Singing Songs in Rwanda by HamptonSchool

SINGING SONGS IN RWANDA

Sophie M Masereka How I survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Singing songs in Rwanda.

How I survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

Sophie M Masereka

Forewords

A ‘Foreword’ is a short introduction to a book, usually written by someone other than the author.

There are four short ‘Forewords’ that introduce ‘Sophie’s Story’. They are written by Marigold, Marietta, and Marilene, who are Sophie’ s daughters, and Harreld, who is Sophie’s husband.

Each Foreword that follows over the next few pages tells us something about why Sophie’s Story matters to those in her family…and maybe why her Story might come to mean something to you.

My name is Marigold.

I’m 24 years old and I’m Sophie’s first-born child.

My Mum used to take me with her when she went to talk to people about her experiences in the Genocide of 1994. Early on, I always remember my Mum’s voice shaking a little bit; you could tell that she was really upset while she was delivering her testimony. Many of the details that she spoke about were new to me and I remember crying when I realised that everything she was saying had happened to her.

But hearing my Mum speak made me look at her in a whole new light: I now knew what she went through…and here she was, still standing

there, strong, having raised three children and happily married.As time went on, I could see my Mum’s strength grow. She was able to gain power from speaking – it really made her look like a superhero, a superwoman, in my eyes.

One of my favourite memories of my Mum was when she visited my School, when we were learning about the Genocide. I think I was with the whole of myYear group…and everyone knew that it was my Mum who was coming in to speak to us all. I was so proud of my Mum.

I was so proud of the fact that I was able to say ‘That’s my Mum. She went through the most terrible ordeal and yet she’s able to stand here and tell everyone.’

It felt good to have such a strong parent.

During the Genocide the attackers knew my Mum was someone studying to become a nurse. They wanted to get rid of anyone who helped those in need. But my Mum refused to give in, and she stayed strong in 1994. Now, thirty years later, my Mum is still the same. She still puts others before herself, she is still so caring and loving. She has stayed true to her nature, just like she did during the Genocide. She has resolutely defeated those who sought to kill her because of her identity. Her revenge on them is that she is still the same. She is still strong in her faith, she is still strong in her true character, the loving person she is, the generous person she is, the fact that she will use her last dollar to help someone else. It tells me and should tell everyone to

be a good person regardless. I love the fact that she doesn’t hold any hate in her heart despite the atrocities that were the worst thing I could imagine anyone could go through.

That is why I can truly say that I have the best Mum in the world… and mean it with all my being. I am so proud and glad that she was able to survive the Genocide.

My Mum is a soft, kind, sweet, gentle soul.

She has also taught me humility in my life.

Growing up in this country and having a happy childhood means that it is tempting to take life for granted. I didn’t really understand the true meaning of those words until I understood what my Mum went through during her own childhood. Despite everything she experienced she still put a roof over our heads, put warm food in our stomachs and covered us in warm blankets at nighttime.All that taught me to be humble and grateful. I love my Mum for that.

My Mum has taught me so much. The fact that she survived a Genocide teaches me so many things. Because of her experiences she teaches me to help others to not hate others, to be kind, to stay true to your character, to listen more than to speak…I could go on. I am so grateful and glad to have her as a parent.

My Mum, a survivor of a terrible Genocide, has taught me so much. I

hope that, by reading her story, you too can learn the lessons that I have.

My name is Marietta.

I’m 19 years old. I am Sophie’s second daughter. I remember when I was young, there was a photograph that we kept around our house. It had a blue background and showed an older man, two boys and a younger girl. My Mum told us that it was her dad, her two younger brothers and her niece. I remember her describing each of their characters – how one of her brothers was a really happy, jokey, goofy guy who always made my mum laugh.Another brother was just really nice…and he resembled my older sister because he had a bigger forehead! The picture of my Grandad – that is the only picture that I have ever seen of him. Right from the first time I saw it my Mum would always say how much he would have loved us and how he would have given each of us names based on how we looked or our characters that he saw. That was the earliest memory I had about my Mum and the Genocide. I think that I asked her who those people were, or she sat me and my sisters down to tell us who those people were. When I was young, I didn’t understand the extent of it. I just knew she lost people and that she could have died…. but I started to learn more when I attended her speeches. Every time I see her speak; I always

learn something new.

It has been so impactful and inspirational to me.

I see my Mum as the strongest woman I know and who I will ever know. She went through that. If that was someone else, they wouldn’t be where my Mum is: happy with a family, full of life…and even comfortable to talk about what she has been through. It has made me look up to my Mum so much to see the strength that she has in her, and I really adore that.

The scars of the Genocide still remain painful for my Mum, though. Certain things triggered her when we were growing up. I remember when I got army print jeans, which were a trend at the time. My Mum got very stressed seeing me wearing those jeans and I never really understood. I said ‘Mummy, it is just fashion, it is nothing…’but she never told me why it upset her. Later, my dad explained that those jeans triggered memories of the soldiers who were trying to kill her and her family during the Genocide.

Mum also gets anxious around Bonfire Night, in November each year. When we can hear all the fireworks going off, you can tell that my mum is scared. She never says anything, but you can tell that she is hearing noises that take her back to the Genocide and all the sounds of shooting and explosions.

It is so sad to see her like that.

So, growing up we are very aware that Mum’s memories of the Genocide are still there and still trouble her. It is because we love her so much that we don’t like to see her distressed and we come up with ways to help her feel better.

The month ofApril is a very, very sensitive time for my Mum. The anniversary of the start of the Genocide is a very dark time in our house. We know that, even though we help her recall cherished memories of her family, there will also be specific days inApril that are particularly painful for her. The trauma never totally leaves her.

I also had a traumatic time in my life when I got hit by a car when I was thirteen. It’s not the same story as my Mum’s, but I see some similarities. I see the scars that she has from the Genocide, and I have some too from my accident. For a time, I was very, very angry - angry that I had to go through the accident and the aftermath. But my Mum’s survival and how she deals with the pain really inspired me as a young girl to learn how to accept and grow from what you have come from. My Mum’s example of coming through the other side has taught me to be a stronger person. She is the strongest person that I know. It is a blessing to have her. She is such a strong woman, to be able to go around London to tell her story and teach people about the Genocide. I am so empowered by her and proud of her and who she is.

My name is Marilene.

I am 17 years old.

I am Sophie’s youngest daughter.

It took time for me to realise the magnitude of my Mum’s experiences in surviving the Genocide in 1994.

I remember when in Year 6, or even younger, my mum went to speak at my older sister’s secondary school. She asked me to go along and sing with her. Being in that room helped me to sit down and actually focus and listen…and that was the first time that I actually understood what had happened to my Mum during the Genocide. I didn’t really understand the true gravity of it until years later.

Gradually, it dawned on me. I began to realise that my Mum’s experiences were something different and significant. When I heard that my Mum had been invited to speak in Sweden…and then that the Queen of England had asked her to attend a Garden party at Buckingham Palace it made me think that my Mum’s life had not been the same as everyone else’s.

One of the biggest things that my Mum’s story reveals to me is how strong her faith is. She speaks about how she was able to cope and survive the Genocide because she had this really unbreakable spirituality and belief in God. Her faith is extraordinary. It was put to the ultimate test, and she was still able to stand strong. That gives me inspiration

and the belief that I can stand strong too!

Just to be able to point out, ‘that is my mum’, is a very proud moment for me. Her journey from Rwanda to India where she met my dad, made me look at their love in a different way. It was almost like my dad was a saviour for my mum. She had just come from an incredibly tormenting experience, and she was able to find love. The Genocide had left her feeling that she had no future and no desire to have children or get married. When you start to see death all around you start to see the world as an evil place. It isn’t a place into which you want to introduce children. The fact that she was able to find my dad and find peace and love is amazing. That’s probably one of my favourite parts of her story because it feels like a new start was given to her by my dad. Her experience of finding her soulmate is quite a beautiful story. Every time that I’m with my mum, her story rings in my head. Even when I’m annoyed with her, I just remember how strong she is. I think to myself, ‘remember who you are talking to!’. She is such a resilient, powerful, sympathetic woman. She has never given up. Ever.

There’s one last thing.

I don’t think that I’ve told anyone this.

I’d love to have a career as an actor…and it would be my dream to write and produce and direct a film of my mother’s story. I feel that her story specifically has something to say. It is such a moving story; it is such a powerful story of a powerful woman. I think that it would be beautiful to not just read on paper but to watch on film.

That is how inspired I am by her story. I hope that you are too.

My name is Harreld.

I am Sophie’s husband.

Next year will be twenty-five years since we got married. Through this long period, we have talked a lot about the Genocide. Her story has changed me as a person.

I have been at different commemorations both here in Britain and abroad.At all of them I hear stories of people who survived. Here, though, I am talking about one person.

One survivor.

Sophie.

Sophie has told me all about how she survived and what she went through. She has taken me to all the spots where she could have been killed but survived. She has also taken me to memorial sites all over Rwanda where I have seen things that I cannot describe. When you go there and see the bones and the skulls it takes your heart and sinks it to the bottom of the abyss. Seeing these things, hearing about what happened in 1994 from Sophie, has left scars and caused me to have nightmares about the killing and where my family is being attacked and I try to defend them.

I felt angry when I first visited Rwanda with Sophie. When she took me to her village and I could see the destruction that took place in the

land of my father-in-law, I felt angry. I was surprised when I saw that the people who had a hand in all this destruction were the neighbours, still walking freely and openly in the village.

My wife shook their hands.

She had brought beans, soap, cooking oil and lots of other supplies from the city and she gave it to them. I thought to myself, ‘What are you doing, Sophie?!’, these are the people who committed so many atrocities against your family. I was angry.

Sophie does the same every time we visit Rwanda, every two years. I ask myself how a person who was hurt so much can still do good things for the people who committed such crimes against her family. That has remained a question for me…but it has played a part in changing me from the man I was twenty-four years ago. The way that I have looked at how Rwandans have sailed through to recovery with a spirit of reconciliation has changed me and made me a better man, I think. I now look at a life without enemies, I’ve learned that it is not good to keep enemies. I’ve learned how to live alongside people who are not like me and who may not like me. I have become resilient and forged a way of living with them. By rubbing shoulders with people who ought to be your enemy it somehow brings a healing to you.

All this I have learned through the story of the Genocide that Sophie has taught me. So, Sophie’s story has changed me forever. Maybe reading her story will change you too.

Preface

Hello. My name is Sophie.

I hope that you never have memories like mine. I don’t like remembering what happened to me in 1994.

Yet nearly every night I do.

For fifteen years, I did not want to speak about my memories. I did not want to tell anyone about what happened to me in the hundred days in that spring and summer. 1994 was the year of a World Cup football tournament. It was the year that Nelson Mandela miraculously became President of South Africa. I had my own miracle that year. I survived a Genocide.

You may not have heard of the word ‘Genocide’. I certainly hadn’t when I was a young person in 1994. But I was engulfed in something so terrible that the world called it ‘Genocide’ (not that the world did anything beyond that to help me or others like me).

‘Genocide’ is the word that lawyers and judges use to describe a crime so terrible that it has been called ‘the crime of crimes. It is used to explain what happens when one group of people so hates another group that they try to destroy them.

Yes, you heard that right.

Destroy them.

Annihilate them.

Erase all trace of them…so that it would be as if they had never existed. Kill every single man, woman and child who is part of that group.

You may have heard of the Holocaust. That was when the Nazis and their collaborators tried to annihilate every single Jewish person under the cover of the Second World War. That was Genocide.

Well, in my country of Rwanda, in 1994, it occurred again. I was a part of the social group called ‘Tutsis’, who were targeted for annihilation. Not because of anything that I, or other Tutsis had done…but because of who we were. We were to be destroyed simply because of our identity. What happened in 1994, in Rwanda, has been called the ‘Genocide against the Tutsis’ because extremists intended to wipe out every Tutsi man, woman and child that they found.

Can you imagine that? In a way, I hope not.

So, what made me write a book about something so terrible? And why should you read a book about such a dreadful time?

Well, I decided to write this book in the hope that at least one person,

young or old, might learn about what happened to me. If we are ever to prevent such terrible things from happening again then we need to know how they happen and what causes them. So, if you know more about my story and what happened in Rwanda, then maybe you will help to stop a Genocide from happening in the future.

I also hope that my story can help you in another way. If you face troubles or problems, please know that I once did too. If you feel alone and that everyone is against you, then I can identify with you. It happened to me. And I survived. I hope my story can help anyone who is suffering in some way. I hope that my story might help you understand that no matter how bad things get, you are not alone. When all seems lost…keep going.

