Rwanda - June 20th

The following journal entry is a collection of my thoughts after visiting the memorial center. They aren’t cohesive or narrative as a typical journal would be, but after seeing things so disturbing I don’t know how my thoughts could’ve been.
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This whole summer I’ve been using whelmed to describe how I’m feeling. For once though I am overwhelmed. Overcome with emotion and not sure what to do with them. So many lives cut short so many that hadn’t even begun. Seeing the blood stains on clothes, especially those that are for babies disturbed me. I already struggle with forgiveness personally so I don’t understand how someone would even begin to forgive someone for murder. I couldn’t continue to walk through the church and had to look at the faces on the wall of remembrance. Remembering those who were lost. It reminded me of my mortality that at any moment not only me but anyone I love or interact with could be gone. In America we take life too lightly, we have mass shootings all the time and a part of me has become desensitized to it.

I think a lot of times people don’t care about other people's lives unless it directly affects them or if they think those people are worthy of being cared for. I think we should care about each other just because we are human. America has lost its sense of community in its individualistic culture and we’ve all begun to see each other as enemies. The left vs. the right, black vs white.
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We all bleed the same blood. We all sleep under the same sky