need those details to create a wonderful document of life and experience.