Just after the Genocide I thought that no one would be interested in my story. During the killing in 1994 I was hated. Afterwards I found it difficult to convince myself that I should tell anyone who I was and what I had been through. I thought that because I had been hated once then I would be hated for evermore. So, I decided that I should bury my story and hide my past.

Today, though, I feel differently. I choose to share my experiences without any fear, and hope that people might benefit from reading my story. I talk about what happened to me in what has become known as the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, as much as I can. I want my story to be heard by as many people who will listen. But if you are the only person who reads about my experiences and understands them, then

that will be enough.

Like other survivors, I am alive not because I was any better than those who died. I was lucky. Now, I try to use my survival to give a voice to those who can no longer speak. Those of us who survived are there for those who were murdered in 1994.

I’ve had the honour of speaking to Kings, Princes, Prime Ministers, and government officials. I’ve had the chance to tell my story in grand venues and as part of prestigious ceremonies. Most importantly, I have had the privilege of explaining what happened to me to young people in schools, in churches, in newspapers, and on BBC radio and television. It has been that experience that led to this book that you are reading now. I’ve heard from teachers that they would like their students to understand what happened in Rwanda in 1994. As hard as I work to speak at as many schools as I can, I can’t do enough. Hopefully, my book might reach some more of you, some who I haven’t been able to meet in person yet.

As you read my story, I ask you to bear with me. I tell it as it was. Some parts of the story may sound impossible, but that is how it all happened. I recount events as I saw them.

During the Genocide, I lost my dad and my Grandad who I loved so much. My brothers, Charles, Danis and Jean Paul were killed. My sister, Marceline, was murdered. My dear cousins, Ephraim, Gerard, my baby nephew Emmanuel died with her mum who was my sister-inlaw, Rachel. All of them couldn’t grow up to live their lives.

I lost my nieces, Odette and Nayira. My uncle, Chadrack Nzabamwita, and his wife Esther, and her family were murdered. My mum’s brothers, Uncle Muvunyi and Uncle Gerard perished too. Her cousin, Vincent and his brother were all killed. My Auntie Lidia was murdered along with her baby and her husband Pastor Jerome Kalisa. The parents of Chadrack Kamanzi, my brother in law who saved my siblings, were also murdered. My sister in law, Vestine, the wife of my brother Charleston did not survive. Her parents and her brothers and sisters were also killed. These people mattered so much to me.

So many neighbours and family friends were cut down during the Genocide too: Amon Iyamuremye and family, Amon Rugerinyange’s family, Mukamurangwa, Murangwa, Murwanashya, Elisha, and their baby brothers that I loved so much, Rurinda and the family, Umurisa's family, Musoni’s family, the Ntaganiras, Semadimbas, the Sezisonis, Stephany, Mother-in-Law (Antonia), my classmates Captoline, Irene, Grace and Bosco. My teacher Oswald (who taught us maths and was in charge of our school choir too) and his beautiful wife, Antoinette…

All gone and murdered. The list is endless.

And that list is just those I can remember. And that is just my memory. I am just one person. If you asked everyone who survived to tell you the names of all those they lost, can you imagine how long it would take to write such a list?

Introduction

I want to tell you what happened to me when I was a teenager.

It might be the same sort of age you are now or have memories of being. Teenage years are supposed to be a time of fun and laughter with friends and family.Atime of discovery.Atime to dream.

My memories of that period of time are quite different. The things I discovered about people and the dreams I had aren’t those that normal teenagers are supposed to have…and that is why I want to tell you about them. But first of all, let me ask you about singing. Yes, you heard that right.

Singing. Do you like singing? Some do, some don’t. Me? I love it.Always have.

Singing has long been a tradition in my family. My Mum and Dad told me that, in our family, when they got married, they would sing together and then perform in churches. Then, when they had children, the little ones would learn the songs and join the family ‘choir’.

Growing up I remember singing with my family all the time.At home, in the street, at my Grandparents’house, singing with neighbours, singing to the songs on the radio, singing in Church, singing along at concerts we went to, singing with my brothers and sisters on the way to school. Until, that is,April 1994.

Part One: Before

These are the memories that I have from my life in Rwanda before the Genocide. You’ll forgive me if all I can do is present you with just a few fragments.

I haven’t got any pictures from my early years to show you. We didn’t have a camera in our family, we weren’t rich or privileged. There aren’t any pictures of our family celebrating each other’s birthdays or us playing in our garden. The few we had were destroyed in our house during the Genocide...by those who came to kill us.

All I have are my memories of those times.

Our house in the village

I went to Primary School in the south of Rwanda, in the countryside. Most of the country that I grew up in was countryside. Rwanda is famous for its fabulous highlands and is nicknamed ‘The Land of the Thousand Hills’. But there weren’t many hills where we lived. Most of those thousand hills must be in the north of the country because it was pretty flat in our area. Our village was on a plain, as I might have learned in my Geography lessons. Neither did we have winter in our village. Summers were hot and sunny and then came the rainy season.

If it was colder all you needed was a light jacket to stay warm. If you asked me what ‘snow’was, whilst I was in Year 5, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about.

My Dad had built the house that we lived in.Actually, it was two

houses connected together, and another beside it served as a kitchen and storerooms. It was a good, sturdy house that had solid walls and a roof of thick corrugated iron sheets.

The beginning of my day in Year 5

My Mum and Dad worked in the capital city called Kigali which was a bit of a journey from our home. So, they would leave us kids at home in the village from time to time. They wouldn’t leave us on our own, though. Every day one of our kind neighbours, Minani, stayed with us at our house to help us prepare our lunch and evening meals, after Mum and Dad had left for Kigali. Then after eating our dinner, another neighbour, Kayijamahe, would come and look after us until morning. Before we went to sleep Kayijamahe would tell us funny stories. My Dad trusted Kayijamahe. Dad told us that he would look after us, if anything happened in the village whilst he was away in Kigali.

We’d wake up by ourselves. We had no phones or watches to wake us, but we did have a radio. Radios were everywhere in Rwanda, and we knew it was time to get up when the radio started really early in the morning at 5am. But the radio that woke us wasn’t even our own. That belonged to our neighbour Ugirashebuja. Without fail, every day, he would turn it on at 5am. When we heard his radio, we knew that it was time to get up and get busy eating the food that Minani had helped us prepare the previous day or the porridge that we made ourselves. Then we would pack our school bags and get going to school.

The man in his garden and his radio

Like we didn’t have a watch or a phone to wake us, so we didn’t have a watch to help us tell the time on our walk to school…but we were never late.Again, we had Ugirashebuja’s radio to thank for that. We’d walk past his house every day as he listened whilst he worked in his garden. Every morning, he would dig, dig, dig. He’d dig with a spade and would use his machete (a big knife) to cut roots and chop thick stalks (lots of people in the village worked in their gardens like that). His radio would be on so loud that the whole village would listen as he worked. When we were walking through the village to our school, we would listen to it too and listen out for the time so that we wouldn’t be late.As we went along more and more of our friends would join us and we would walk in a group. Singing the songs that we heard on the radio as we went along. My house was near the road. We would pass people on the road as we all walked to school. Every day, thanks to the man with his radio, we arrived at eight o’clock. Right on time.

When we got to school, we’d line up on our playground, in two groups: one line for girls and another for boys, in front of the classroom. We never mixed. Then we would go inside, ready for our lessons.

The teacher and his bicycle

My teacher, Mr Kalima, looked kind to everyone who saw him. He was an old man, probably about as old as my dad. I can’t forget him, even today. He was a very tall man who used to live far away from the school, in a place called Gasoro. He used to cycle to school. Every

day, we would see him coming up the road looking like a wise giraffe trying to ride a bike. His bicycle was so small that his knees would nearly reach his head as he went.

Like every teacher in our school, Mr Kalima used to have a long stick to scare us with. But unlike all the other teachers he never used to hit anyone with it. When someone in our class was naughty Mr Kalima would call the misbehaving boy or girl to the front of the class as he reached for the stick. Just as all the other teachers would do. Like all the other teachers he would swing the stick high up in the air and then bring it down with a whoosh…but then he would stop it before it touched anyone. We used to work hard, not because we were afraid of the stick, but because we liked the kind and old Mr Kalima.

Other teachers took a different approach to Mr Kalima.

I made sure that I was good at Maths in Primary 6, the year after I was in Mr Kalima’s class. By then we had another teacher called Mr Samuel. He would write some Maths questions on the big board (called ‘ikibaho’in the Kinyarwanda language that everyone in Rwanda spoke) at the front of our classroom. We’d take up our crayons or itushi as we called them and our writing boards (known as ‘Urubaho’) ready to do the sums. Everyone knew what was going to happen next.

I made sure that I knew mathematics very well. When we had finished, we would then go to Mr Samuel’s desk to show him what we had done. He would slowly, carefully, look through the urubahos of my classmates. Then he came to mine. He would look through, write

‘10 out of 10’on it and then keep my urubaho to himself so that no one could see my answers. Then Mr Samuel would line up…and anyone who failed to get enough answers correct was beaten with a stick by Mr Samuel. He would go along the line but miss me out. That is why I made sure that I was good at Maths.

Singing with Mr Kabiligi

Myotherfavouritelessonwasmusic.Irememberourteacher,Mr Kabiligi,well.Hewasjustgraduatedfromteachercollege,andhe taughtusnewsongsinFrench,andletussingouroldsongstoo.

Iremember,inparticular,MrKabiligiteachingusasongaboutan apprenticeshepherd.ItwasinFrench.ItIscalled Quand J'étés Chez Mon Père (l'apprenti Pastoureau).Iwashappytofinditon YouTubewhenIlookedforittheotherday.

Ienjoyedsingingatschool.Withmyfriends.

Dodging the ball withAthalie and the other girls in my class. There were about forty students in our class. That might seem like a lot but for us it was about average in those days in Rwanda. Athalie was my best friend in my class. Each weekend either I would go to her house, or she would come to mine to play. I loved going to her house because they had a garden which had all kind of fruits. We’d get to her house, say that we were going outside to play and just sit in the sun and sing and eat the fruit that grew all around.

Anyway, back to school.

At break time, about half past ten, Athalie and I would play together, along with the rest of our class. Our favourite game was what you would probably call dodgeball these days. We had one small ball to play with. Some of the girls in our class would stand around the edge of the playground and the rest would stand in the middle. The girls round the edges would try to hit the girls in the middle with the ball… who had to escape and dodge the ball. If you were hit with the ball you were defeated. Whoever remained would be the winner. There was another way to win: if you were in the middle and caught the ball, you would be a winner too. We had blue dresses, called a Kontoni, that was our uniform, and I would try to use the dress to catch the ball. It was fun.

Our big family

We were a big family.

At that time in Year 5 and 6, I was the oldest of the children at home in the village. There were three of us. There were my brothers: Charles, Charleston and I. Dani and my sister Emma were very young and lived with my parents in Kigali. But that wasn’t all of us. I also had five older brothers and sisters who had also moved with my parents in the city.

My sister Ruth was married and lived in Kigali with her husband, Gashumba.Amon and Rose were also away and working in the city. Finally, there was also Manasse who was studying in Burundi before coming home to study in Gitwe, a little way from our village.

At home, Charleston was with me all the time. He helped me cook,

clean up, and wash the dishes. We would sing together as we worked. Then he would ask me for permission to go and play football. Charles spent most of his time with our grandparents, making sure that they were ok and looking after them as they got older. Charles was always visiting and singing with neighbours. He was always happy.All the neighbours loved him, his singing, and his happiness. Dani was younger but was funny too. He made us laugh all the time, imitating how everyone talked and walked.

All us kids loved eating ubugali, or fufu. We made it with cassava flour, it is like cooked, soft bread and we ate it with isupu, a kind of gravy. Dani, in particular, loved fufu. ‘No fufu, no eat’, he used to repeat.

Ruben

Ruben is my eldest brother and the first child that my Mum and Dad had when they got married. Ruben was such a loving person…but he grew up in a way unlike any of the children in our family. My parents took him to the primary school…but instead of going to classes he would go off and do other things. Ruben found his passion not in school but in gadgets. He’d repair watches, bikes and radios, anything that had moving parts. He didn’t finish primary school but grew up learning to be a repair man. People would bring him a radio. He would repair it and it would work. That was his job.All day, every day, he was surrounded by older people, and he soon learned how to drink and smoke. My parents hated Ruben’s drinking and smoking – in our house my dad never allowed there to be any beer or cigarettes. Dad

was so disappointed in what Ruben was getting up to. Dad tried and tried but just couldn’t persuade him to drop his habits.

