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| Global Connections |
| The World Affairs Council of Maine is pleased to announce the formation of a new affinity group within the Council. Global Connections is a group of early to mid-career professionals and students interested in international and global issues. |
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| Global Connections is pleased to announce its inauguaral event |
| Blaire Marcel Chitegeze to Read from Memoir |
| Wednesday, November 19, 2008 |
| 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. |
| CIEE Offices (300 Fore Street, Portland) |
| Discussion session to follow at RiRa's (72 Commercial Street, Portland) |
| This event is free and open to the public--donations to author |
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| Blaire-Marcel Chitegeze to speak at inaugural Global Connections Event |
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Blaire Marcel Chitegeze shares the memoir of Belanoadia, a teenage girl and her experiences during the (1990's) war in Burundi, an east African country, following the assassination of the elected president, Melchior Ndadaye. Chitegeze recounts the horrific events that Belanoadia witnesses with the invasion, death and destruction of her village, resulting in the need for her family to flee to Congo. With the collapse of Congo, she flees again. Although shouldered with the responsibility of feeding her family, she clings to the belief that human beings are more similar than they are are different and that unity, friendship and usefulness to one another prevails over hatred, division and destruction.
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| Blaire Marcel Chitegeze was born in Burundi in 1973, right after what the world now refers to as ‘the first genocide in the African Great Lakes Region.’ Before he could finish his studies at the University of Burundi, Blaire left in 1997 due to civil unrest and became a refugee in Tanzania. He taught high school French to fellow refugees’ children. In 2001, he and his family came to America and settled in Georgia. Three years later, they moved to Portland, Maine where he graduated from the University of Southern Maine in 2007. Although not yet published, Blaire has written two children’s stories and one adult’s memoir, Mom In My Mind and is presently working on several other stories. Blaire is blessed with a wife and three daughters. |
