HW

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