All day at KMC- began creating a PIQ

Spent most of the day at the Kigali Memorial Centre (KMC) at Gisozi working with Freddy and Yves. Was able to get into the VHA using their wireless and showed Yves the keywords and process of indexing and cataloguing. We then began talking about a PIQ - we printed an English survivor PIQ and started to mark up the hardcopy. We spoke about the logistics regarding the interviews scheduled for Monday. Eric was able to join the conversation briefly and we confirmed the equipment and that we would shoot in NTSC format. Eric will have a photographer accompany us all day as well. We will interview the first person at the memorial site in Nyanza-Kicukiro, the future location of GTR IBUKA. Freddy and Yves have two survivors in mind who survived the massacre - a man and a woman - and we may interview both - one in the morning and the other in the afternoon but not sure yet. The decision of who is to be finalized tomorrow - this is all handled by Freddy and Yves. We think it is a great symbolic step to have these interviews done at the future location of the GTR IBUKA project.


We discussed SFI's interview process: beginning slate, introduction of interviewer on camera, making sure there is water and a tissue box, and so on. Since the Kigali Memorial Centre has already done a number of interviews, we were able to built upon that experience and realized the similarities between those interviews and the SFI methodology. Benoit will bring the chairs (empty building] and call time is at 8:30 am Monday. The survivor will be picked up by the interviewers (one of which is back-up). The interviewer for the first interview is Emmanuel, who was my tour guide at the Kigali Memorial Centre. Patrick, the translator, will also come along as the back-up. The discussion about the coordination of the interviews for Monday got everyone very excited.


Bird at Freddy's office window - it kept looking into the office.

View from the office terrace.



Tonight was dinner at Francois's house - with a great view of the hills - we sat on the veranda which his kids really appreciated because they wanted to watch TV. The whole team was there, with Isaac Hayes music in the background, we spoke about the progress so far of my visit, my impressions of Rwanda after 3 days, local politics or not so local because they included Voice of America. If I understood it correctly, the radio gave journalists who basically denied the genocide air time and who attacked the government comparing President Kagame with Hitler - all under the umbrella of free speech - and if that is not bad enough - this apparently occurred during the week/month of mourning.

Tomorrow, breakfast with Janet Tobias from Ikanamedia, then meet with the interviewers to go over methodology at the hotel, and then off to Nyamata and Ntarama.

Great weekend to all.