At first, I had no idea what to expect from this book. I had never heard of it before, and I was unaware of the genocide that took place in Rwanda and Burundi. Hutu's and Tutsi's were words in which had no meaning, and Deo was a misspelled name of a band that I listen to on occasion. :) As I progressed through the book however, I felt as if I was right alongside Deo on his horrific yet enlightening journey from Burundi to New York. It is amazing how a person who has gone through so much can be such a productive person in society. What struck me as a reoccurring theme was that the only thing that separated Deo from a statistic was his constant ability to be in the right place at the right time, meeting the right people.
""It's a really tiny place that is changing a great big environment," he remembered thinking. Then he'd exclaim in his own mind, "No group of people is really too small to change the situation!"" pg 158. This quote struck me as the epitome of what this book and this class is really all about. Deo should have made this realization sooner in his life, since Charlie and Nancy were a group of two that changed his situation, but the point is he at least realized this at some point. It took me until this point in the book to realize this as well. A movement to change something starts with one person or a small groups' idea, and eventually gets bigger until something gets done. This quote gives me the inspiration to feel like i have the ability to change something in my community.
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