Despite all this, Ruben married a very beautiful woman called Rachel. They had four children called Odette,Anita, Peace and Emmanuel. But because of his drinking habit, Ruben was not a good man to look after his family. Rachel would work hard. She’d do everything. She’d grow food in their garden for their family and sell any extra that they had to buy clothes and other essentials for the family. Ruben would not dig in the garden. He’d work at his repair shop.And drink and smoke. Finally, Rachel decided to go back to her home and leave Ruben because of his lifestyle.

When Rachel left, Ruben came to live with us. He continued to drink and smoke, which my dad didn’t like. When he was at home, he would try to hide his beer and he would smoke outside…but not in the house, at least.

Ruben wasn’t like us, but he was one of us. Deep down he loved us, and we loved him.

Silas and Elizabeth

Silas and Elizabeth were our Grandad and Grandma. They were my dad’s mother and father. They lived close by in the village.

Like all grandparents anywhere in the world, they were there to give us all the food and drink that we could want. Our Grandma made a traditional drink called ikigage that people all around Rwanda would

make. Grandma used to gather sorghum, soak it in water for a few days and then dry it in the sun where it would get its flavour. Every time we visited; Grandma always had some ikigage for us to drink. She would keep the ikigage in a clay pot called ‘ikibindi’. She was quite a lady and lived until she was 105. She was still strong; she could see without glasses and hear without hearing aids until she passed.

My Grandad, Silas, was a quiet man. He made juice from the bananas that grew in the village, and we’d all drink it from a ‘Umuvure’ (a hollowed-out tree trunk) using long straws.After we had enough, Grandad would take the rest of the juice and turn it into banana beer that he would sell to the men in the village. Before Grandad made the banana juice, we children were allowed to help him peel the ripe bananas and put them in the Umuvure. We probably weren’t the best workers: for every two bananas we would peel, we would eat one and then put the second in Umuvure. Although we were sure we were being ever so clever and hiding what we were doing, Grandad’s knew exactly what was going on, but pretended to not have seen us. I guess, like Grandads everywhere, he just enjoyed being with his grandchildren.

After making banana juice, Grandad made it into a kind of beer and then went to sell it on the street. All the men in our local area loved it. They loved it so much that they would often drink too much of Grandad’s banana beer and get rowdy and loud late into the night.

Even today I can picture Grandad wearing his shorts and a top when

he was doing his work. He had white, grey hair. When visitors came around, he would put on a colourful wrap around his waist and another around his top. That was the traditional look for older men in Rwanda at the time. He had a round hat and walked with a stick. On a Saturday we would all go to Church, but Grandad said that he was too old to come with us. Instead, he had his own way of worship. He would wear white, not the colourful clothing that he wore during the rest of the week. He would sit outside on the Sabbath, and I would hear him singing an old favourite hymn of his, welcoming the Sabbath as a special day of the week. In Kinyarwanda, he would sing “Nkunda guterana ku Isabato, kwiga ijambo ry’Imana”, which roughly means “I love to welcome the Sabbath when I can learn from God”. When I sing that hymn now, I always remember my Grandad, sitting outside of his house, looking kind and wise in white.

I loved Grandad so much.

My Dad

Tea. My Dad loved a cup of tea. With milk.Always. Whenever I think of him, I can picture him with a cup of tea. Wherever he was inside the house or out in the garden, he had a cup of tea in his hand.

My Dad always dressed well. More often than not he was in a suit. He was always smart. Even on his day off he would look good with his shirt and tie on. With a cup of tea in his hand, of course. During my holidays, I made sure his tea was in the flask, put on the table where he used to sit; when he came home from work, he would

find the tea waiting for him and he loved me for that. When I would go back to school (I was in boarding school) he would say, in joking way, that he would have a cup of tea when I was back for the holidays.

Dad was tall and slim and had few words. He spoke, in between sips of tea, when it was necessary; you knew that when Dad spoke, the words he chose would be important. But that didn’t mean that he was a lonely man. Each time his friends came round they would laugh so much, together. The moments that I could spend time with him, in my holidays from school, were always precious. I would go to work with him in his office in Kigali. He taught me how to type on the typewriter that he had in his office to write letters for people or translate letters from Kinyarwandan to French, English, and Swahili.

Dad was so protective of his children. He didn’t like us to go out and come home late. Six o’clock was the time when it got dark and six o’clock was the time that he told us to be home. Sometimes my brothers and I would go to concerts. We so loved to sing along to the songs that we heard performed there. The concerts would finish late, around nine or ten o’clock. So, when we were not back at six o’clock Dad would go looking for his stick. My Mum would see him…and then she would hide it so that he couldn’t hit us when we got home late. With the stick gone, my dad would wait with his belt.As soon as we would see it, we would run. My Mum would then keep watch…and let us know when it was safe to return to the house when my dad had fallen asleep. That all might sound quite shocking but, in those days, it was normal in Rwanda. All my friends would say the same thing.

By the next day, it would be as if nothing happened, he’d forgotten about being angry with us. I think that Dad was always a bit worried about us when we were out of the house…but we just loved going to those concerts.

Knowing that we were different.

On my first day in Year 5, we registered at School. The school administrator took down our details. They asked whether we were Hutu or Tutsi. Back then I didn’t know why they asked, or what being a Tutsi meant. I couldn’t understand why they wanted to know.

But because of the registration I knew that I was a Tutsi. There were about ten of us Tutsi in our class of forty. The others in the class were Hutus. There were always lots more Hutus than Tutsis in our school and in our village. My Dad told us that there were a lot more Hutus than Tutsi in the whole of Rwanda too. We knew that we were different and that we were few.

At the time in Year 5, it didn’t seem to matter that there were Tutsis and Hutus. We all spoke the same language, Kinyarwanda, we all sang the same songs, we all drank the same banana juice and ikigage. We were friends, good friends, with Hutu children – it made no difference to us or them who was who. They were good friends of ours, without exception.

Apparently, everyone in the village knew who a Tutsi was and who was a Hutu. My Mum and Dad knew very well who was who. When I asked them about it after the school registration, they wouldn’t say

anything more. But the glances that they exchanged and the way that they hastily moved the conversation on made me wonder what they weren’t telling me.

Leaving Primary School…and going nowhere

Things changed when I left my primary school. I left my village with all the good memories of the making banana juice, the friends I would walk to school with and the familiar sound of the radio from early in the morning.

I dreamed of being a doctor and I thought that I might just be able to achieve my ambition. I had worked hard in school, and I’d got good grades. I thought that if I continued to study hard, I could pass my secondary school exams and then start my medical training. Things turned out differently…

For the first time in my life, I started to understand why my Mum and Dad exchanged those glances when we would talk about Hutu and Tutsi. The first time I started to realise was when the results of the tests we had done at the end of our time at Primary School were announced. My teachers told me that I had done well…but when the lists of results were put up, I couldn’t even find my name. Neither could any of the other Tutsi children who I had been in Primary School with. It was as if we didn’t exist. The same thing happened all over Rwanda. Because we were Tutsi, we were not judged on how well we had done but simply by our identity. Hutus could move on to the next stage of their education as they wished. We were not allowed. Without my ex-

am marks I couldn’t go on to Secondary School…and I would have no chance at all of being a doctor.

There was one other option: private school. The problem was that, like most other Tutsi children, my family were not rich and there was no way that my parents could afford the money that it would cost to send me away to a private, non-government, school. It meant most Tutsi children had to leave school and had to try to find a job. We wouldn’t have any future at all, no proper education, no chance of training in a trade or going to university. Our hopes for a good future would be dashed.

Tutsi girls, in particular, had limited choices because they couldn’t go on to secondary education. In Rwanda at the time, it usually meant that they would get married at a young age, have children and be a mother and stay at home whilst their husband went out to work. I thought that I would marry and have children one day, but I wanted to see what I could achieve in the world, I wanted to help others as a doctor…I didn’t want to get married and have children just yet.

I was lucky, though. My parents were almost as determined as I was that I would keep learning and have a future with choices and decisions that I could make. When men came asking to marry me, my parent refused. Other girls were not so lucky. They told the men that they wanted me to keep going to school and that somehow, they would make it happen. My Dad told me that he had a dream that I would go to university one day. He would tell any man who came to ask me to

marry them, that his child would go to school instead.

Since we didn’t have enough money to pay the fees to go to the private secondary school, my dad found another school. Here I could learn things like cooking, sewing, and typing. It didn’t provide the education that I needed to become a doctor, but it did keep me learning.

Another door opens.

My eldest brother, Manasse, had a job selling Christian books during his holidays. He told me that he would get me to secondary school. So, over a holiday he saved all the money he made from selling his books and gave it to me so that I could go to a private secondary school. He didn’t keep a penny for himself. He saved enough to pay for one term at a nursing school. It meant that I probably wouldn’t be able to become a doctor, but it seemed like a miracle to me. I could learn to care for people and help make them better. I had no idea where we would find the money for the next term and the one after that, but it was a start.

I remember my brother giving me the fees for one semester, he said to me, the rest God will pay it.

Before the start of every term at nursing school, my family would struggle to find the money to pay for the next term.And the next.And so on. I remember the night before the start of every term my parents would never sleep, wondering where the school fees would come from. Somehow miracles always seemed to happen. My Dad, relatives and friends always seemed to find a way to find the money. Some-

times good samaritans who I never knew paid my fees.And so, it went on. By the time the calendar had turned over to 1994, I had made it to the last year of my nursing training.

The Radio Request

My whole family loved music. Music was something that really brought us together. Even though we were a big family with lots of kids of different ages music kept us together. Even though some of my brothers and sisters might be away from home, whenever they came home, we would play some music and start singing and we’d be one family together again. It was a tradition in our family that parents would sing together when they married…and their children joined in as soon as they were old enough.

My brother, Manasse, was a musician who liked to write songs. When I was a young teenager, he taught me to sing some of the songs he wrote. Out of all the children in our family, he asked me to learn one particular song for him. It was a long song, about a person in the Bible called ‘Job’. It was a story of how a person can survive through a great deal of suffering and still stay loyal and good to His God.

Whilst I learned Manasse’s song, he would be off writing other songs and playing them. He was talented. His friend, Sammuel, asked Manasse if he would like to record his songs for Rwanda Radio with him. Manasse accepted.As Tutsis it was really dangerous to go to important places like the radio station. But Sammuel really wanted to have his songs recorded and heard around the country…and we want-

ed to watch him record them. So, when the day of the recording session at the radio station came, my brother Charleston and my sister Emma and I got dressed up and followed along with Sammuel and Manasse. We figured that if we looked like we belonged in a place like the radio station then people wouldn’t ask any questions about who we were. Somehow, we were able to get in. I guess nobody was paying attention to a few young kids when all the focus was on the music. We hid in plain sight. Nobody challenged us or asked if we were the singers.

Then we were recognised.

Someone who had seen us singing in our local church spotted us. I froze.

If they knew that we had sneaked in without permission, we would be in real trouble. I could only guess what my Dad would do if we were found out.

Instead, the person who picked us out simply told his colleague that he knew we could sing and that we should perform for them. We looked at each other. We weren’t ready…but we couldn’t refuse. Manasse asked me if I could sing the song that he had asked me to learn. The song about Job.

Manasse played and I sang. We told them we could sing much better if all our family was with us, that we could perform it better next time if they gave us the chance.

Then we went home.

The next day we heard ourselves on the radio. Me singing Manasse’s song about Job. We were dumbfounded. On the radio? Us?

The day after, the radio station played it again.

People would contact the radio station and ask for the song to be played. They dedicated it to their friends and families. For a while, wherever I went people who knew me would just say ‘Job, Job, Job’. Even today, when I go back to Rwanda people who know me, keepsasking me to sing ‘Job’for them.

Dark clouds gather.

Being able to stay at the nursing school against the odds was like a ray of sunshine in my life. However, the sunshine came at a time when dark, ugly storm clouds were gathering over my school, my village and Rwanda.

The government who prevented young Tutsi people like me from going to school now started to spread hate against us too. On the way to and from school, I used to see and listen to people in uniforms singing “tuzabatsembatsemba” meaning “ we will finish them”. They were referring to Tutsi people. Usually, I would love to hear people sing. Now the songs we heard were those of hate. Hatred of us.

The haters shouted that we were inyenzi (which meant ‘cockroaches’) and chanted that Tutsi were inzoka (‘snakes’). They were comparing us to insects and reptiles – things that hurt others and it meant nothing to kill. They said that we Tutsi were enemies of everyone in Rwanda. Apparently, the government army was fighting a rebel army and extremists went around saying that the Tutsi people in Rwanda were helping the invaders. I did not know much about the history; but I knew that more and more people were being turned against Tutsis.

It began with words but soon it got even more serious…and came much closer to home.

