I’ve always been self-conscious about my nose. It sticks out far from my face and is just very prominent and noticeable. We all have those little insecurities, those little things about ourselves that we think way more about than anyone else, those qualities we have no control over. I can’t help that I’ve got a long nose, though I’ve often wished I could change it!

Twenty years ago, an entire country fell apart because of long noses.

I remember watching the movie "Hotel Rwanda" as a freshman in world geography class and thinking to myself, “How does a country come back from that? I wonder how the place is doing now!” And five years later, I got the opportunity to live in Rwanda for a while. Prior to the trip, I was a bit nervous about the lasting effects of the genocide we were sure to see and the possible stories I would hear from my home stay. I was anxious, but mostly I was excited to see a country besides the only piece of its history I knew about. There had to be something else beautiful to discover there.

At one point during my stay, Freddy (my 19-year-old host brother-shown above) brought up the genocide. He said that no one may talk about it in a group. If you’re in a room with only Hutus, the topic will arise every time and likewise with a group of Tutsis, but never if both are in each other’s presence. He mentioned that murder is the worst crime you can commit here now and taking a man’s life is taken extremely seriously. Since there are not enough cells in the prisons to punish all of the people that are guilty of murder, those guilty men are still paying off their punishment by doing community service. It is not uncommon to see men in bright colored jumpsuits working alongside the roads or in fields. Freddy said the worst part is that this country will forever be looking at each other’s noses. He pointed to his nose and to his brother’s nose and my heart broke when he said, “We are Tutsis. We would have been killed first.” My host family all had long noses. They would have been Tutsis, and there’s almost no way they would have survived. Thankfully, my host family had moved to Congo the year before the genocide, but that did not leave them emotionally unaffected by the event. My host parents are still angered by the topic and are still mourning the loss of friends and a certain neighbor they were close to prior to their move to Congo. Though Freddy wasn’t alive when it occurred, he is very passionate about what happened and is very bothered by the fact that if he had been alive at the time and lived here, he would have been killed just because a group of Belgians told people that long noses were bad. He pointed at the nose on my face that I’ve never wanted and never had control over and always hated and said, “They would have killed you because of your nose.”

You cannot force a person to forgive and move on from such destruction but the remodeled Rwandan government has found a way to encourage complete forgiveness on the citizens' part. Both Hutu and Tutsi parties were banned and no such categorization will ever be allowed again. To promote community and unity, the last Saturday of every month is a community clean-up day where neighborhoods will get together and work on projects to make the city a better place. In the last five years, more roads have been built and infrastructure constructed than in all of Rwanda’s history. The country has found a way to forgive, work together and thrive and as a result, they are the most socio-economically sound country in all of Africa.

Almost an entire country was decimated because of noses. Humans convinced other humans that certain humans were less than human because of a feature on their face.

I have a theory that Americans do the same thing to each other, only without machetes. We kill each other's security, confidence and self-image. We destroy it with media and expectations. We murder each other with Pinterest and commercials that show us what we should look like as women, or how we should dress, or what we should eat in order that we may be beautiful.

I've never thought my nose was beautiful. It's too long and it sticks out. Though we at least live in a place that the shape of your nose will not get you killed, I want us to live for more than just survival. Be proud of your nose and your body and everything else about you because no one's opinion is more important than your own.