Jacoby Poulain: Horrors keep life in perspective

Jacoby Poulain is a Hastings District Council Flaxmere Ward councillor and a Hawke's Bay District Health Board member.

My father is the type of man who likes to keep up with current affairs. Any typical day you can find him down at the letterbox retrieving the early morning HB Today and then glued to his recliner chair ready to tune into the midday and evening news for the happenings and highlights. He was so happy the day he discovered his TV had access to Al Jezeera. It's now his new best channel and I've become a follower as well.

Al Jezeera I notice gives a relatively good amount of airtime to positive or at least thought-provoking world events, stories, individuals and communities. Often it's this international context of stories of problems and triumphs that puts my own into context.

One story hitting the international headlines at the moment is the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide - a killing by the majority Hutu of more than 800,000 minority Tutsi people in 100 days.

Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi fled for their lives. Alice Mukarurinda was one of them. She ended up surviving with a tale of tragedy and triumph.

Alice lost her hand by machete in the massacre and her baby was killed. Whenever she looks down at her arm, she remembers what happened.

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Hutus would wake up and go hunting for Tutsis to kill. There were bodies all over the place.

Alice's family took refuge in a church, just as they had done before, crammed in with hundreds of others. This time though the Hutu attackers threw a bomb inside and set fire to the church. Those who fled the fire were hacked to death. Alice lost 26 family members, among the estimated 5000 victims at the church.

Alice, then 25, escaped with her 9-month-old daughter and a 9-year-old niece into Rwanda's countryside. She hid in a swamp for days, keeping only the top of her face out so she could breathe. That was where the Hutus found her.

First they killed the girls. After that they came after Alice. They cut her with a machete and pierced her with a sword leaving her for dead. She was found three days later.

Months after the genocide, guilt gnawed at one of Alice's attackers to the point he handed himself into authorities. He was sentenced to jail. Upon release he sought forgiveness from the families of his victims.

He joined a group of genocide killers and survivors. It was there that he saw Alice, the woman he thought he had killed. Eventually, he knelt before her and asked for her forgiveness. After two weeks of contemplating, Alice forgave her attacker, saying: "We had attended workshops and trainings and our hearts were kind of free, and I found it easy to forgive, the Bible says you should forgive and you will also be forgiven."

This is a monumental time for the nation of Rwanda. It's a time of remembrance, regret and remorse of an atrocious series of events. Let it also be a time of celebration of the accounts of survival, overcoming and the strength of the human spirit. When faced with adversity and trial, our spirit often has the ability to rise above in tremendous ways.

This was evidenced by Alice in this true life story which serves as inspiration, or a kick in the behind, for me whenever I may be feeling a little sorry for myself.

If this woman can overcome and have her spirit intact and glowing after losing her hand, 26 family members and her baby, then what excuse do I have?