I remember from 1990, Tutsi people who I knew began to disappear. First, there would be a rumour that a certain Tutsi person who we halfknew had disappeared.

Then another.

Then it was a distant cousin.

It came closer to us.

We heard stories of buses being stopped by thugs paid by the government. They would get on the bus, and demand to see everyone’s identity cards. Everyone in Rwanda had an identity card.Anyone who had ‘Tutsi’marked on their card was abused, spat at, beaten. Sometimes, a Tutsi man would be taken off the bus by the thugs and led away. Disappeared. Young Tutsi boys who weren’t much older than me were arrested and put to prison. The government said it was because they were helping the 'inkotanyi' (the name for the rebels). I knew it wasn’t true, but it didn’t matter. The storm clouds came closer and grew darker.

Soon, the dark clouds swirled around me.

I was in my nursing school at the start of a new term, Some of the Hu-

tu students, who had been our friends, came back to school with a different look on their faces. They looked at me in a different way. Instead of greeting me with a smile as they had done at the start of previous terms they now snarled or turned away. They spat out words at me as if I was an enemy. They had been listening to the hate speech that the government and extremists were spreading in newspapers and on the radio. Whilst they had been away during the holidays, they had started to believe the hate.

One day a group of Hutu students came up to me in the school. One of them showed me a knife and said, coldly, "You will see us tonight". I was petrified. I believed that they would carry out their promise. I thought that I would disappear like other Tutsis had.

That night I ran.

I ran from the school. I hid in the fields that were right next to our school. I hid in the bushes. I couldn’t sleep as I waited and watched. Ready to run again, I decided to go to my auntie who lived nearby. I spent the rest of the night with her and then, as the glow of the sun began to appear and push night away, I had to decide what I would do next. Should I stay away from the school? I couldn’t stay out there forever, Should I try to go home in Kigali? If I did, what would I say to my parents? I would be ashamed. Should I go back to school? I knew that I would have to see the Hutu students who had threatened to kill me in the corridors and in my classrooms.At least I knew that they wouldn’t attack me during the day.At least the teachers would be on

my side and would protect me. They would understand and put a stop to the terror.

Surely. Surely?

I went back. Instead, the opposite happened. I was accused of inciting the hatred! I was told that it had all been my fault and that I had provoked the Hutu students. I was suspended and sent home. I was not alone. Some Tutsi students had been suspended from school for two weeks. I was ashamed. My parents were asked to come with me to school after the fortnight was up. My Dad was made to apologise to the principal for my ‘behaviour’and beg him to allow me to return to the classroom. He had to plead with him. My Dad had to promise that such ‘behaviour’would not happen again. I hated the injustice of it. I hated the fact that my wonderful, proud, and honest Dad had to plead for forgiveness for something that I had not done.All because we were Tutsis. Such was my life at school now. Such was the atmosphere of hatred, discrimination, and persecution in Rwanda.

The storm was closing in. Everyone knew that it would soon break.

Part Two: During

These are the memories that I have from my life in Rwanda during the Genocide. You’ll forgive me if all I can do is present you with just a few fragments.

I haven’t got any pictures from the sixty-two days that I was running and hiding from the killers.All we could do was to try and stay alive.

All I have are my memories of those times.

In 1994 the storm broke. In just a hundred days, more than a million men, women and children were murdered simply because they were Tutsi.

Heading home inApril 1994

InApril 1994 we were supposed to be on holiday from school. Because I was studying nursing I usually stayed at our school, along with all the other nursing students. We normally had placements during the holiday so we would stay at the school when everyone else went home for a few weeks. We had to stay the extra days because of the placement.

However, as the Easter holiday approached inApril 1994, I was ill with malaria. I was admitted to a clinic close to School with the disease and then went to stay with a good family friend calledAmon Rugerinyange, who lived closer to the school than my parents who were back in Kigali. I had no appetite, but Rugerinyange’s wife

(Mama Monica) would offer me anything that would help me to get stronger. Rugerinyange’s family cared for me as if I was their own child.

I am sorry to say that those few days of kindness were to be the last that I would ever share with them. I will always remember Mama Monica, her daughter Joy, and all her grand children who were with her - all were gone! Mama Monica was so kind, beautiful, goodhearted and loved everyone who came to her. I will always remember the care the family game me when I was ill and sick in their clean bedsheets; they looked after me, trying to find food I could eat since I had no appetite just to make sure I gained strength to travel and to the survival place in Kigali.

When I was just about well enough to travel, I got a taxi and went back home to Kigali rather than going back to School. I was still very weak and so my Mum and Dad thought that it would be better if I went home to be looked after by them.

My dream about our neighbour

The night before I left for home, I had a dream. It was one of those dreams that are really vivid, that stay with you when you wake up. I’ve never forgotten it.

I dreamt that I was walking back to our home in Kigali.After getting out of the taxi from School I met an old woman who was one of our neighbours. She asked me where I was going, and I told her that I was back from School to see my family. She said, and this will stay with me forever, ‘Well, let’s see what happens here soon…’

It was as if she knew something.

I thought it was an odd, troubling, dream but I was soon concentrating on the possibly dangerous journey home.

Travelling back to Kigali

When I came to travel back to Kigali, I decided that I wouldn’t take my identity card with me. The card told anyone who looked at it that I was a Tutsi. I knew that it could cause problems. I took a risk, and I left it behind at school. Journeys became increasingly tense as more and more hate speech against Tutsi people was spread every day on the radio and in newspapers. Every day, all over Rwanda, in villages and towns and cities, the same thing was broadcast: ‘Tutsis are cockroaches’, ‘don’t trust Tutsis’, ‘Tutsis are our enemies’. I could imagine those messages of hate spewing from Ugirashebuja’s radio as he dug with his machete back in the village where we went to Primary School.

An identity card marked as ‘Tutsi’made me a target.

Soon I knew that I had made the right decision.

On the journey back to Kigali, the minibus that I was on was stopped by thugs who had blocked the road. Everyone was ordered out of the minibus. Everyone was ordered to produce their ID card. I just told them that I had forgotten mine. Because I wasn’t local to the place where the bus had been stopped, they didn’t know who I was, they didn’t know that I was a Tutsi.

I was still at risk though.

The thugs who had stopped the minibus often accused anyone who couldn’t produce an identity card of being a Tutsi, a ‘cockroach’. This time I was lucky. They sat us down, they spat at us, abusing us as ‘snakes’as they did.

These young men where part of a group called the ‘Interahamwe’. In English this Kinyarwanda word means ‘Those who fight together’. The men had been recruited by the extremist government and trained to hate Tutsis. On this occasion, on the minibus, they let us go. Some they did not. Some unlucky ones were forced to stay. Some were not seen again.

I made it home. I was so relieved to see my Mum and Dad at home. They smiled and hugged me as I went through the front door. I thought that I would be safe from the hatred in my own house, with my family and in our own community that we knew so well. But our neighbourhood felt strange. It felt different. I could see little changes. People who had been kind neighbours now looked at me differently. They didn’t chat anymore. When they saw me, they moved away quickly. Or gave me looks. I could see that the long grass that had grown around the houses in our area had been cut down with machetes.

And next to our house a pit had been dug.

That night that the President’s plane was shot from the sky.

April 6

I was at home when the Genocide began. The night wasApril 6. At about eight o’clock in the evening the radio began to play sorrowful, classical music. We heard that President Habyarimana’s plane had crashed. Nothing more was said. That was all we knew. In my family, we talked amongst ourselves. Perhaps it was just the plane that had crashed. Perhaps the President wasn’t on board. But why play mournful music if he wasn’t dead? We had to admit that we really didn’t know what exactly had happened on that first night.

That night the noise was insane.

Shouting.

Neighbours running.

People being attacked.

Shooting.

Houses being burned.

We could see the glow of flames close by and in the distance. It seemed as if the city was alight.

We left our radio on; we were desperate for news. The classical music stopped at last, and a sombre announcer came on air. It was ordered that we should remain in our houses.

Roadbooks started to appear. Everyone who passed by had to produce their identity cards. If the card said that the holder was a Tutsi they were murdered then and there.

In those early hours, I saw people running everywhere. They were running around the houses, trying to find somewhere to hide. From

those glimpses, we recognised who the people were. They were Tutsis. Crowds were running, hunting.

The hunters were Hutus. Our neighbours.

They were hunting the Tutsis. Our neighbours. The killers knew where they lived.

We could hear them.

When the killers found a Tutsi, they shouted as if they had found an animal or a snake. Or a cockroach.

When they found a Tutsi, they would shout to others and close in as a pack.

I saw what happened next. I can still see it. It haunts me. It was horrible.

We were still in the house, obeying the instructions that we had heard on the radio. That was when my Dad called us all together and told us that ‘the war’had come. He explained that when he and Mum were younger some similar things to this had happened. That Hutus had attacked Tutsis before. That we had to hide. That it would be ok. I’m not sure if he believed what he was saying or not. Or he was trying to reassure us.

We didn’t know that it would become a genocide, I’d never heard of that word…it must have seemed to my dad that war had been declared on the Tutsi people inside Rwanda. This time the Interahamwe, the trained killers, would wage it…helped by ordinary Hutus from each and every neighbourhood in Rwanda.Awar waged by neighbours against their neighbours just because of who they were.

There were eleven of us in our house: My three brothers, Ruben,

Between April and July 1994 a million Tutsi men, women and children were murdered simply because of who they were. Killing took place every day, right across Rwanda. Below is a timeline of significant events that cannot record the horrific nature of what happened every day between April and July 1994.

April

April 6 President Habyarimana’s plane is shot down

The Interahamwe sets up roadblocks to stop Tutsi from fleeing. Thousands are targeted as the killing spreads

Soon the extreme elements of the army and interahamwe were on the streets killing Tutsi and moderate Hutu on lists

April 7

The moderate Hutu PM is murdered. 10 Belgian soldiers are also killed by Hutu extremists. Belgium pulls her troops out

April 21 The UN reduces the number of troops in Rwanda.

May

May 14 Prime Minister Jean Kambanda visits the National University of Rwanda to thank the staff for the well-done “work” of killing Tutsi

May 17 Massacres continue across Rwanda. The UN authorises 5,500 troops to be sent to Rwanda. None are available or will arrive until the Genocide is over.

May 25 The United Nations Human Rights Commission unanimously adopts a resolution stating that “acts of genocide may have occurred in Rwanda”

May 26 UN Secretary General says that the failure of countries to send troops to Rwanda is a “failure for the international community”

June

June 2 Rwandan Patriotic Forces liberate town of Kabgayi and rescue hundreds of Tutsis

The New York Times publishes an article with the headline “Officials Told to Avoid Calling Rwanda Killings ‘Genocide’.”

June 10 Hutu power government continue to massacre civilians hiding in Kigali and elsewhere in Rwanda

July

July 19 RPF, led by Paul Kagame, drive the Hutu power government out of power and leading to the end of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda by July 19.

RWANDA

Gisenyi By midday April 7 the killing has spread from Kigali. The Interahamwe trapped Tutsi in churches, where they had fled for protection, and murdered them. This process went on for weeks.

Between May –June Tutsi fought for their lives on the hills of Bisesero. They repeatedly pushed the attackers back but suffered hugely for their defiance.

The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda was perpetrated right across the country. Although experiences differed from place to place the merciless killing of innocent men, women and children continued for 100 days in north, south, east, west and central Rwanda.

RTLM radio broadcast encouragement to people to kill Tutsi after April 6. It told people to put up barriers to stop Tutsi escaping, named people to be killed and districts to be attacked.

Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, drive the Hutu power government out of power and leading to the end of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi by July 19.

In Kaduha ordinary people, including secondary school students gathered to kill. Afterwards they would meet at Bar Mugema to drink and talk about their ‘work’.

In late April, Tutsi gathered at a school in Murambi, promised protection by French troops. However, the soldiers disappeared and, after a brave defence, the Interahamwe slaughtered the thousands of Tutsi men, women and children.

Kigali 6 April 1994 President

Habyarimana is assassinated. This is the spark for the genocide to begin. The moderate Prime Minister is murdered and the killing starts. The killers use lists to target their victims

Nyamata Just over a week after the President’s plane was shot down the killing of Tutsi spread to Nyamata. Here thousands of Tutsis were massacred in and around Nyamata Church from 14 16 April 1994.

MY FAMILY

Our last family photograph before the Genocide.

My Grandparents.

Me and my niece, before the Genocide My Mum and Dad My two brothers, niece and Dad who were murdered.

With my brother Ruben, after the Genocide

With my husband, Harreld, at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party.

Harreld and I, with our wonderful daughters.

