Today I had lunch with Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel general manager Don Cheadle played in the movie Hotel Rwanda. I asked him what enabled him to be brave, to stay and save others when his every instinct had to be screaming at him to save himself and his family. He said he just did what he knew to be right. Profound.
He went on to tell me about what happened in his life in the two years following the genocide before he actually left Rwanda. The stories were heart-rending. Travel country roads with no living creatures along either side (an unheard of thing in most African countries), families with no males left alive, a mother who still hid her son in a big zippered bag that could be shoved under a bed. He helped them. Even after the peace, he took people into his home and fed them, helped them send their children to school. Because that's what his conscious told him to do. Wow.
What a brave man. So special that you had the chance to meet him!
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