SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
Daughter of Innocent Rwililiza, Tutsi survivor
My name is Immaculée Feza and I’m in my sixteenth year. There are four of us children in the family, two girls and two boys. I was born in a small house we call a terre-tôle, made of earth and sheet metal, in the run-down part of Gasenga. Then I grew up in the Kayumba neighborhood. Papa teaches at the high school. Mama works at the preschool and farms on our plot. Childhood has left me with happy memories. My family took great care of me. They gave me all they could, and they looked after my well-being in a way that spared me every cause of suffering. My mama took my hand on the walk to the little school; she saw me to church on Sundays. My papa showed me the straight and narrow. I was raised without any memorable hardship. We had endless fun between us sisters and brothers, and we enjoyed ourselves with the neighborhood kids, too. I hopped on one leg in hopscotch, I joined in ball games, and I danced. We were brought on trips to the Mutara to visit a maternal aunt, and a paternal aunt in Ntarama, and other family scattered across the district.
But I never spent my vacations with my parents’ parents. They were cut by the machetes, all of them. I miss them very much. I often mourn their passing because they aren’t here to encourage me. I know my childhood was a bit ruined by their absence. Yes, it really upsets me that I didn’t get to meet them. Children who visit their grandparents come back in awe. They are sung incredible legends that their parents don’t know. They discover illustrious characters known only to the elders.
In Africa, time refines our stories with the polish of magical words. The older the stories, the more they shine. Rwandan tales were missing from my childhood. It’s frustrating. The killings harmed our sense of family. Without elders, wisdom slips away and family ceremonies come to be neglected. There is no one left to lecture us about how to behave at gatherings, to instill in us the kindness we owe the aged, or to scold us for shabby clothes. In Africa, families continually extend with each new brood of kids. Children make the rounds of their grandparents and granduncles and -aunts to be doted on from lap to lap. Grandparents rely on their grandchildren’s young legs for the chores. They talk to each other without holding back. Sometimes children are scared to ask their parents questions; with the old folks, one feels freer to speak of personal things. It’s something they enjoy. They know how to joke about how one’s parents behave. But me, I have never had anyone to tell me how mine weaved their way through childhood. The elders might have told me about the killings differently. Like what? I don’t know, maybe about a time when Tutsis and Hutus didn’t interact like today, about their memories—that’s what I have really missed out on.
I was eight years old when I learned the true story of the killings. Before that, I had only heard things mentioned on the radio or by my parents in the hush-hush of evening gatherings. They named the dead; it made them sad, as you’d expect. I heard them evoke lost family, people I didn’t know. The killings hummed in our ears, but I didn’t think much of it. They were words without a story, which pass children by. I didn’t doubt what I heard, but deep down the words weren’t meant for me. My childhood continued carefree, because that’s what life offered me.
Later, I was surprised by the extraordinary way people behaved during the Week of Mourning.1 People screamed, they sprinted aimlessly, they fell to their knees overflowing with tears. Their gestures were frightening. I saw my mama crying one morning in the courtyard. Her silent sobs came pouring out, but as far as we knew she wasn’t hurt and hadn’t had sad news. I got up the courage to ask her. She spoke of her life in Kigali during the genocide with my sister, Ange. She told me about relatives who had been cut. I visited the Nyamata memorial, the first time in her footsteps with my brothers and sister, a second time alone, trailing Ange. I tuned in to the television shows and paid attention to the civics lessons. Afterward, when I felt comfortable enough, I dug up hidden information on the internet.
The genocide is familiar to me now. I know a lot about how my parents lived, and there is always more I want to know. Papa ran through the Kayumba forest. He bolted down the slopes like so many others. They lay flat in the ditches, thorns stuck in their bare feet. They threw themselves in the thickets to stay alive. Each morning, the ones who woke without illness did their best to hold out until dark. During the night, they ate bananas and raw cassava; they drank water from the rainy season. I’ve pieced together the details. Fugitives by the thousands went up to the forest, and twenty were chosen to come back down with their lives. The good Lord saved Papa. It wasn’t the extraordinary strength of his legs or his brave heart. I know it was his fate to be guided by the dear Lord through all the zigzags of his escape.