MY FAMILY

Amon Rusi Chadrack Emma. Nana. He was just two years old during the Genocide Rose Charleston Manasse

Charles and Dani. My parents. My mum had a baby of just two years old (Nana). My two nieces, (Odette and Joselyn). Our cousin, Samuel. Minani.And myself.

Although the radio had said that we should stay in the house we could see that people were dying. We knew that if we stayed in the house, we would die…and so we had to get out.

I just froze. I didn’t know what to do.

I had accepted what was going to happen. There was no other way. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run to.

My niece Jocelyn, my cousin Samuel and Minani decided to try and find their families and take their chances away from our house. They left.

Eight of us remained not knowing where to go.

Finding a hiding place

Living in the city meant that there wasn’t anywhere obvious to hide. We did have a garden with a few bushes in it, but we had already seen how the people who had tried to hide in it were discovered and attacked.And killed. We feared to go there to hide.

The perpetrators had already cut all the long grass and bushes in the neighbourhood. It made sense now.All this had been planned.All the hiding places had been removed. There were announcements on the radio that the tall grass should be cut. Chillingly, it also dawned on us that not only did this mean that the vegetation should be cut…but so

should human beings. Us.

The main road, just a minute away from our house gave us no avenue for escape. That was where the killers had already set up roadblocks to stop anyone from leaving the area. Local men had put obstacles like rocks or tree branches across the road to stop cars from going past. By the side of these obstacles small groups of killers stood or sat on chairs they had bought with them. They stopped anyone who tried to walk past. The roadblocks were everywhere. On each corner.

After a few days, the killers had decided to murder the Tutsis they caught by the road so that they could take the bodies away quickly. I had even sneaked up to the road one day just after the Genocide began, to see what had been happening there.

I saw bodies. The bodies of my neighbours who I knew well. They were just lying there, where they had been murdered. When I was there a car with killers inside drove past very slowly. My eyes met those of one of the Interahamwe. The killers, who hunted Tutsi like me.

Very slowly and deliberately he said to me ‘We will kill you and kill you until our children will ask us what you Tutsis used to look like.’

It was the last time that I went near to that road. I was so terrified.

But there was a slight chance. There was a glimmer of hope. We had a neighbour, Farouk, who was building some houses on the land next door to us. He was a good family friend and a friend of everyone in the area who just happened to be a Muslim. He said that we could go

and hide in one of the unfinished buildings on his plot. It was a risk for him, but he gave us his room out of his love. That was the only place that we could go to. The killers knew that no one lived in the houses, and we hoped that they wouldn’t go hunting for us there. We were not guaranteed to be safe there, of course.As the days went by the killers searched everywhere, the not-so-obvious places as well as the obvious places. If they found us in those houses, we would die. Farouk would also be a potential victim since he let us stay in his house. But because he had a kind heart, he risked his life for us. We thanked him, as a family, we will forever thank him. No one ever came to the houses, to the refuge we were in. The killers never thought that we would hide there.

The killers were local people. In every area it was the local people who set up and manned the roadblocks. They were our neighbours, we knew them.And they knew us. They knew my family. They knew that I was training to be a nurse, that I had sung on the radio. Even the man who rented the house next door to us was one of those who was on the roadblock. Here they would check the identity cards of everyone who went past.

Having ‘Tutsi’marked on your ID card meant death. The killers were young, middle aged and even older. Some of the killers really hated Tutsi, you could now see that they had a deep hatred that had been there for a long time. Others, like the Interahamwe, were taught to hate, they were brainwashed by the radio and newspapers to think that we were the enemies.

They did what they were told. Others just joined the killers to save

their lives. Others still said that they wouldn’t be part of the killing.

Some Hutus preferred to die with us because they didn’t want to be murderers.

Surviving the early days of the Genocide

The radio announced that everyone should stay indoors and leave our doors unlocked so that the ‘cockroaches’could be found more easily. In those early days of the Genocide, we left the doors open each morning as we left to hide until night. The killers would go into the house, search for us, and then leave unhappy. When darkness came, we could sneak back into the house. My parents would sit on guard, as we slept. They kept watch, looking out for the killers. Early in the morning they would wake us again and we would go to hide. That was how we spent our days.

Water supplies were soon cut off. Food was scarce. Both were dangerous to get. We were lucky because one of my brothers Charles, who was a primary school teacher thirty minutes’drive away in Mugesera, had recently brought us some food which we made last for a week. We also had a garden which had a few vegetables in it.

Ruben, my eldest brother

Before the Genocide, my eldest brother Ruben used to go to the pub and sit with some of the men he knew through his repair shop work. These men were Hutus…and became members of the Interahamwe. They talked in the pub about how they hated Tutsis and how they would kill them one day. Ruben would sit, drink, smoke and listen. He would hear the plans that the Interahamwe men were making. The ha-

tred that they were singing. Ruben too began to make his own plans.

When, in 1990, refugees from the civil war came to our area. They asked the government to replace the identity cards that they had lost. Ruben was so clever. He went and told the government that he was a Hutu refugee, from Byumba, running away from the rebel attacks and in need of an identity card. They gave him one. It said that he was a Hutu. He didn’t tell us any of this at the time, of course. Ruben quietly kept his Hutu identity card, ready for when he would need it.

When the Genocide began. Ruben put his Tutsi identity card to one side and took up his Hutu identity card. Whilst we had to hide, Ruben was able to walk around in the open, making sure that we were safe. The Interahamwe would stop him and check his ID card. Ruben had been seen around our house. They knew we were Tutsi…and yet Ruben’s card said he was a Hutu like them. Cleverly, every time they want to kill him that he is one of us, he told to them that although his mum was a Tutsi, his real father was not the Tutsi man in the house but instead was a Hutu from Byumba. They believed him. It made sense to them. Ruben was completely different to us. He was a drinker,Asmoker. None of us were. He seemed like an outsider to our family. That made sense to the Interahamwe.

Ruben helped many people during the Genocide. Using his skills, he changed people’s identity cards so that they had a chance to run away. Ruben saved many and they loved him for that.

11April

I remember Saturday 11 April 1994 very well.

One morning I pretended that nothing was happening. It was if I was in denial about the Genocide and wanted to believe that everything was ok.

I started to mop the house. Looking back, it was a crazy thing to do. There was such horror all around and there I was cleaning our floor. But it was a way to cope. It reminded me of normality, of the days before the killing started. Maybe, I thought, I could mop away the violence.

I looked up from my mop as my brother Charles came into the room. He always wore the nice jeans which he loved…but that morning he changed them and wore an old pair of jeans. It was as if he knew. He walked out of the house that morning. He went to visit a neighbour’s house to pray with them, which was a habit of his. He came back into the house and found me still mopping.

‘Why are you mopping? We are going to die’he said to me. Charles looked different in his eyes, very scared. Before I could answer him, a man came running from nowhere carrying a gun as if he was chasing and hunting someone. He stopped.

He grabbed my brother Charles, who was right beside me.

The Interahamwe pulled my brother away from me towards the road.

By now, I knew what would happen if you were taken to the road.

I could see my brother begging the man for his life.

Charles was taken on to the road. He was pushed to the ground and then shot twice. Charles made two sounds and then he died. That was the last time I saw my brother Charles. He was a quiet but social, loving brother. He was only twenty.

My brother Ruben went and sold the nice jeans Charles had taken off and then he bought some food with the money. Ruben cooked the food and brought it for us where we were hiding.

Before Charles died, I knew what day it was. I counted the days. I knew the dates:April 6,April 7,April 8 and so on.After Charles was murdered at eleven o’clock, I stopped counting days, or times; there was no point to knowing days as I would be dying anytime.All I could see was night and day, light, and darkness, that’s all.

The killer who took and killed Charles told the other Interahamwe at the roadblock that he was going to back for the sister. He meant me. My cousin Samuel told us.

When he came back to the house, I had gone to tell my parents about what had happened to Charles. I survived that day.

The announcement: I was to be killed the next morning.

The killing became like a job for the men in our area who carried it out. They would meet up and decide who they would hunt that day or the next. Often, they would disagree about who they would kill and argue about it. Once they had reached a decision, they would go out and kill for the day.

Later, after their day of ‘work’they’d meet again, discussing their ex-

ploits that day. Usually, they would drink and get drunk, boasting about what they had done before going home to their families. It soon became ordinary, a routine, to them.

Sometime later, I heard that the killers had talked about me at one of their meetings. They argued amongst themselves: some wanted to keep me alive for a while and use me, but others wanted to kill me immediately. They were convinced that, as I was studying to be a nurse, I survived, I would inject them with water and kill them or that I would marry an Inkotanyi and have children who would become ‘cockroaches’. Their enemies, a threat to them. Eventually, they agreed. They were going to kill me the next day. It was announced to us as a family.

That night, no one slept in our home. That night, we all slept in Farouk’s half-built house, where we normally hid during the daytime.

When dawn came, my mum told us that she would go home. She would stay there so that when the killers came to find me, they would find my mum.And kill her instead of hunting for me. She said goodbye and left us.As she left the room, I started to think. I couldn’t let my mum die for me. I walked out to follow my mum. If she was to die, I wanted to die with her. I told no one else. I left the room where my dad, Dan and Odette were. Mum always carried Baby Nana, that meant Nana was going to be killed too on my behalf. No one would look after the baby. I ran to be with her in the house.

We had left the doors to our house unlocked as ordered by the authorities on the first day of the Genocide.

My mum was in her room, looking out the window for the approach of the local Interahamwe. She turned and saw me. She begged me to leave. Mum was crying, telling me that she does not want to see me die in front of her.

It was the noise of the approaching mob of killers that we heard first. It halted our conversation. I shifted my eyes from my mum as she did for me, and we both looked out the front of our house.Acrowd of people were coming. They carried machetes. They snarled. My eyes, bleary, blinking through my tears could not identify anyone and yet I know that they were people that I knew well. They came closer. They were here. Banging on the door. Shouting my name. Telling us to open the door and let them in. I called back that I would open it.

But the door wouldn’t open. It was stuck. They hammered at the door. It wouldn’t budge.

That very morning, that door when the killers came through, had refused to open, when everyone in the house tried to open it as we were instructed by the government, it was as if someone strong was not allowing the key to open it, we had given up and left it close, but the opposite door was opened wide.

My mum was screaming at me to leave. To run. I don’t know how I got strength to leave my mother and Nana, I forgot the mission to die

with them then I left. Running out the back door as the killers tried to surge into the house from the front.

I went to another neighbour, closest to our house, hoping that the Interahamwe wouldn’t see me.At that moment they were all focusing their rage on the door that wouldn’t open. They were too busy to see me dart from the back of our house.

The neighbours chased me away from their house. They were frightened, telling me that they wouldn’t shelter me.

Desperate, I ran back to where my dad was hiding. I found him. In shock and breathing wildly from my escape, I told him how Mum was now being killed. But she too, miraculously, appeared soon after. She related how she had spoken calmly to the crowd, calling them ‘my children’and telling them to pass through the back door, to search the house. When the killers got in, they asked mum where I was. Mum told them that I wasn’t there but at my uncle’s house, in a place called Gikondo. The killers asked her why she stayed, why she hadn’t run away. ‘Why should I?’Mum told them. They left her. Untouched. We all survived that day.

Escaping the pit

Our route to our hiding place was along a path. It was also a path that the killers used. It ran up to a big pit where they would take people to kill or throw them or dead bodies of the people that they killed.

One day, on my way to my hiding place, I met them. They were

‘working’and told me to go to the pit with them. They were going to kill me. I joined a line of people who they had caught and were leading to the pit. They went about their ‘work’, chopping and cutting people in the line. I looked down, not wanting to watch but also accepting that this was my time to die.

Soon, I was next to be thrown into the pit. I knew what was going to happen. They would hit people once or twice with the machete and then throw them into the pit. Many people went into the pits still alive. I knew that it was going to happen to me.

One of the killers swung his machete into my leg.

I fell. I waited for the hands of the killers to come to push me into the pit.At that moment a miracle happened: Someone behind me supposed to be the next after me, he ran. He ran for his life.All the killers went after him, and it gave me my chance. I was able to escape. I don’t know what happened to the man who ran. I never saw him again.

We hid like that for about a month. We slept in our house at night… and hid in our neighbour’s unfinished house during the day. I hadn’t been able to wash myself for that whole month. The water supply in our area had been cut off the day after the Genocide began.

Rescued…by a killer.

I learned later that it was May 9. The day that the killers decided that our whole family would be killed.At their meeting the night before the killers, whilst casually drinking their beers, decided that they would open the pit near to our house, murder us and throw our bodies in.

One of the men listening to the meeting, who had a Tutsi wife, decided that he would not let me die. Later I found out that he was a friend of Ruben, my brother. So, this man, who had killed lots of other Tutsi in the days beforehand came and took me, keeping me in his house that night.

