Deo and I met again last Tuesday. This was a very important day for him (and all other Rwandas) because it was the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Rwandan Genocide. We began talking about our school work and Deo was worried because of how busy he was. He had two essays that were due the next day and he had to speak at TCU's commemoration that night. On top of this, he explained that this week is always a very hard and emotional week for him because he lost many family members in the genocide. This was the first time that Deo really opened up to me. It felt good to see how far we had come as friends and to see that Deo felt comfortable sharing such personal details with me, but I couldn't help but feel really bad for him. In Rwanda, everything is closed on this day, and here's Deo stressed out of his mind with schoolwork and trying to cope with the loss of loved ones. This just made me think of how often this must happen and how certain national holidays should be recognized out of respect for other cultures.
After talking about this for a while, Deo told me that he recently bought his first laptop. He told me this because he was very confused once he opened it and realized that it didn't come with any software like Word. I told him that you have to buy that separately and he looked very confused. He didn't understand why he would have to make another purchase simply to write papers. This was another stressor that was really putting Deo down. However, this time I was able to help. My dad's office is constantly going through computers, so they have tons of access codes for Microsoft Office laying around. I called him and he said that he could get one for him within a week. Until then, I showed him Google Docs and gave him a quick tutorial. It felt good to be able to lift a little bit of weight off of Deo's shoulders. We said our goodbyes, and I let Deo get back to his busy schedule.
Thanks for helping Deo with his laptop.
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