A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali (2003) by Gil Courtemanche is a fictionalized account of his experiences as a journalist in Rwanda in the two-year period leading up to the 1994 genocide and its immediate aftermath. This intensely sentimental novel interweaves the story of passionate love between Valcourt, an aging, disillusioned Quebecois journalist, and Gentille, a very young, beautiful Hutu woman, who has the physical appearance of a Tutsi, with the story of passionate hate between the Hutu and the Tutsi groups.
Intermingled in this web of love and hate is the at once inspiring and despairing story of the humanitarian aid industry in Rwanda. One of the actors in this drama of humanitarian aid at work, or not at work as the case may be, is Elise, a White aid worker. My paper will examine the practices of Elise, who undertakes to help Rwandan HIV/AIDS patients die even as she strives to help Rwandans who are HIV-free live. For the latter, she pushes condoms and preaches safe sex. For the former, who are tired of suffering through life with pain, she helps them achieve a quick, painless chemical-induced death. Is Elise’s offer of euthanasia unethical? What are the guiding principles of humanitarian aid in terms of health care? Is it aid for life, aid for death, or paradoxically, but pragmatically, for both life and death? My interest is in the ethical dilemmas inscribed in humanitarian aid and the various ways that aid workers respond to these moral conundrums.