Papa is good at telling the story, like a sad fairy tale—Mama, too, though she doesn’t play the teacher as much. She speaks softly. When they recount their experiences, they use a calm voice and hide their feelings from their children’s eyes. It upsets me to know how they lived—lower than animals. It doesn’t make me ashamed. I imagine my mama hidden in a ceiling the whole day, and my papa almost naked, exhausting himself in his breathless sprints. These thoughts pierce me with dread. Have I visited my mama’s hiding place in Kigali? No, there’s been no opportunity to. I went up to the Kayumba forest with schoolmates. We had heard the accounts of survivors running for their lives. We were anxious to see the huge forest for ourselves. We walked through the thorny undergrowth and the little gullies on the trail of their memories. Fate hounded my parents—it wanted them dead beneath the machete blades. They survived hostile forces, they escaped evil. I’m proud of such beautiful parents.
* * *
THIS IS MY second year at Nyamata Catholic, the secondary school next to the church. It’s a coed school, which my parents chose. We study in peace. The subjects I like best: biology and geography. I am neither the smartest in class nor lagging behind. It’s good. For sports: volleyball.
I get up at 5:30. After heartfelt prayers, I do the dishes, I wash up, then I’m off to school. At seven o’clock, we have assembly, and classes begin at 7:30. Lessons last fifty minutes, recesses fifteen. At 2:30, I come home. I eat, then I clean the family clothes, and at six o’clock begin the evening’s schoolwork. At suppertime, the family gathers for the meal. We used to eat mostly beans, but now there are different vegetables because of my papa’s health. After the meal, we share news and swap jokes between us brothers and sisters. Our parents sometimes encourage us to stop and think about things. Sleep overtakes me very quickly.
I’m up at six on the weekends. I get the porridge ready, I scrub the wash, I give Mama a hand with the cooking. I like to think I’m good at preparing food—I brown the plantains in oil or the sweet potatoes. Papa’s illness means no beans. Housework I like. Everything except for cleaning the kitchen utensils, fetching water, and, of course, farming. In the afternoons, I leave to meet my girlfriends. We don’t have any particular places. Most of the time we sit by the hedgerows, we talk without forethought or study schoolwork in the yard. We sometimes stroll down to Nyamata’s main street, but we don’t go to the cabaret or to the cinema, either, because there isn’t one. We lack the money for outside entertainment, and getting our parents’ permission is a problem. We haven’t yet learned to disobey. We’re happy enough hanging out on the street. We say hello to friends we happen to meet, and we share whatever comes to mind.
If we drop in at the Cultural Center, it’s during rec times. Dancing makes me happier than anything. I love to dance surrounded by friends. I lose myself laughing. We also go to watch movies or music videos, especially Rwandan or American music, and the Rwandan team’s soccer games. I’m fond of war movies with uplifting endings. Nigerian soaps are a delight because the actors have very fancy manners—they are more attractive than American actors and all the rest. I tag along with my brother Valois to a cybercafé on the main street. We browse the news and keep an eye on world events, of course. We watch the performers, the dancers and singers, on YouTube. We chat with friends on Facebook. We explore amazing websites. Valois shows them to me because he has them at his fingertips. They describe the world’s catastrophes and explain the evil rites used by secret societies to stir up wars. They talk about the punishments in store for mankind in the afterlife, the dark forces taking over the universe, defiling it more thoroughly than all the massacres one can imagine—sort of the warning signs of the apocalypse. We aren’t the only ones to visit these wicked sites—almost all young people do. At some point, we simply won’t be able to stay away; it’s a world that excites our imagination. We also visit funny sites to laugh at the jokes.
My greatest joy is running off to the market, which is always a big temptation because it lets me escape the boredom at home. I can’t even find the words to describe how exhilarating it is, probably because being around all those people never gets old. It’s so much fun to hear and see so many things. I know how to bargain for the best prices, and I make my counteroffers firm, despite my young age. At the market, one runs into friends from other schools who come to buy things or just wander around, and we swap jokes more than actual news.
