In Class Media

The Rwandan girl who refused to die & Children of Rwanda's Genocide

In the first story the author conveys and integrates imagery through the context used. They detail everything and make you picture the cruel murderings of the poor children and parents. Especially when they talk about the dogs coming in and eating the dead bodies, how she had to throw rocks at them to make them go away. Valentina sat in a room for 43 days with rotting corpses, that is hard to imagine. This story creates a depressing mood and makes me want to stop what is happening. They are conveying a sense of evil by describing the murders and the rotting corpses. It said that the Hutu's said they could spare people that gave them money, but they lied and still killed them anyways! That is evil. Also, when the leader says that you have to kill them like they are snakes, and the only way to kill snakes is to smash their heads! This whole article is evil, especially when talking about death. They set the mood also by using the words: crying babies, whinnying goats, and interminable crowing of roosters. It sounds brutal, and lonely. The part that mostly impacted me was when Valentina still has reoccurring dreams about her mother, and that Valentina is showing her her mutilated hand, what has become of her. But then she wakes up crying and realizes her mother is dead and gone forever. That really kills me, because I am the same age as her, and if that had happened to me, I wouldn't be able to even imagine what I would have to go through and how I would want to live. It's terrible what was done to her.

In the second story, it connects back with the first story because it also talks about the killings and feelings of the children of Rwanda. It makes me upset when I read or hear about this now, because I had never heard of these murderings before. It's something new to my brain but has a huge impact on it because I hate violence. In this article they say that 500,000 people had been killed. Half of the population! That is way too many people, and way too many children being orphaned to fend for themselves because their parents have died. The author has conveyed imagery by using numbers. There wasn't a lot to picture because it wasn't like the first story. This one really used large numbers of killings, or percentages to catch your attention and create that same dark and depressing mood for the readers. I think the authors are different in my perspective because in the first article it was like the author was using Valentina to show the sadness and evilness of the genocide. You really got in touch with her feelings and experiences because it shows it in detail and has you picture what is happening. But on the other hand , this other author doesn't use jut one specific person to take you through their horrible journey of the attack. it talks about in the stats and numbers of killings in Rwanda by saying 80% of children had lost at least one family member from the massacre. That is a big percentage, and it shows just how many people were killed. "The presence of the genocide is still here. It's still with the Rwandan children. " This statement is very true and impacts me the most because if it were me witnessing the killings in Rwanda, then I would wake up every night screaming or crying every night just like Valentina in the first article. The vivid images of people lying on the streets dying, and children helpless would haunt me forever, just like it will for these poor children who were the survivors of this terrible attack! People not involved would forget about this massacre easily and say it's all over and done with. But for the children, it will never be over, and they are all alone because of it.