WALKING THEM HOME

A former Canadian Armed Forces medic recalls a humanitarian mission to genocide-ravaged Rwanda in this memoir.

Nearing was a medic when he was sent in 1994 to Rwanda soon after the genocide in which some 800,000 of the nation’s inhabitants were slaughtered. Assigned to help set up and staff a makeshift hospital for refugees returning from camps in neighboring Zaire, he experienced horrors that, as he chronicles in this vivid account of his 79-day mission, “would forever change my understanding” of the “depths of insanity and hatred humans were capable of.” Much has been written about the Rwandan genocide, including Shake Hands With the Devil, Canadian Gen. Roméo Dallaire’s 2003 memoir of his service as head of the United Nations’ ill-fated peacekeeping force. Reproducing the diaries he kept while in the field, Nearing focuses on the immediate aftermath of the slaughter as seen through the eyes of a lower-level soldier whose duties ranged from desperately trying to save the lives of patients to commandeering vehicles. There are chilling images of the carnage—a girl with Down syndrome who “had this beautiful smile on her face” even though “her toes were almost burnt off” and “twenty-seven bloated bodies” in the septic system of a Roman Catholic seminary. The book also effectively conveys the M*A*S*H-like absurdities that the author confronted because of what he calls “senseless organizational fuckery.” An ill-advised attempt, for example, to treat patients for intestinal parasites resulted in the staff' fighting a “futile battle” with “tape worms coming out of every orifice the patients had.” An impending visit from Dallaire and another general prompted a “smoke and mirrors” effort to stock the hospital with patients “like a fishing pond.” Readers may find many of the diary entries repetitive, and the work provides only a superficial view of Rwanda and its people, with Nearing venturing out of his bubble only to visit Dian Fossey’s research center. But he deserves credit for spotlighting what was “nothing short of a leading-edge humanitarian deployment” and the “diverse group of soldiers from across Canada” who, despite little preparation and under the most adverse circumstances, provided care for more than 22,000 people.

A Rwanda account that provides harrowing images of carnage but a limited perspective.