We Never Knew of Darkness by Dennis Snyder
What's It About?
This book provides a brief but poignant glimpse into the colonial history of Rwanda, and the genocide that was perpetrated there.Dr. Dennis Snyder’s novel We Never Knew of Darkness begins with the smell of sweat and stale blood – and the sound of furtive whispers of child soldiers as they rolled past, packed shoulder to shoulder in a flatbed truck. It is May 1994, during the gut-wrenching and unconscionable violence of the Rwandan genocide.
A young man crouches hidden in the dark, watching the truck roll downhill, nursing his hatred of the Hutu militia. He recognizes their commander; he knows what murderous mission this truck is on.
The Interahame – that is, the brotherhood of Hutu fighters – had raped and slaughtered his 17-year-old sister. They’d left his father grievously wounded, left for dead, but alive. The young man dragged his father’s bloody body to an alleyway, to an idling car with a dead man at the wheel. Unceremoniously pulling the driver out of the car and tearing a shirtsleeve from the dead man’s shirt, he bandaged his father’s worst wounds and raced to safety.
The young man’s name is Elijah, and this is his story – from vengeful soldier to addict and prisoner-of-war, from spiritual death to an impossible redemption.
The book is fiction, but the unspeakable horror of those months is not, and characters in the book are based on real people, heroes and villains alike.
Dr. Snyder is a skillful storyteller. He speaks from experience: He was there. He’s one of the founders of Medical Missions for Children, a volunteer organization that provides free surgical care to children with severe congenital deformities, neck and facial tumors, and burn injuries. He led the first medical team to Rwanda following the genocide.
Although the descriptions of the maladies Dr. Snyder and his colleagues treated are gut-wrenching and the challenges the volunteers faced in the make-shift hospital seem insurmountable, there were times when the beauty of the African night sky soothed. Times when the aroma of wildflowers calmed souls. Birds that looked like “… a rainbow drawn by a small child that has taken flight.” Or so striking they appear possessed by “some invisible electricity.” Land-locked and rooted in volcanic soil, the village of Gitwe is rich and loamy with native fruits and vegetables which Dr. Snyder describes in such detail that readers will almost taste the meals generously served up to the medical crew by grateful citizens.
But wars and loss can wear away courage and dreams. Even so, the story moves with purpose and inspiration. The selflessness and unflagging dedication of the team of medical volunteers – Elijah toiling with them – can make the most skeptical a believer in the goodness of humankind.
Dr. Snyder is wise to leave historical details, some of which are unsavory and unbelievable, to nearly the end of the book. By then, readers are caught up in Elijah’s revenge, his brother’s love and reunion, individual doctors and nurses and anesthesiologists and all those who have volunteered for a remarkable and almost unbearable mission. So little about the Hutu and Tutsi savage and murderous conflict was honestly portrayed in the media. We Never Knew of Darkness is an unsettling, but finally inspiring and uplifting, book.
About the author:
Dr. Dennis Snyder is one of the founders of Medical Missions for Children(www.mmfc.org), a volunteer organization that provides free surgical care to children with severe congenital deformities, neck and facial tumors, and burn injuries. Dr. Snyder led the first medical team to visit Rwanda following the 1994 genocide, setting up an operating room and initiating a pro bono surgical program at a small hospital in the town of Gitwe. Since that time, MMFC has completed twenty-five missions at multiple sites in Rwanda.
One hundred percent of the royalties from We Never Knew of Darkness will be donated to Medical Missions for Children, which carries out over twenty volunteer missions per year in eleven different countries.
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