"It's all part of the same story. The mind that wants to destroy wilderness is the same mind that wants to create war," Tempest Williams said.
Tempest Williams' lecture included topics familiar to many Dartmouth sophomores, who read about her preservation work in Castle Valley, Utah in their freshmen summer reading assignment, Tempest Williams' "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place."
She retold stories from "Refuge," and described how her community in Castle Rock raised money to buy local wilderness and block its future development.
"We believe we have a stake in the future of our community. A life in association, not a life independent is the ideal of democracy," Tempest Williams said.
Tempest Williams devoted the second part of her speech to her more recent work in Rwanda, where she and the artist Lily Yeh lived in the small community of Rugero for a month. Tempest Williams said that the goal of the visit was to transform the physical environment of the community, which had been ravaged by genocide. The women worked with local children to create designs, which were then painted onto buildings.
"Everyone together painted these houses. Color entered the community; what was once bleak became vibrant," Tempest Williams said.
By the time their group left, five houses had been painted. Today over 20 have been painted. Tempest Williams used the village of Rugero to illustrate the Rwandan concept of kajenga pamoja, which translates roughly as "together we build."
"'Kajenga pamoja' the children were singing. You cannot rob the children of their joy," Tempest Williams said.
Tempest Williams saw a darker side of Rwanda when she at in on a local tribunal on war criminals. There she met Kawawa, a man responsible for the murder of thousands of people.
"In that moment I realized evil is not out there but in here. It lives inside all of us. We are capable of both good and evil," Tempest Williams said.
Tempest Williams began her month-long residency at the College on Feb. 6. As a Montgomery Fellow, she has met with different groups and classes on-campus and joined students for evening discussions on Wednesdays at the Montgomery House.
