TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD
Son of Joseph-Désiré Bitero, Hutu prisoner
What I especially remember from the time of the genocide is that we no longer went to school. In the beginning, my parents brought us to the nursery. Then the guns began to crackle and we stopped. I stayed in the yard all day. I was happy enough. There was my mama, my grandmama, and my sister Fabiola, who was just a little girl. The truck would pull up with colleagues and honk, and Papa cracked jokes with us before he climbed in. He seemed cheerful as usual.
We lived in Gatare, in the teachers’ neighborhood. It was the first brick building. Tall trees shaded the yard. I don’t know anymore what we grew, but flowery hedges and banana trees, anyway. The war raged elsewhere. We didn’t know much about it because we were little, except for hearing the racket of honking and shouting. Nothing frightened us, no danger lurked. We enjoyed our time as a family. Do I remember what the adults said about the situation? No, we children played outside. It really was peaceful.
One lasting memory is the frantic escape later on. We bolted from home. I obviously remember that. It was nothing but shouts and screams, each one louder than the next. The mamas stuffed their bundles full, the men took down the houses’ sheet metal. We rushed off, loaded with the kitchen utensils and all the supplies our backs could carry. The animals we managed to round up we pressed into a few scanty herds. We took our place in the crush of people and walked all day long. Escapees followed the line of vehicles, others disappeared in the bush. At night, we stopped in small groups and broke firewood to eat warm food. We slept in abandoned streets or in fields—it was up to the fatigue.
We were back on our feet in the morning. The mamas carried the provisions on their heads and attached the babies to their backs. Me, I was sat on my papa’s shoulders or pulled by the arm. We advanced with the crush of people down the road. There were screams—we raced to escape the sound of gunshots. Those sick with malaria were carried atop bound branches because time was too short to care for them. Those sick with cholera stayed in the shade to die.
One day we crossed a river along the border. That’s where Congo awaited us. We shared the pastures with the animal herds, then we were moved onto black-lava slopes where people had almost nothing to farm. White UN trucks brought sacks of food. Children gathered on a field to battle one another in traditional games. We got used to spending our days kicking the ball around. I was very skilled at dribbling with both feet. Since Papa had been a teacher, he sometimes sat us down on a school bench to give us lessons.
I knew the camp wasn’t our native country. I hadn’t forgotten the hills—I missed them terribly. If a child finds a place to eat and sleep in peace, and to play with friends, his carefree life outruns his memories. Then one day the war encircled our camp. There was a terrible roar of cannons and guns. The panic was unrelenting. We saw the army of uniforms. People were running in every direction but had nowhere to escape. They banged into one another to the sounds of bombshells. We came upon dead people who had hardly been mourned, and we watched moaning bloody bodies being carted away.
An unforgettable crowd urged us along like cattle. We clambered into the backs of hauling trucks. We traveled. We saw our country, Rwanda. The vehicle dropped us inside the Nyamata district, where the authorities warned us to return home. We didn’t go back to our house in Gatare. I think some people had taken it for themselves. Papa decided to bring us to Kanazi, where an aunt lent us the adobe house we live in today. The World Food Programme distributed provisions. We survived, going days without leaving the enclosure. We got by with the food from our family plot.
One day a neighbor came to visit. Papa walked him out to the footpath, as is the custom. A car pulled up in front of them, and men rushed out, tied my papa’s hands, and took him to the district jail. He was imprisoned in Rilima. That’s how he left us, in ’96. We weren’t very surprised, because every day soldiers rounded up a great many people suspected of genocide.
Myself, I couldn’t say if he participated in the expeditions. I remember him at home during the killings. He behaved calmly with my mama and my grandmama. I haven’t forgotten how he vanished in the van. Did I see a machete at home? Not a single memory. These were things without importance for the little boy that I was at the time. When they led my papa away, I didn’t understand why. It didn’t upset me. As I told you, we weren’t the only ones to lose a papa. They locked them up from all over—we heard about it every day. They even took mamas away. The children learned to live a new existence. They had gotten used to life in the Congo camps and they continued getting used to the tough luck that came crashing down on their families. In the end, you accept everything when you’re a child.
* * *
MY NAME IS Fabrice Tuyishimire. It means “let us give thanks to the good Lord.” I am twenty-two years old. I haven’t forgotten the date. There are three of us boys and two girls in the family. My mama’s name is Marie-Chantal Munkaka. She used to help care for women at the maternity hospital; today she farms the parcel. My papa’s name is Joseph-Désiré Bitero. He received the death sentence in ’96 at the Nyamata court. They didn’t shoot him with the six other convicts we saw fall in broad daylight in Kayumba. They didn’t release him later with the line of repentant prisoners. He lives at the penitentiary. Me, I grew up in Kanazi. I went to the primary school, I completed three years of secondary, then I quit to earn money. I missed the exams. I saw that I was too far behind to begin again.
