ICE CREAM

Most of us know how sweet ice cream is. But there is a community who never ever taste the sweet of ice cream. That is community in Rwanda. "If people never know about ice cream while they produce milk, then life has never been sweet, either, to them, " said Odile Gakire Katese, from National University of Rwanda, who shared her experiences in Cafe Curiosity, Amsterdam, 25 June. She delivered a presentation related to her artistic activities to address trauma post-genocide of Rwanda. One of her activities called Blue Marble Dreams Rwanda which to explore the transformative potential of ice cream not just as a source of fun and joy but also as a means of sustainable economic growth in developing countries with local but underutilized dairy resources.

I quoted Odile's beautiful narrative about it, "Because we struggle most of the time, we find ourselves aggressive against happiness, love, joy, life. When we have children, we teach them that happiness doesn't exist; that there is no pure love and as legacy, we give them our despair, our debts, our doubts, our tears, our failures...Now, we want to share moments that are not embossed by despair and death... We want to create a space where poverty, disease, illiteracy... are not obstacles to happiness and barriers between human beings... We have to, for the health of our soul. Ice cream will have the power to reconcile people with life by reminding them that it is also sweet."

I tried to hold my tears while listening to her story about the ice cream. And that was not all, Odile shared more ideas and practices how to help Rwanda's people dealing with their past in 1994 when the genocide took place. It was not all sad stories, about her initiative to invite women of Rwanda to play drums, for example. Playing drums used to be only for men but she believed that women were as capable as men to do it. More than 100 women involved in drums playing project and they had tour even to Europe to share the beauty of culture of Rwanda. This project called Ingoma Nshya that has given women a voice in the cultural landscape of Rwanda, and allowed them to speak out about their female identity and their traumatic past. In recent years Odile has also presented Des Espoirs (Hopes) throughout her country. This show, which mixes theatre and dance, is a testimony to humankind’s ability to rebuild itself, even after a trauma. Odile also wrote and co-directed the short film Isugi in which a young girl, who survived the genocide, is living with the memory of her deceased parents and suffers harassment from her adoptive father.

Odile explained that culture almost doesn't exist in Rwanda and that is probably explain why people became so aggresive to each other and led to genocide.