When Ilen Ndikumwenayo '09 watched "Hotel Rwanda" in his writing seminar earlier this year, the movie was more to him than just another action drama. It struck close to home.
Ndikumwenayo is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, a witness to one of the most horrific events of the past half-century.
The movie inspired him to share his story with classmates — an experience they called "eyeopening."
"No movie, no dramatization, can personalize a tragedy more than an interview in person," classmate Milton Wilkins '09 said. "Perspective is what he brought to the room, which is invaluable."
Ndikumwenayo, who immigrated alone to the United States as a high school sophomore, has come a long way from his childhood in Rwanda. But he still carries the memories of his past, and he wants his story told.
"Everybody's free to come and ask me," Ndikumwenayo said. "I'll tell you, and hopefully, you're going to learn something."
A mixed heritage
A native of Kigali, Rwanda, Ndikumwenayo was nine when the violence erupted.
"I could not believe someone was killing others because they were taller, had a slim nose," Ndikumwenayo said. "It was the most premature thing you could base on to kill a person."
Ndikumwenayo is half-Tutsi and half-Hutu. Though none of his family members were ethnic extremists, he said having a mixed heritage was difficult.
"It's like being in the middle of nowhere — being half, you'd rather be full," he said. "Before the genocide, people would still call you a traitor because you had Tutsi in you. Even after the genocide ... there's a lot of inequality going on."
Many of Ndikumwenayo's relatives and friends died during the genocide. Though an air of "mourning and insecurity" pervaded the country following the bloodshed, Ndikumwenayo said a sense of normalcy has returned to his country. But it will never be "like the West."
"You have to put up with a lot of things there," he said. "But you can't live a life full of fear; you have to be confident."
Depicting reality
Ndikumwenayo, whose father knew "Hotel Rwanda" hero Paul Rusesabagina, said the movie was true to life but didn't accurately represent the scale of the tragedy. The hotel refugees depicted in the film represented "less than one percent" of the population, he said.
"You didn't see people being killed in villages, where people had nobody to rescue them, nowhere to hide," he said. "So many were killed in schools and churches — people were sacrificed before the altar of God. Even babies, for Christ's sake."
Ndikumwenayo insisted that the blame for the tragedy must ultimately be put on the perpetrators.
"It was our own making," he said. "We, the Rwandese, we're the ones who created it. A big chief percentage of my blame goes to the Rwandan government especially."
Yet he said a gap existed between America's potential to help and the extent of aid actually offered.
"I still think they should have intervened, should have secured more refugee camps or helped in transporting people," he said.
A new generation
A chemical engineer who hopes to pursue a Wilson School certificate, Ndikumwenayo is involved in Princeton Faith in Action, Akwaaba and Princeton Admissions Links, in which he helps to recruits students from Kansas. After immigrating to the United States, he attended a prep school in that state.
Ndikumwenayo is also working with President Tilghman to bring Rwandan president Paul Kagame to speak to the University community, in the interest of bringing the realities of Africa closer to Princeton.
Though there are few Rwandan or Rwandan-American students on campus, Ndikumwenayo said he is enthusiastic about the Univeristy's African community. The African youth who lead "privileged lives" in America receive "the best education" so that they can affect change back home, he said.
"At Princeton, [African students] sit and talk about African politics," he said. "It's very good because to me, that is hope."
"I don't want the African generation to be hopeless," Ndikumwenayo added. "We are the generation of tomorrow. We are tomorrow's Africa. We need change, and the only way we're going to do it is by getting informed and knowing the right choices."
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