* * *
AT SCHOOL, a group of friends and I often discuss the genocide. It can come up anytime, during recess, for example, often on our way to places, far from other people’s ears. Someone might mention it after a history lesson or want to work through new details heard on a radio show. Sometimes an incident occurs in one of our families and the person needs to talk to relieve their anxiety. This is more frequent during the Week of Mourning, when trauma erupts everywhere. You see students at school who go off by themselves to sulk, some with their heads down on their desks, and who won’t utter a word the whole day. Some are thrown into a tumult and thrash about violently. For example, students start running and screaming about machetes. They scream that someone is coming to cut them or that they have already been cut. When a student behaves like that, the principal steps in straightaway to have him taken to the clinic. He calls on the student’s friends to gather around to comfort him. Later, classmates come together and we share what we’re feeling. Some of us are shaken up; others are used to it. We split into small groups, then, to talk about what happened. There are cases of troubled kids insulting Hutus. They distrust Hutu faces and they shout mean words. Their friends show sympathy. Others are indifferent or embarrassed—they don’t know what feelings to express.
Yes, there are brawls occasionally. When students hurl insults, sometimes fists fly. For example, students might provoke a boy by harping on his parent’s misdeeds. Or the opposite, they deliberately go past a person, making believe that they don’t know what week it is, that nothing important ever happened anyway, or that they couldn’t care less about all the fuss. Behavior like that riles people up. We also had a girl once who wrote her schoolmates threatening messages: “You’ve done so much killing that now you’re going to pay for it. We’ve got our eyes on you.” On the other side, a boy student wrote anonymous notes saying, “We killed your family, but it’s not enough. We’re going to finish the job.” Three times he left the same notes on desks during recess. The principal marched off to the police, but they never discovered who it was. Most of the time, students choose avoidance.
I steer clear of ethnic arguments. I keep from discussing the genocide with my Hutu classmates. Not one of them has ever come up to me and suggested talking about it. I think they are too uncomfortable. With my good Tutsi girlfriends, we can discuss our parents’ troubles—their quirks, so to speak. It doesn’t happen often. For example, certain parents break down right in the middle of the day; as soon as someone mentions the killings, they become agitated or morose. Friends have run away from home because of their parents’ behavior. A classmate told me that her mama abandoned them to escape the poverty brought about by the genocide. Several classmates say that they feel really worn down by the mess at home: the drinking, their parents’ eccentricities and neglect. I know some who try to find peace and quiet with their distant relatives.
Hutu children don’t talk about these things as much. They talk very little. To hear them tell it, there’s nothing out of the ordinary at home. They reject the chance to be consoled. They never reveal what their family lives are like. Plenty of young Hutus pretend they don’t know what their parents did. There are some who repeat how sick they are of always hearing about the genocide; some seem ashamed, and others are bitter—they praise their parents’ courage. I’m young: when in doubt, I avoid discussions with them.
* * *
I PRAY WITH all my heart every morning. I say a special prayer for the safety of the country so that my loved ones no longer tremble, and I ask for extra help when difficulties arise at home. My mama drew me to religion, but I’m the one who chose the Presbyterian church, because it’s near our house. My faith runs deep. I believe that a people’s destruction is the will of God. He decided who should die and who should be saved. Why would a benevolent God, with infinite goodness and supreme power, accept the almost total extermination of the Tutsis by their neighbors? That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer. I don’t understand any of God’s reasons, except that He may have wanted to demonstrate His omnipotence, because now the survivors can bear witness to it. I am too young a girl to grasp the depths of theology. The dark soul of mankind holds temptations; maybe God puts people to the test. I don’t know.
God is a mystery; I’m in favor of that idea. The mystery doesn’t alter my faith in the least. Still, I know people whose faith has faded. They have abandoned the church or are so unsure that you barely see them from one Sunday to the next. The sermons no longer flow through them; they have stopped closing their eyes to drink in the pastor’s words. Certain others are constantly changing parishes. The whole family goes to the Catholics and they come away disappointed; then they turn to the Adventists, they last a month, and off they go, following a colleague someplace else.
They flee their uncertainty. I don’t at all share their doubts, but I understand their tendency to let everything drop. Myself, I don’t pray to erase the present or the past. My faith doesn’t relieve the sorrow that my thoughts of lost family cause. No, no, that much I’m sure I know. My faith doesn’t make me more trusting toward people. In my view, it gives human beings more strength. It protects me, anyway.