I am no longer a student, because of a lack of minervals as much as a lack of attention in class. When I broke the news to my father in Rilima, he went silent. His teacher’s eyes turned away. He could find nothing to say. I am getting by now. Jobs await me here and there. I help out in the cabarets and restaurants: I work as a server or bartender or do odd jobs. Some bosses are nice and keep me on long-term, others throw me out whenever there aren’t enough customers. I also get hired on construction sites, as an assistant bricklayer, for example. I sometimes lend a hand weeding the crops on the family parcel, but then I take it back. I don’t think much of farming. In Rwanda, farming wears out your arms so much you can’t join in the country’s development, which is expanding everywhere.
I play soccer very skillfully. People cheer for me. I used to kick the ball around with my childhood feet as much as I could. Then I was trained by a Congolese coach named Noa. He had us practice complex techniques. I dribble, I pass, I don’t miss opportunities to score to help the team. The position where I am most comfortable is left wing, jersey number eleven. Soccer is my great joy. The Rwandan team’s exploits give me thrills. Playing soccer makes me happy; it offers me moments of cheerful friendship. Later on, however, the jobs ate away at my training time and I missed my chance to wear the backup squad jersey for Bugesera FC. Now I play on the Kanazi team, which competes against other mudugudus. I go to Nyamata to see games. It costs three hundred francs to watch the Champions League. I’m a fan of Chelsea and Barça. I like Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba, and, most of all, Lionel Messi. As far as movies go, I have never been. Besides Rwandan films on TV, I don’t watch movies. I prefer music—R&B or Rwandan songs. On the weekends, I go dancing at the Cultural Center, which is free, except when artists from Kigali perform. I have many friends, the ones from soccer, Kanazi neighbors, acquaintances I meet in the cabarets. No one criticizes me anymore about who I am.
In Nyamata, people know my father’s situation. They don’t ever hassle me. No one comes looking to talk to me about my father, and I don’t seek people out. No one asks me for news. Zero talk of memories—they aren’t something that comes up. Even with Fabiola, we never discuss our papa’s past. No troubles between brother and sister. We steer clear of it because we don’t know what to say. We share news after we go to see him, and nothing more. Fabiola tells me about her life, describing the various happy events at boarding school. We try to encourage each other, and we give each other advice, but we keep from mixing in Papa’s business. It’s a bond between us. I couldn’t tell you if we have the same opinion of him. We never quarrel, because we grew up stranded in a hostile childhood. We met mean looks. Mama heard insults from survivors’ lips. We kept on our toes for years. In the end, to us children, no damage was done, only poverty. And separation, of course.
Mama brought me to Papa’s trial. I listened to the people testify against him. I was too much a child to catch all the details. When we heard the death sentence, we accepted it for what it was because we couldn’t do anything else. We were frightened because others sentenced to death had been hauled in front of the crowd to meet the bullets. We saw the firing squad near Kayumba. It was very loud. Unforgettable.
Deep down, fear has never left me for long. I trembled from the explosions on the road to Congo, then from the war in the camp, and later from my papa’s death sentence. My biggest fear was that my mama might be imprisoned herself. Abandonment was my little boy’s obsession, because the rumors never stopped. In a situation like that, where the neighbors hide their true feelings, you are afraid without knowing what of. You don’t know your parents’ misdeeds, but still you are subjected to the punishment for the evil done. I grew up surrounded by people driven by hidden intentions.
Suspicion flows freely among children. Another boy may seem happy by your side, then suddenly you wonder if he isn’t putting on a show. With a friend who has suffered from the killings, the friendship is false. You endlessly examine people’s faces. Deep down, you distrust everyone. You are wary of leaving the family circle. No relative offers Mama any help, as custom recommends. People are sorry to be related to my papa. If they ever stopped at our gate, they did so in secret, to teach us how to handle the hoe or to give us notebooks and pens, then disappeared before paying the minerval. That’s how I learned about the genocide. Then I had lessons about it at school. I went on a class visit to the memorial. Have I gone to the marshes? No, it hasn’t crossed my mind. I have seen pictures on television. No one can deny the killings anymore, or the terrible politics of the time. How would I sum it up? You want one sentence? I’d say: Habyarimana’s men wanted to eliminate the Tutsis because they were afraid of losing the war; the massacres left a great many orphans; poverty has plagued families on both sides; there is no shortage of regrets.
Fortunately, time steps in to help; it improves things. I go out now without getting blamed for my family in the eyes of others. I can’t pay for my papa’s actions, because I was only a child. I see myself as a decent member of society. I walk upright, without shame, when I meet Papa’s colleagues or people who consider him evil. I lead an honest life because it is mine, despite the bad looks. We are Hutus. Should I be ashamed of it? Can I reject my family? I walk without lowering my gaze, I crack jokes with coworkers. I like Kanazi, since that is where I grew up after we came back from Congo. I prefer Nyamata, though, which would have been my native town. It is growing rich. No matter. God chose me to be Hutu. God offers His love without exception. I pray every Sunday. Am I going to criticize the life He has given me? How am I supposed to understand His omnipotence? No, I accept His unfathomable plans, and I don’t question His silence during the killings. I never miss a single mass.