The News of a Passing

I was walking through Adams Morgan with my friend S on Saturday and we were chatting about the recent plane crash in Buffalo killing 50 people. I had read a little about it, what a tragedy of grand proportions, but had not fastidiously kept up on the news over the past week so only digested the snippets I caught in passing.

S asked me if I had read any of the bios of the victims, specifically the woman who was big into international aid work. I had not, though had heard there was an 9/11 widow on there, I'd not heard about anyone else and I doubted I would have any idea who the international aid person was.

As we walked out of the coffee shop we passed a stack of NY Times, and S picked it up and to my shock and profound sadness, I saw that the woman S was referring to was Alison Des Forges, the leading scholar and activist on Rwanda and a tireless of advocate before, during and after the genocide on international recognition and accountability.

When I was representing my asylum seeking client this past year, we had to build an army of experts to write affidavits in support of our client's story. This meant hours upon hours of research, cold calling, lots of emails, follow up emails, follow up follow up emails, normally resulting in1 out of about 15 responses to our begging for these people to let us explain our client's story. We found Alison's name early in the semester, and searched and searched for a way to find HER. The more we read the more we knew that it would be next to impossible to get someone of her expertise and her notoriety to ever speak with us about our little case, but we vowed to spend the semester trying.

Midway through the semester, we had a meeting with a woman who works for State who had been the acting ambassador from the US to Rwanda at the time of the genocide. She met with us over lunch, and spoke frankly about her experience, while listening to the story of our client. She asked who else we had spoken to, so we went through the list and at the end added the fact that we were trying to get in touch with Alison Des Forges, but we were having no luck finding any contact information.

The woman paused, and told us she would email Alison for us, and she could choose if she wanted to get in touch with us. And lo and behold, a few days later, she emailed us. It was an email explaining why she ultimately could not give us an affidavit or testimony, and wishing us luck, and our client luck. It was a gesture that was generous and at the time, while sleep deprived having only read anything about Rwanda for weeks, it was like getting a communication from God.

When I realized it was Alison Des Forges on that plane to Buffalo, I had to pause for a moment to collect myself. She was a woman to be emulated and her work affected millions of people and saved lives. She was the kind of human being we all should aspire to be, and is certainly the kind I will work to become for the rest of my life.