Munezero has had a typical, if unusually active, college career. She started a student-run international club, served as a dormitory residential assistant, sang in the gospel choir and spent two semesters studying abroad, in Italy and France.
Last week, with commencement three days away, graduating seniors whiled away a brilliant day on the grassy riverbank, paddling in the water on canoes and inflatable pool toys, sailing and windsurfing. Munezero refused calls from her friend, Viani Kamleu, to jump in the water, but accompanied him on a stroll to nearby Church Point, a favorite spot for students to watch St. Mary's sunsets.
Later, when Kamleu learned that Munezero had never seen the 2004 stoner-epic, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, they made plans to watch the DVD.
"Every college student should watch that movie," he chided. She rolled her eyes, but cheerfully consented.
`I feel blessed'
Munezero will attend the American University in Cairo this fall, where she has been offered a full scholarship. She says she hopes to someday work for the United Nations' refugee agency and visit her parents' native Burundi.
"I feel blessed, but at the same time I have some sort of guilt," she said. "Ever since I got off the plane in New York, I feel like I owe something to them," she said of the friends she filmed in Tanzania. "I think it's something that I'll always feel, that I owe people who are still in those kinds of situations."
As for Baltimore, Munezero doesn't expect to move back permanently. Though she's happy her family has moved to a safer part of town, she's still worried. Her youngest brother, Donat, a senior at W.E.B. Dubois High School, was beaten last month by strangers on his way home. He had to be treated at a local hospital.
Munezero said a bystander who watched the beating called the police, but that they never arrived.
gadi.dechter@baltsun.com
Nezia Munezero's documentary is available online at: youtube.com/watch?v=msYwq2spjzQ
