Transcribing Genocide with Voices of Rwanda

Today I began volunteering with Voices of Rwanda, the first comprehensive video oral history of the Rwandan genocide.

I spent the day learning how to transcribe the video interviews (testimonies) of survivors of the genocide that are the heart of the organization's work.

I listened to the testimony of a man who described his childhood before 1994, marking spaces and transcribing his translated narrative. The interviewer asks questions in English, which are translated into French or Kinyarwanda, the local tongue by a translator. The interviewee then replies in Kinyarwanda, which is translated into English. I transcribe the entire process, noting breath points for the sections in languages that I can't translate.

It's fascinating to hear about another person's childhood. I find myself wishing that people in my life back in the U.S. would talk about their childhoods more often.