Protecting me.

For some reason he didn’t want me to die with my family that day. He put me in one of his rooms, gave me food and told me not to leave or show my face outside. I wasn’t certain what he was going to do, or if he would kill me later.

For that day, though, I was safe and remained alive.And the next. I can’t remember how many days I was in the killer’s house but soon I knew that I couldn’t remain. I needed to get home. To be with my family.

One morning, probably a few days later, the husband left for ‘work’, as usual. ‘Work’meant killing Tutsis. Soon, I thought, he would kill me. It was easy to leave the house – as I was a ‘guest’, my room wasn’t locked, and I was able to sneak out.

Saying goodbye to my Dad

I crept out...and home.As I neared our house, I saw my brother Dani outside and my father standing on the doorstep.

Sometime beforehand the killers had dug a pit near to my house – they had prepared for this day.As I slowly approached, I could see one of the killers bending over the pit, removing corrugated iron sheets that had been used to cover it, to stop their children from falling in. Dani, my younger brother, looked up in my direction and saw me coming. He knew that he couldn’t call my name…so instead he gave me a sign. I remember very clearly him drawing his hand across his neck and then waving me away.

Without any words I understood very well what he wanted me to know: my family was going to be killed and I should stay away. Nevertheless, I couldn’t just walk away. I needed to say goodbye in some way.

So, I quietly and slowly walked up to my dad. The killers were too busy with opening the pit and preparing for the murders that they were about to commit to notice.

My Dad saw me. Calmly, he laid his hand on my head like he always had done when I was small. He was a religious man, and he was blessing me. He whispered some words.

Quietly. So quietly that I wasn’t sure what he was saying, but I knew that he was saying his farewell to me and praying for me. I could feel my eyes fill with tears.

Dad then told me to go and pushed me away.

I remember him quickly giving me the telephone number of my brother-in-law (called Chadrack) who helped my brotherAmon, Charleston

and sister Emma to escape. My Dad told me to call him if I happened to survive.

That would be the last moments that I would spend with my Dad. My wonderful Dad who had loved me and done so much for me. Who wanted me to learn and have a future of my own making. Here, at the end, he was still thinking about me.

I walked away. Numb. Wanting to turn back to be with my dad but knowing what would happen if I did. I kept going, not even daring to turn and try to grab a last glance.

I think that I knew what I would see, and I didn’t want that to be the last memory of my Dad.

Another miracle:At the roadblock

As I walked away, I noticed that my older brother, Ruben, was there. I talked to him briefly and quickly.

It looked like my family had thought of a way out for me. They had prepared a fake identity card for me, which said that I was a Hutu, rather than a Tutsi. The identity card belonged to one of my friends, Jeane. She was the sister-in-law of Faruk who had allowed us to hide in his half-built house. Ruben had placed my photograph on it and handed it over to me. I carried it with me. Remember that I had left my ID at school because I did not want to be identified on the way going home.

Ruben had also discovered that Tutsis had gathered at a big church, St Paul’s Cathedral. He had taken my mum and nana there, the church was little further into the city of Kigali. It seemed to be a place where

I might be safer. It would certainly be better than trying to hide around our home now that the killers had come. The problem was that St Paul’s was a long walk away…and the road to it was swarming with killers and their roadblockers.At these roadblockers, the men with their machetes, clubs, and rifles stopped everyone and checked their identity cards.Anyone who had a card marked ‘Tutsi’was taken to one side and killed. Even pretending to have lost a card did not convince the killers. They just assumed that it was a trick and murdered anyone who couldn’t show them a card.

My mum had already shaved my hair to make me blend in more with the ordinary Hutus and less likely to stand out and get noticed. Normally, my hair had been a magnificent mass of silky curls…but now I couldn’t afford to have people look my way. I took a piece of cloth and covered my head.Another piece I used to wrap around my waist. Ruben wisely told me that I needed a convincing story to tell anyone who asked why I was on the streets.

The government had ordered everyone to stay in their houses unless they had a really important reason to travel. My brother thought that I could pretend to be on the street to collect water. The place where locals went to get their water for washing, cleaning and cooking was some way away – it would give me an excuse to be away from home if anyone asked me. The problem was that, to be convincing, I needed to carry something to collect the water in. Going empty handed would be a sure giveaway. Ruben asked me if I could carry a ‘jerrycan’, the plastic container that everyone used to bring the water home in. Each

one carried about ten litres. I’d never carried one before and it was too heavy. Even trying to carry a half one that we had on my head was too much - my legs buckled even after just one step of practice. Ruben came up with Plan B: instead of collecting water my story would be that I was out to gather food. The Hutus in our neighbourhood were allowed out to get supplies and I would try to join them, blending in as best I could. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was the best we could come up with.

I set off on the road to St Paul’s holding an empty sack in my hand. Ruben walked ahead, trying to spot danger and see where the roadblocks were. Behind me came Francois, a friend of the family who was risking his life to help me. We walked slowly and deliberately, but not so cautiously that our slow pace would give us away. I matched Ruben’s pace: sometimes we walked quicker to move swiftly past a killer on the side of the road, or slower to avoid up catching up with a group of Hutus who might recognise me and give me away. Occasionally, Ruben would take us down a side road, trying to skirt round a roadblock that he had spotted ahead. Sometimes we had no choice: a roadblock could not be avoided.

At any point I could be discovered. Cleverly, Ruben ensured that we now did catch up with a crowd as they presented their identity cards to the killers checking them. With so many people the killer would perhaps glance with a little less care at the crude forgery that I had in my hand. It worked once. Then again.

At a third roadblock I was told to stop. Ruben had to move away to

avoid looking suspicious. I thought I was finished…but the thug at the roadblock was obviously tired of killing for the day and told us to get up and move on, confident that other killers up the road would do his work for him.

We walked on. Up a hill and through a house-lined area. We were getting towards St Paul’s. Onto a main road. The next roadblock came into view. Because it was on a main road it was a big one.As it was the last one before the centre of the city the killers here felt enough responsibility to look carefully at each identity card. There was no way round. No way to use a side road to get past it. It was late morning when I arrived at this last roadblock. In a way I was lucky. The stronger, sharper killers had gone for their break. The killers were doing their ‘work’. They had a time to start and a time to finish. They had time for breaks.All organised.

Only three killers were now on duty.

Two of them stood. Checking identity cards. One was quiet, not talking. He just stood and stared menacingly at people, obviously trying to figure out who in the crowd might be a Tutsi. The other was loud and demanding.Aggressively checking, carefully looking at the photograph on the card and then slowly shifting his gaze up to the face of the person who nervously presented their ID for inspection. The third man sat on a chair. He dozed…with a rifle on his lap.

I joined the queue of people showing their identity cards. Suddenly the aggressive one shouted to the crowd. ‘Everyone, move on…. except her.’

He pointed at me.

He called me over.

‘Show me your ID’he said.

I showed him the ID that Reuben had made for me.

He looked at it.

He looked at it carefully. Painfully slowly.

Then his eyes shifted from the card and settled on me, challenging me.

‘If you can lie about your ID, can you lie about who you are? Why are you trying to lie?’he spat. Look at this hutu, he said, pressing my shoulders.

Even though the killer had told everyone to go, my brother Ruben had stayed close.

He came nearer.

The killer asked Ruben ‘Look, look at this ID. Can you see that she’s changed it?’

Ruben replied, defensively ‘No, I don’t think that she’s changed it.’

The man then turned-on Ruben snarling ‘You are with her! I am going to kill you as well.’

Ruben backed away a little but didn’t go far.

Meanwhile, the killer turned back to me and snarled ‘If only they hadn’t taken my gun. I could finish you now.’

He looked over to the dozing man on the chair, the one with the gun on his lap.

He quickly asked, ‘Can you finish this girl for me?’

The killer was talking to the dozing man, almost like one worker would talk to another, asking for a favour.

Slowly, weakly, the man rose from his chair and came over. He pushed

me away and began raising his gun, loading it as he did so.

I knew this was the end.

I said a prayer, knowing that the words would be the last words I would say. I didn’t pray for my life…but instead I asked God that I believed in to accept me into His kingdom. It was important to me. I prayed quickly so that I could finish it before I was killed.

The gun was now pointing at me, level with my face. I stared blankly as the dozing man’s finger almost lazily began to pull the trigger. Then another miracle happened.

After my prayer I felt numb, I felt frozen, it was as if that bullet went through me, I was not going to feel it, for what I thought would be the last time…and in slow motion I saw the bullet falling to the floor instead of through me.

Right in front of me.

The gun had misfired. I remember seeing the killer painfully bending down to pick the bullet up from the ground.

That’s all I remember. It was as if my ears had filled with water, as everything went quiet. I stopped seeing anything or anyone and yet there was a crowd of people looking, waiting to see what was going to happen.

Later, my brother told me that at that moment the killers covered my face with a cloth. They thought that I had magical powers that had stopped the bullet! They were intending to kill me not with bullets that I could stop but with machetes instead. Ruben stepped forward and started to talk with the killers, offering them money for my life.

I saw none of this. I was in a dream.

During that dream, it was as if I don’t exist, in my mind, I saw a figure

come from the sky and land behind where the crowd was standing. The man was not very tall, and he was dressed like a soldier: his trousers was the soldier uniform that I used to see, his shirt brown and cream…but this was not a soldier’s uniform, he had no soldier’s hat nor a gun. He walked slowly and evenly, crossed the road (before the crowd filled up the road) and came towards me. There must have been a lot of noise from the crowd at the roadblock, watching what was happening but, at that moment, I heard nothing. I was calm. And where this man came from there is no path up today.

The man approached me, touched me gently on the right shoulder and quietly said in Kinyarwanda ‘Ntabwo upfa kuko waririmbye “Yobu”’. It meant ‘you will not die because you sang about the story of Job’. He did not repeat these words. He then took a few steps to the other side.

My eyes followed him as he moved, and I saw him opening a book that looked like a Bible. I thought he was a person who came to save me, but no one else saw him or heard him up today. His voice was so clear to me but everyone else I have spoken to since, who was there that day, says they saw no one (My brother Ruben, his friend Francois). What he said was so real, so personal to me and he appeared at a moment when I was convinced that I would die.

Then my eyes came off him. I heard my ears being unblocked as if they were full of water; I started hearing the voices of the crowd around me again. Then my eyes returned me to the scene in front of me. The first person who I saw was the man who checked my ID who

wanted me to be killed quickly, he stood right in front of me.

By now his tone had changed.

He softly and even kindly said ‘Don’t worry, we are not going to kill you.’He told me to go back the way I had come from, to go home. Immediately, another voice whispered through my ears that if I go back, I will go into the pit that I left opening for us to go in. There was no way that I would go back. I had come too far to do that. I told the killer that I would go ahead.

When Ruben saw them covering my eyes, he quickly went to negotiate for my life. He gave the killers two hundred francs (about the same as 20p!) to allow me to go.

From there to St Paul’s Cathedral was a strangely quiet journey. There were no more roadblocks. From this spot my brother, his friend and I walked freely on the road. We were now in another neighbourhood in Kigali – a place called Gakinjiro.After a forty-five-minute walk we made it to my sister Ruth’s house near Kanogo. There weren’t any more roadblocks or roaming gangs of killers for us to escape from - I cannot tell you why there were none. We found Ruth alone and waiting to die. She had sent all her five children (Ndiki, Josue, Joselyn, Damascene and Fillette together with my other elder sister Rose) to St Paul’s and did not allow me to stay with her. She was convinced that death was coming for her. She immediately told me to go and join the others at St Paul’s.

I left. Close to St Paul’s there was a government soldier in uniform. Yet even

he allowed me to pass and go into the Cathedral. I thought it was strange at the time, but it was only later that I realised what was happening. Tutsis were being encouraged to group together in the Church. It made it easier to kill us.

Ruben had risked so much to save me. If he had been caught helping me the killers would have murdered him there and there. I needed to thank him. I had one precious thing that would tell Ruben how grateful I was. My brotherAmon had sent me a gold watch as a graduation gift. I now gave it to Ruben. To say ‘thank you’.

Ruben and his friend Francois, retraced the steps that we had taken to the roadblock. When they went back to our home, they made a terrible discovery: my father, my younger brother Dani and Odette (Ruben’s daughter who lived with us) had all been murdered and thrown into the pit that the killers had prepared. They had been murdered as soon as we had left. Their bodies were tossed inside the pit that the killers had dug next to our house. The pit had been dug so deep that the killers had trouble filling it. They went into our house and took furniture and threw tables and chairs on top of the bodies of my family to try and fill the pit up. My family’s bodies were treated like rubbish. Just thrown away by those people who didn’t care that they were my loved ones. I should have been in the pit with them. I should have died at the roadblock. It was a miracle that I had survived.

