An Ordinary Man

INTRODUCTION

My name is Paul Rusesabagina.  I am a hotel manager.  In April 1994, when a wave of mass murder broke out in my country, I was able to hide 1,268 people inside the hotel where I worked.     When the militia and the Army came with orders to kill my guests, I took them into my office, treated them like friends, offered them beer and cognac, and then persuaded them to neglect their task for the day.  And when they came back, I poured more drinks and kept telling them they should leave in peace once again.  It went on like this for seventy~six days.  I was not particularly eloquent in these conversations.  They were no different from the words I would have used in saner times to order a shipment of pillowcases, for example, or tell the shuttle van driver to pick up a guest at the airport.  I still don't understand why those men in the militias didn't just put a bullet in my head and execute every last person in the rooms upstairs, but they didn't.  None of the refugees in my hotel were killed.  Nobody was beaten.  Nobody was taken away and made to disappear.  People were being hacked to death with machetes all over Ruanda, but that five story building became a refuge for anyone who could make it to our doors.  The hotel could offer only an illusion fo safety, but for whatever reason, the illusion prevailed and I survived to tell the story, along with those I sheltered.  There was nothing particularly heroic about it.  My only pride in the matter is that I stayed at my post and continued to do my job as a manager when all other aspects of decent life vanished.  I kept the hotel open, even as the nation descended into chaos and eight thousand people were butchered by their friends, neighbors, and countrymen... 

These are the opening words from a book called, "An Ordinary Man",
written by   Paul Rusesabagina, the man who was portrayed in the movie "Hotel Ruanda".

I note, here, that he continues to say, only, that he did only what every man, every human, should do... every day.  He does not see any thing shining in what he did.  He only sees it as the responsibility of every~average~one.
A few years back, I chose to give myself an exercise...
Every day, before I went to bed,
I had to do something of service for someone.
Not just like open the door for a pregnant woman,
but something that would be a sacrafice for me...
And no~one could see.
Or I had to find another good deed.
So many nights, I would be driving, exhausted,
around, looking, peering,
hoping to find that person that needed a blanket and dinner,
so that I could just go home and go to sleep.

My sons did it too, willingly.
We gave up the strictness of that exercise, eventually,
but here is what happened.

I began to see need, where others might pass by it, and not notice.
I began to have another sense.
One of  a tiny grain of sand, that might not make a difference,
Or... It might.
I began to live
like every moment that I lived, might be the one that I was born for...
I would never get this chance, again.

I am not a saint.
Far from it.
But my sons and I trained.
Trained ourselves to become not victimized by media,
and popular "my life importance" schools of thought.

Becoming un~numb hurts.
It takes time.
And sometimes, you have to try again and again.

The introduction, from the book, "An Ordinary Man"...
ends with this:     

I am not a politician or a poet.  I built my career on words that are plain and ordinary and concerned with everyday details.  I am nothing more than a hotel manager, trained to negotiate contracts and charged to give shelter to those who need it.  My job did not change in the genocide, even though I was thrust into a sea of fire.  I only spoke the words that seemed normal and sane to me.  I did what I believed to be the ordinary things that an ordinary man would do.  I said no to outrageous actions the way I thought that anybody would, and it still mystifies me that so many others could say yes...

All of us have rubies buried in the floor of our hearts.
We just have to stay home and dig.

I send you wings,
sweet dreams,
pretty girls,
and fat babies...
good coffee,
smooth whiskey,
and peace...
For now,

~Cake~