An Ordinary Man
An Ordinary Man
“This was potentially disastrous. Without a phone my black binder would be nearly useless. I could no longer call in favors with the Army brass or the government.
But then came a surprise. In 1987, when I was the assistant general manager, the Mille Collines received its first fax machine.
We had to request an auxiliary phone line to support it, one that was not routed through the main switchboard. We had asked the technician to feed the fax line directly into the telephone grid of Kigal...i. This was a glitch I recalled when I was in the darkness of the secretary’s office on the day the phones were cut. I was moved to pick up the handset attached to the side of the fax. There was a dial tone humming back at me, as beautiful a sound as I could have imagined.
I guarded this secret carefully. If the hard-liners in the military found out that I had a phone, they would send in their thugs to find it and rip it out. So I let only the refugee committee use it and instructed them to keep quiet.MoreLess
But then came a surprise. In 1987, when I was the assistant general manager, the Mille Collines received its first fax machine.
We had to request an auxiliary phone line to support it, one that was not routed through the main switchboard. We had asked the technician to feed the fax line directly into the telephone grid of Kigal...i. This was a glitch I recalled when I was in the darkness of the secretary’s office on the day the phones were cut. I was moved to pick up the handset attached to the side of the fax. There was a dial tone humming back at me, as beautiful a sound as I could have imagined.
I guarded this secret carefully. If the hard-liners in the military found out that I had a phone, they would send in their thugs to find it and rip it out. So I let only the refugee committee use it and instructed them to keep quiet.MoreLess
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