The discovery that Ruben met at the pit changed him. He had been so important to all of us surviving up until then. So brave and strong. But

this was too much for him. He thought that all his efforts had been in vain and his will to survive deserted him. Ruben went back to join my sister Ruth and to wait to be discovered and to be killed.

At St Paul’s

By this time, I didn’t know what the date was or even what day it was. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if it wasApril or May or June by then. I was lost in a world where time had lost meaning.Afew minutes like those at the roadblock somehow seemed to stretch on and on. Other days I cannot remember what happened at all when we were hiding.

My sister had sent her children to the cathedral but had stayed behind at their house. I have never found out why she stayed behind. When I arrived at her home, she told me that I couldn’t stay and that I should go to St Paul’s too.

When I reached the cathedral, I had nothing with me apart from the dress that I stood up in, a large piece of cloth wrapped around my waist and another covering my head, and a pair of shoes: those were my only belongings.

I did now have a glimmer of hope. Maybe I would survive after all. Miraculously, I met my Mum, baby Nana and my sister Ruth’s five children. My older sister Rose was also there too. We were like a family again. Every day the wonderful, wonderful priest cooked oat porridge but because we were many not everyone had something. If we happened to eat, we would not get enough; it is so hard to explain how the hunger wasn’t a problem, up to this day, years afterwards, when I eat oat porridge I am transported back to the Cathedral and the sense

of hope that I felt there.

The church was full of Tutsis like us, sheltering from the killers outside; the statistic says today that we were two and a half thousand. The building had a huge central hall, which had been used for the religious services before the Genocide. To the side of the hall there were smaller rooms which were given to families to stay in. We were one of those lucky families. Each night we could settle in our small room as a family. Each night I lay on the stone floor, wrapped the piece of cloth around me and tried to sleep. Despite everything that we had been through I now had some hope. It was a small thing but being back with my mother and having a room gave us a sense of safety. The walls of the cathedral were thick. It felt like we might survive. Having no food, no water, it was no longer a problem. The problem was that every day Interahamwe came to collect a good number of Tutsi and they never came back; it was a routine, we had not where else to go, we awaited death.

The cathedral was in an area controlled by the Interahamwe. They could come and go as they pleased. Every time they came, they told the priest that everyone would come out of their rooms and show themselves in the main hall.And they instructed that, if anyone was found hiding, they were to be taken away before anyone else. Never to be seen again. The killers wanted everyone lined up so that they could see their faces clearly. They said, ‘search for our enemies’. Who were their enemies? Everyone in the church was a Tutsi…and the killers said that all Tutsi were their enemies. It didn’t make sense. Each day that we were there the killers came. They walked round to the circle

looking at us, picking the unlucky ones who they selected and took away. There was nothing that people could do, and most did nothing. They simply stood, accepted their fate, and followed the killers outside the cathedral. Some days fifty people were selected. The next day it might be seventy or a hundred…We knew that luck was the only reason why we survived from day to day. Today we survived, tomorrow we might not. Some men didn’t want the slow, inevitable death. They said that if they were selected, they would run…and either escape by a miracle or be shot by the killers and die quickly. The cruel game that the killers openly played went on from day to day. Until one day they came and said that they were tired of playing and that they were going to kill us all.

‘Tomorrow, we will kill you all’.

‘After taking a good number, they declared, ‘be ready. Tomorrow we will come and put bombs in every corner of the hall, and we will burn you all at the same time’.

We knew that the same thing had happened all around Rwanda, that Tutsis had been gathered in churches and murdered. It seemed that our turn had come and that we’d be next. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run away. The safe place that we thought the cathedral was, was an illusion. It was a mirage, not a miracle. That last day we just walked around, saying goodbye to each other. That last night we couldn’t sleep – how could we when we knew what awaited us the next morning?

It was maybe at two or three o’clock in the morning that we heard shooting. We had no idea what was going on, we just assumed that it

was the killers practising and getting ready to massacre us later in the morning. Two hours later, a group of people with guns came into the church. It was still dark. They moved around everywhere, ordering everyone to leave. They spoke Kinyarwanda and also in Swahili (a language of eastAfrica which we understood). It was strange. Now they were telling us to leave when they had told us just a few hours before that they would kill us inside the church. Why had they changed their minds? But we obeyed as always. My family group –my mother, sister Rose and all 6 grand children - got out together and followed. Not all of us left, though. Some did not, thinking they were going to be killed from outside. But some of us had no choice. The men told us to line up in single file. One long line. Then the men with guns positioned themselves on each side of us, spaced out along the line that we had formed. Was this the way that they were going to execute us? I thought that this was how I would die, outside the church. Instead, the line began to move. We had no idea where we were going. We just followed the person in front of us in the darkness: we couldn’t see the beginning of the line, where we were headed or the end of the line behind us.

At five o’clock the fingers of dawn began to reach out for us. The light began to creep into the sky. Now I could see the men with guns who stood beside us more clearly. They looked strange. They didn’t look like the killers who I had grown so used to seeing around. I couldn’t say why precisely but they just looked different. Then I heard someone say, ‘You know, these are Inkotanyi!’(Rebel soldiers from the Rwandan Patriotic Front). When I heard this, I instinctively reached out and took the hand of the soldier next to me. Inkotanyi meant they

were good people.

As dawn broke, the killers woke up and realised that their prey was escaping. They began to fire…and so we ran. The soldier told me to let go of his hand so that we could run faster. We were still in the area controlled by the killers, and we had to move fast. I let go of his hand even though I didn’t want to. It felt like I was letting go of safety, but I did.

I ran with the rest.At this moment, my family had been scattered since it was dark. I did not know about others, but I was not a human being. I was moving but not feeling myself; the shock that came with all that I had been through, it was as if something else was moving my body. I cannot tell you if I ever felt hungry or thirsty.

As we were running, The Interahamwe started to shoot us; many people were so weak they collapsed on the way and were left behind. They couldn’t keep up. My Mum was amongst them. Others were hit by bullets that were being fired by the killers. Some of those left behind decided to return to St Paul’s…but my Mum decided to keep going, even though she could only move slowly. The bullets from the Interahamwe kept coming.Aneighbour she was walking with was shot. She died…but my Mum was able to keep going away from St Paul’s.

The Inkotanyi tried to save as many of those who couldn’t run as they could and some of the soldiers stayed behind to try to rescue them.

Reaching the hill

Those who had the strength arrived on a hill. I looked around and saw that my mum wasn’t amongst those who made it. She hadn’t made it.

The soldiers sat us down…and told us that we had survived, that there were no killers around.

I couldn’t quite believe it.

Was this a trick? Would we die here? Gradually, as the light of the day began to reach us, so I realised that I had survived.

I felt so good. For a moment.

Then I turned my eyes towards the city. It was still mostly dark. It looked ugly…but I felt sorry for those that I had left there. Many I would never see again.

I reached the hill with my elder sister’s children. Six of them. For a time, I was the mother of all the children since I was the eldest amongst them. I carried my nieces and nephews towards some empty homes in the distance where survivors were being sheltered.As we slowly picked our way along the road, we passed empty houses on either side of us. What had been homes were now just abandoned houses. Peering in, I could see clothes on the floor. My nieces and nephews’clothes were, by this time, just rags. Torn and dirty. So, I went into the abandoned houses to get clothes for them. After so long of hiding, being hunted and seeing everything that I had seen it felt normal to pick through the belongings of a stranger who may have been alive or dead.At that moment, I did not give them a second thought. The extraordinary had become normal. There were taps that still worked and so we drank their water. I used my small hands to collect water for my 2-year-old nephew who used to drink milk, now unboiled water. There were ripe bananas in the garden and so we started

picking them to eat.

We stayed in the houses that the soldiers of RPF directed us to for a few days. Not believing that, for us, the Genocide was over and that we were safe. It was after two days that my eldest sister Rose and my mother arrived, and we were reunited with them. I had thought that I had lost both my parents. I cannot describe the moment when I saw Mum coming towards me.Alive.

My Mum’s survival

How had my mum made it through alive?

My mum went to St Paul’s before me, taking with her Emma’s son, Nana.

After the day when she had confronted the killers at our house, Dad knew that she probably wouldn’t be able to survive the ordeal of constantly running and hiding. So, they decided that Mum should try to get to St. Paul’s just as I would later. Ruben, who would help me get to the Cathedral, first guided Mum on her journey to the church where Tutsis were gathering together.

When the RPF came to rescue us, we ran and left Mum behind with other weak and old people. They were at risk of being killed by Interahamwe. The group Mum was with were paralysed by indecision. Should they go back to St Paul’s and face being murdered by the Interahamwe…or should they try to go up the hill again, into the shooting. Mum was alone and tired.All she carried a book which she carried everywhere she went. It was a Bible that my Dad had given her as a gift…just in case they didn’t meet again.

One person in the group saw Mum was holding the Bible…and decided that she should be the one to decide where they should all go.

‘We should move on, not back’mum answered to them. They moved on. Up the hill. Some were killed on the way, by the bullets that the Interahamwe fired. Mum made it. Those who remained in St Paul’s were all killed the next day.

The refugee camps. What I thought was left of my family was reunited when Mum and Rose arrived at the camp. The RPF soldiers asked for anyone who could help care for the many sick and wounded who they had rescued. As I was a nursing student, I volunteered my services. It no longer worried me that I didn’t know where I was going. It didn’t seem to matter. Three men came to collect me. Two doctors and their assistant in a pickup truck. I remember two of them, Emmanuel and Gedeon. I sat in the back, carrying a plastic bag with the few belongings that I owned in the whole world. Inside the bag was a dress that I had found on my walk to the abandoned houses.

We drove on. From the back of the truck, I was able to see what had happened to neighbourhood after neighbourhood. For so long I had been hiding, not knowing what had happened outside the small area around our house. Now I could see what the Genocide had meant in other places. It looked like it had meant the same as it had for us.

Burnt and looted houses. Belongings that represented lives littering garden paths, roads, and waste ground. Some bodies could be found, by now I was numb to it.

I arrived at a house and was shown to a room by the assistant, who I now knew to call Emmanuel. I was still full of fear and worry and shock. All I needed was peace around me, and maybe a little hope. There were five other girls in the house that I was taken to. They looked human: healthier, dressed in more than rags, their hair brushed. They gave me something to eat, they showed me my room. When I saw a bed, I had a hope of life again. I laid in that bed till morning. I slept in the clothes that I had worn sinceApril 6. When I woke, the next day, I was able to think, free of the fear that I had felt every morning since the Genocide began. I showered. It was the first time that I had washed since the Genocide began. I was covered in the layers of dirt and fear that had collected on me since the killing began. I looked human again. I’m not sure that I felt human. I was surprised when, coming from the shower room, a towel around me, one of the girls screamed saying: “come and see! the girl is beautiful!” They all came out to look at me, they all sympathised with me, I started wondering how I looked when they first saw me.

I started going to work. I was helping the doctors with their operations, stitching up injured soldiers. I was able to help treat people injured in the Genocide. It helped to keep me busy and not to think about what had happened over the previous weeks. However, it did not stop me seeing what had been done to the people I helped to treat at the refugee camp. Horrendous, horrific injuries. Many people made it to the refugee camp and out of the clutches of the killers…only to die there.At least the last faces they saw were friendly and caring. I can’t forget the many children who were put in one room because

they had lost their parents. In the morning, as care workers we would go round and check on the children. Some would die during the night. It was such a terrible experience.

Going back home to see if anyone survived.

One of the doctors who I helped, was Gideon. He arranged for me to see whether your family were still alive. He asked me what I wanted to take for my family just in case they had survived. My Dad always loved tea…and I desperately wanted him to have a nice cup of tea again. So, I asked Gideon if he could find me some tea and milk to take back to my home. Gideon arranged a car to take me and soldiers to escort me – it still wasn’t completely safe, and killers still roamed the neighbourhood.

We drove back across Kigali. As we approached my house the first thing that I saw was the pit. Stood by the pit was the old woman who I had dreamt about just before the killing erupted. She rushed to me as I got out of the car.

‘What are you doing here?’she asked.

‘I’m coming to find my family.’I replied. She reached for my hand…and led me to the pit. Slowly, gently, she said ‘They are in here.’

The pit was still open.

I collapsed.

Gideon, the doctor, and the soldiers carried me back to the car that we had arrived in. They waited until I regained consciousness. They didn’t let me go back to look into the pit again.

Part Three:After the Genocide

These are the memories that I have from my life after the Genocide. My life had been turned upside down.

