alex goodell

Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains

7.29.09

When I finally put Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains down, I wasn’t sure if I had actually liked the book. I can’t really see myself loving any book that’s main theme was genocide.

I was fortunate enough to have met Deogratias “Deo” , the protagonist in this moving biography, a few months before I started the book. A youthful man with an infectious smile, he had told me of the misery in his homeland of Burundi, a place where those too sick to walk were attacked by dogs–people living, as he said, in conditions not fit for humanity. I had little idea of exactly how endemic these conditions were in his country, how long they had existed, and what his personal experience had been until I read his biography.

Deo is by all means a modern-day hero, although in his humility he would surely disagree. While studying medicine in Burundi, an often-forgotten genocide began, forcing him to flee his work. He traveled far by foot, witnessing unspeakable horrors, and enduring the limits of physical suffering. His eventual escape to New York City leaves him in a foreign land of imposingly tall buildings and signs in an entirely new language. He, although a trained medical doctor, works menial jobs and is degraded by the racist and unwelcoming experience faced by most new immigrants in the US. The tale picks up hope when Deo encounters some generous Americans who take him in. Years later, after education at Columbia, Harvard, and Dartmouth, he becomes an American citizen.

Tracy follows Deo, using a series of flashbacks, through his journey in Burundi, his American experience, and his first return to a war-ravaged Burundi.

The subtitle, “A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness,” seems somewhat misleading. We are not privy to the internal workings of Deo’s mind, and Kidder sheds little light on what the process of forgiveness is like for Deo, or to what extent that has occurred in any of the victims of Burundi’s terror. It is clear, however, even after a short conversation with Deo, that forgiveness has played a key role in the formation of his newly-founded clinic in Burundi, Village Health Works. A US-based nonprofit working in Burundi, they are dedicated to treating anyone, regardless of their ability to pay or their past deeds.

For me, the book is about strength, dedication, and the ability to hope, not unlike Kidder’s last book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. Deo’s journey stretched my understanding of hope’s role in times of extreme tragedy. Although I have no idea what exactly was going on in Deo’s mind during his tragic escape, I imagine he fought his dwindling spirit and health with dreams to be a doctor, build a clinic, and see his family again. Perhaps, I’ve recently thought, strength itself is determined by hope. Someone’s will, the refusal to give up, is dependent on a hopeful future, and strength is largely a function of will. So, what hope remains in a time of tragedy is one’s reservoir for strength.

Deo says, speaking of Village Health Works’ projects treating the sick of Burundi, “Where there is health there is hope” — and that is their strength.

Read it. To learn more about the work of Village Health Works or to donate, visit them at http://villagehealthworks.org or contact me.

Tagged: burundi, kigutu, partners in health, paul farmer, strength in what remains, tracy kidder, vhw, village health works