Good morning,
Great job Fergie! You had some very interesting answers today.
Your homework for tonight:
Option one:
Read and answer the question.
Adapted text from “An Ordinary Man”
It happened because of racial hatred. Most of the people
hiding in my hotel were Tutsis. The people who wanted to kill them were mostly
Hutus. This divide is mostly artificial, but people take it very seriously.
You might say the divide also lives inside me. I am the son
of a Hutu farmer and his Tutsi wife. I married a Tutsi woman. This type of blended
family is typical in Rwanda. The difference between Hutu and Tutsi means
everything in Rwanda.
Between April 6 and July 4, about eight hundred thousand
Rwandans were killed. Eight hundred thousand lives snuffed out in one hundred
days. That’s eight thousand lives a day. More than five lives per minute. Each
one of those lives was like a little world in itself.
It was not the largest genocide in the history of the world,
but it was the fastest and most efficient.
1. 1. What
caused the genocide in Rwanda?
Option two:
Read and answer the questions.
Adapted text from “An Ordinary Man”
It happened because of racial
hatred. Most of the people hiding in my hotel were Tutsis, descendants of what
had once been the ruling class of Rwanda. The people who wanted to kill them
were mostly Hutus. The usual stereotype is that Tutsis are tall and thin with
delicate noses, and Hutus are short and stocky with wider noses, but most
people in Rwanda fit neither description. This divide is mostly artificial, a
leftover from history, but people take it very seriously.
You might say the divide also lives
inside me. I am the son of a Hutu farmer and his Tutsi wife. Bloodlines are passed
through the father in Rwanda, I am technically a Hutu. I married a Tutsi woman.
This type of blended family is typical in Rwanda, even with our long history of
racial prejudice. Very often we can’t tell each other apart just by looking at
one another. But the difference between Hutu and Tutsi means everything in
Rwanda. In the late spring and early summer of 1994 it meant the difference
between life and death.
Between April 6, when the plane of
President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down with a missile, and July 4, when
the Tutsi rebel army captured the capital of Kigali, approximately eight
hundred thousand Rwandans were slaughtered. Eight hundred thousand lives
snuffed out in one hundred days. That’s eight thousand lives a day. More than
five lives per minute. Each one of those lives was like a little world in
itself.
And the way they died...I can’t
bear to think about it for long. Many went slowly from slash wounds, watching
their own blood gather in pools in the dirt, perhaps looking at their own severed
limbs, oftentimes with the screams of their parents or their children or their
husbands in their ears. Their bodies were cast aside like garbage, left to rot
in the sun, shoveled into mass graves with bulldozers when it was all over. It
was not the largest genocide in the history of the world, but it was the
fastest and most efficient.
1. 1. How many people died in 100 days?
2. 2. How did the racial divide ‘live within’ Paul?
PARENTS/ GUARDIANS: If you have any
questions or comments please feel free to
comment on the bottom of this page. I will
reply as soon as possible. I look forward to your
comments.
See you tomorrow,
Ms. Betsy
