Reflection on another classmate Eyes on Africa Presentation

Tracy's presentation was called “The Blood of Africa: A Brief Presentation on the History of Exploitation in Africa.” During her 75 minutes, Tracy covered many topics, such as, rubber, gold rush, diamonds, and many more. All of these topic fit into her theme of foreign exploitation of Africa. What I really enjoyed about Tracy's presentation were the activities she included to make presentation more exciting. I particularly enjoyed her demonstration about how rubber workers were punished if they fall to met their rubber quotas. To show this she had every classmate trace their hand on a piece of paper and cut it out. Students can cut out as many hand as they can and they can steal other people's hand. After a student have enough hand, you can give them to the police and save your life.

I thought my presentation was pretty good. I had a lot of pictures and I didn't just read the information of of  a piece of paper. However, I could make my presentation more interesting by learning from Tracy and including some activities. The class really enjoyed Tracy's activities and they made her presentation more interactive and exciting.

Cause & Effect in Hotel Rwanda

In the movie Hotel Rwanda, the first time we see any racial violence is when Paul Rusesabagina's friend and groundskeeper at the hotel is taking away by the police. When the groundskeeper was taken away, the police say it is because he is Tutsi. The next day, when Paul gets home, he saw his neighbors hiding in his house because he have many Tutsi neighbors and they are afraid of being shot by the police. Soon after, Paul decide to took everyone to the Hotel because it is not safe in their house. After he successfully move everyone to the hotel, the police come looking for Tutsis. Paul bribes them with a lot of money and the police left. As a result of this, people hear about what Paul did and come to the hotel for safe place. After Paul learns that the UN is leaving, he realizes that they can save themselves. He gets everyone to phone their family and anyone who might be able to help them. All of these tearful phone calls result in an airplane being prepared for them. Everyone in the hotel gets on the bus to head to the airport, but Paul decide to stay behind and help more people. On the way to the airport, the bus has to turn around and go back to the hotel because they are attack by soldiers, Paul goes to see the police chief that he bribed and black mails him to help them. The police chief arranges protection for everyone as their bussed to a safer place. Once everyone is safe, Paul and his family get on the plane to Belgium because Rwanda is not safe for his family anymore.

Eyes on Africa Presentation Self-Reflection

In this presentation, I have talked about Congo. I didn't want to do it in a boring way so I choose to make a story book, even though I know I am a very bad artist. I spend the whole spring break to finish my presentation and I have tried to put as many pictures as I can because it can shows how pitiful Congo people are. First, I introduce Congo, so others can know where is Congo and it's basic information.


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 Secondly, I talked about Rubber. Rubber was the most important resource and most people rely on it during the time before colonial period. Rubber also shows how cruel the government do to Congo workers and how hopeless the workers were.



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Since my idea was to show how cruel Congo people were so I choose a book, written during colonial time and also talked about the darkness side of Congo, Heat of Darkness. It was written by a British who went to Congo and saw the darkness of it. He went back to England because he have some health problem and he wrote this book a few years after he came back from Congo. I really like the main idea of this book and I would like to read it someday.



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The last topic I wrote about Congo is the second war of Congo. It is a war between 8 country, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, Mai,-Mai, Hutu, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. There are a lot of refugee during the war and I think it is also the dark side of Congo because Congo have so many wars and those refugee can't get good medical care and other daily needs.



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My presentation was success this time but there are still many small problems. Such as, stick the wrong details to different topic, or even doesn't know how to pronounce some special name. I will try my best to improve my art work and everything.

Hutu and Tutsi

Starting in 1935, the Belgian Colonial government required all citizens to have "Tutsi", "Hutu" or "Twa" indicated on their identity cards. Admission to school was limited to only Tutsi. Following World War II, Rwanda began the process of becoming an independent country. First, it was made into UN trust territory with Belgium appointed as administrative authority. Belgium continued to support the Tutsi minority rule.

 

In 1954 King Mutara III began to redistribute and share out the land between the Hutu and the Tutsi. He also agreed to abolish the ubuhake and uburetwa system of indentured servitude which had been in place since the 15^th Century. Ubuhake was a system of cattle distribution and uburetwa was a land distribution system. Historically, Hutus were farmers while Tutsis were primarily cattle-raisers.

In 1961, the Belgian-sponsored Tutsi monarchy collapsed and Kigeli V was exiled from Rwanda. That same year, political power was transferred from the minority Tutsi to the majority Hutu. Kigeli V, also known by his Christian name of Jean-Baptiste, currently lives in the United States and has expressed a desire to return to Rwanda as its constitutional monarch to re-unite and heal the country. In neighboring Burundi, the minority Tutsis, maintained control of the government.

In Burundi in 1972, the Tutsi government launched a campaign of genocide against Hutu population and an estimated 100,000 Hutus died. In 1993, Melchior Ndadaye a Hutu and Burundi's first democratically elected president was assassinated by Tutsi officers. This sparked wide-spread violence between Hutu and the Tutsi, in which an estimated 500,000 Burundians have died. This violence spread to neighboring Rwanda and was one of the causes of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Reflection of Hotel Rwanda

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Every  second of the movie is captivating, you do not know what is going to happen next. I could not take my eyes off the screen. This movie was made to educate the world about the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Sometimes movies that tried to tell a true story are very boring but not this one.

 Don Cheadle played the main character Paul Rusesabagina who was a hotel manager  that saved thousands of people during the genocide. This actor did an excellent job portraying this character. He made every scene enjoyable to watch. He also spent time with the real life Paul Rusesabagina.

British actress Sophie Okonedo played Paul's wife Tatiana. They love each other deeply and the talented actors show this very clearly. Both Sophie Okonedo and Don Cheadle were nominated for Academy Awards. 

To capture the realism of the story, some of the movie was filmed in Kigali Rwanda where the real story took place. I think this really added to the power of the movie, knowing that the actors were in the same place as the real people.