I have some pictures from my life after the Genocide to show you. Despite everything I now have a wonderful family to celebrate birthdays and important events with.

I now have memories of the past and now hopes and dreams for the future.

Back to school…but not back to normal

Afew weeks later the new government called for those who were in the final of school to finish the year. The country was recaptured on July 4 and seemed to recover so quickly. Within five months the country was organising itself again. I was able to go back to school, to revise and to do my final exams. I went to a different school, not far from Kigali for about three months before I did my final exams. Of course, I did not have any of my books – they had all been destroyed. All I had was my brain and determination. I did well and passed with high grades. So, finding a job wasn’t difficult because I had good marks: I was able to find work in the intensive care unit of an international hospital which was the only good one, working at the time in the capital city of Kigali. I worked there for a year.

During the time that I was working at the hospital, I was recovering from all that I had experienced. I was living with my Mum in Kigali. She had a little business selling milk. My Mum used to serve everyone who came to her shop whether they had money or not. There was one good person, Joseph, who used to bring free milk every day for mum to keep giving away. (I met a woman recently who knew my mother but whom I did not know. She asked me how my mum was, and I told her that mum passed away recently. She cried saying that when she was living in Kigali, when she felt hungry, she went to my mum’s shop to drink free milk. And when mum gave her milk, she filled the glass to the very top, not an inch left). Unsurprisingly, Mum’s shop had customers all the time.

On the surface everything seemed ok.

However, underneath, the trauma of the Genocide affected me greatly. I was always thinking about what had happened and always coming across families who had lost their children or people who had lost all of their family during the killing.

I began to fear that even if I got married and had children, I could lose them if another Genocide happened. So, I decided not to get married. I would stay on my own and not have children. If anyone asked me to marry them, I would refuse.

I had no idea of my future.

I was sure that the Genocide would return. I was scared. Eventually, it all got too much, and I decided that I had to find a way to leave Rwanda to try to leave all the memories of the Genocide be-

hind. It just so happened that one of my brothers Manasse was studying in India at the time. He told me that I could find a place there… and so I went.

Running away to India

When I grew up, I never dreamt that I would fly in an aeroplane or live abroad. Then, after the Genocide, I was sitting with my sister-inlaw, the wife of my brother who was studying in India. Her name was the same as mine – Sophie. We were chatting, chatting…and then I looked up and saw an aeroplane in the sky. It was passing by, on its way to another world, far away from me. It was another reality, and I could never dream of stepping inside an aeroplane and flying away, as I told my sister-in-law. She immediately told me that, one day, she would make sure that I found myself inside that aeroplane. She had come back from India for a holiday. I thought that she was joking with me but, when she went back to India, my brother sent a letter telling me that I should go to study there.

After the Genocide I had no hope. My world had been destroyed, my family torn apart and so many of my loved ones had been killed. There was no bright light of hope on the horizon – I had no dreams of the future. Then the letter came from my brother, telling me that I should join him and his wife in India, to study. I had no idea what I should or could study. I had given up on my dreams of becoming a nurse because of what had happened to me in the Genocide. The killers had told me that they wanted to murder me because I was a nurse, telling me that I would kill them with injections of poisons. That had put me

off wanting to pursue my dream: why should I train to do something that people would kill me for doing? It scared me out of wanting to be a nurse even after the Genocide had ended. But there was something that told me that I should go.After the Genocide there were many men who were telling me to marry them, the pressure on me was building to do what I didn’t want to do. Going to India would be a way to escape from that unwanted attention. So, I ran away from the men who were pressuring me. I ran away to India. I remember the moment I got on the plane. I turned, looked back and thought, ‘bye bye - I will never come back’. But there was a plan for me somewhere.

Harreld’s promise

When I arrived in India, within three months everything changed. I began to study again, feeling that being in a new country where nobody knew me gave me a chance to do new things. Being in India meant that I was far away from the killers and far away from their words that stopped me from wanting to be a nurse. Still, something stopped me from enrolling for nursing training. Instead, I took classes to be a health and social worker. It was similar to being a nurse…but I would not be called a nurse. The nightmare of the killers’words still rang in my mind: if I wasn’t a nurse then nobody would want to kill me.

I also met a wonderful person who came to love me. No matter how much I told him that I was not a person to marry, that I had survived a terrible ordeal and that I had lost many of my family. I told him that if he married me, he would marry a nobody. Yet, he wanted to know me

as the person I was. He knew that I was traumatised by the Genocide and by the thought of the people that I had lost. In fact, he told me that he wanted to be the brothers that I had lost, the dad that I had lost. His promise changed things for me. I would never forget the ones who I loved who were murdered in the Genocide…but he would be the future for me. We got married.

England

Two years later, I arrived in England, joining my husband who was working here. I found work as a health support worker since it was an area in which I could be comfortable working, looking after a disabled girl and working with nurses as part of a team.As time moved on, I was given more responsibilities, but I still wasn’t a fully qualified nurse. I slowly got used to working with the nurses and doing more and more of the tasks that they did.

The fear in my mind ever so slowly began to recede. The killers in the Genocide had told me that they wanted me dead because I was a Tutsi nurse and ever since I had run away from any thought of it. Now, surrounded by nurses, I was gradually beginning to think that I could be free of that hatred and fear. One day, I was rushing down a high street when, quite by chance, I saw an advert in a building window offering support to help adults to go back to study. Then I remembered my Dad’s words: My daughter, one day she will go to school. I went in. My choice was to study social work, but, when the lady in the office learnt that my background was in nursing, she immediately told me that nurses were needed in England. I signed up to the course and all

went well; I was given an admission to study in London at City University.

It was a tough journey. My English wasn’t great. By that time, I had three young children who I was being a mum to. Many people were dropping out of the course. Yet, I continued. I passed the course. It wasn’t easy but I got through.

Years before my Mum and Dad had fought to get me into a nursing school when the Hutu government had stopped me from continuing my education because I was a Tutsi. Now, I would defy that hatred and discrimination. I would achieve what my Mum and Dad had wanted for me.

Telling my story at university.

My tutor recognised that I had battled hard, that I had been determined and had persevered…and asked me to talk to the next group of students on the course to tell them how I had managed to get through. I was really worried about talking to a room full of people and didn’t really know what to say. I had no idea how I would even introduce myself to them. In the end I decided to start with exactly who I was.

“Hello”, I began, “I am Sophie, and I am a survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.”

It all went from there. They asked me about what had happened and how I had survived. I told them my story. I saw the faces of the students who listened to me. They had probably never heard anything like it. Some were shocked, some were sad, some maybe saw me in a

different light from when they had seen me walk into the room that day.All of them had a reaction to what I had said.At that moment, I realised that what I had told them had made a difference, had had an impact. From that day, I decided that I needed to speak about what had happened to me in 1994. People needed to know. It had taken me fifteen years to speak about the Genocide and what had happened to me and my family.

Telling my story has helped me deal with the post genocide effects, strengthened my spirit of forgiveness & reconciliation, and empowered me to move on with my newfound life.

The first time I went back to Rwanda.

When I had left Rwanda, as I got on the plane, I turned and promised to myself that I would never return. Yet here I was.

I was as surprised as anyone. It was my husband, Harreld, who first came up with the idea. He knew that he wouldn’t have been able to persuade me…and so he just went ahead and bought the tickets.As he handed them to me, he said, ‘you need to go and see your family again, you need to see your Mum.’There was nothing that I could say to that.

There was a big group of people waiting to greet us in Rwanda. I could see my Mum there, smiling her biggest smile. She thought that she would never see me again. It was lovely to see so many people that I knew and who I had missed. But as I looked around the people standing there, I also thought of those who weren’t there, those who were missing from the group. I wished that my dad could have been there. He had longed to see me with a family. Here I was, with my

husband and our first child…and my dad wasn’t there. There were so many empty spaces.

As I went around our neighbourhood back in Rwanda, I met some of those who I knew had been involved in the killing. It was strange to see some of those who probably helped to kill members of my family. My loved ones. But I had vowed that I would not succumb to hate like the killers had done in 1994. I promised that I would not be eaten up by bitterness and bad feelings. That would be a victory for hatred. I didn’t want that to happen. My Dad had always taught us not to hate, not to want revenge…and so I made a promise to him, as I went around and saw the killers that I would not hate. I just saw the killers as any other ordinary person.

Mum and Dad

For ten years after the Genocide, I refused to totally believe that my dad was dead. Because I hadn’t seen him being killed, I tried to convince myself that maybe, just maybe, he had somehow survived and was still alive somewhere. Hiding.

But when I went back to Rwanda even that last hope evaporated. The new government announced that if anyone knew where their loved ones were killed, they would be allowed to find their remains and bury them respectfully. It was something that my family wanted to do; however painful it would be.

The pit outside our house was opened. It was so deep that it was dug for a week from Sunday to Friday. Their remains were found after six days.

We found my Dad’s jacket. I knew it was his – he always wanted to

look smart. We found his glasses and his ID in the pocket. Now I believed that he was gone.

My Dad, my brother Dani and my niece Odetta were respectfully taken from the pit and buried at the Genocide Memorial at Gisozi in Kigali.

My Mum lived on. Still was grieving and still in pain but still alive. Ever since the Genocide she was constantly bothered by her wrist. It was clearly causing her pain…but she always refused to have it seen to. Years later, me and my surviving brothers and sisters were able to pay for her to fly to Belgium to be treated for an illness. We said that it might be a good time to have the doctors look at her wrist.Again, she refused…but, finally, she told us the reason for her stubbornness. Mum told us that one day during the Genocide she had been running from the killers.As they were chasing her, she tripped and fell, landing on her wrist. It was fractured. She was able to get up and run. It was, she said, the same day that Charles was murdered. From that day onwards, Mum vowed never to have her fractured wrist treated. She promised to forever carry the pain as a reminder of Charles and his murder. Once she had told us, she asked that we never talk of it again. Mum carried her pain, as she vowed, until she died in 2020. That is how much mum loved Charles.

Ruben

After the Genocide Ruben reunited with my Mum. He was traumatised by the Genocide. Every time I speak to him about the Genocide, tears come to Ruben.

Ruben had cleverly got hold of an identity card that said that he was a

Hutu and had persuaded the Interahamwe that he wasn’t a Tutsi. Because he was able to freely move around, he saw so many things that have haunted him since. He suffered because he put himself into harm’s way and tried to help people survive. Every day was a trial for him.

Whenever I speak to him, I try not ask him about the Genocide. I know the impact it has on him. He lost his wife, Rachel, his children, Odette and Emmanuel. Every day reminds him of them.

Singing today

Thirty years have now gone by since the Genocide. Yet I think about it every single day.

I still dream about what happened in 1994.

Some things still scare me.

Recently, a lady was murdered by a boy with a gun just down the road from where I live with my family. Just reading the report about what happened took me back to the Genocide. The killer forced his way into the lady’s house and took her life. Just like the killers did so many times in our neighbourhood and all-around Rwanda. I’ve also seen lots of stories about young men with machetes and knives on the streets of London and Birmingham and Manchester. Just like the killers walked on the streets of Kigali three decades ago.

Those things scare me. They take me back to the one hundred days of Genocide in Kigali. Those nightmarish times. But I’m not a prisoner of 1994.

I have a wonderful family. My husband Harreld has given such a

depth of love and purpose to my life. My three beautiful daughters, Marigold, Marietta, and Marilene fill me with pride and happiness every day.

I have a career too: I work as a registered nurse in London. Helping others. The killers in Kigali were frightened of me because I wanted to be a nurse. I am now that nurse that they so feared. I was so proud to graduate from City University in London and today I am studying for an advanced degree.

…and I still sing.

I sing at home, I sing in the street, I sing with my neighbours, I sing to the songs on the radio, I love singing in Church, I sing with my daughters today like I did with them on the way to their schools. I sing songs in London, like I sang songs in Rwanda.

Thank you all for reading my book.

Thanks & acknowledgements.

There were many people who encouraged me to speak and to keep on speaking.

I thank and give tribute to the late Julie Smith who worked as the Women's Leader for the South England Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. We met at the Annual Camp-meeting of the South England Conference, soon after she returned from visiting Rwanda and encouraged me to tell my story. She boldly told to me that "People need to know what happened during the Genocide against the Tutsi, people need to know how God protected your life".

My deepest acknowledgement to Pastor Richard Daly , the Director of the communication at Union Adventist at the North conference in UK, for the unwavering source of inspiration through my journey of recovery from the deep wounds as Survivor of Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. You took a keen interest in my story, prayed for my healing, encouraged me to share it to the Churches, interviewed me at my house and at the Adventist Radio London. All this has been a driving power behind writing these pages.

Your unique perspective as an author and preacher added richness to my boldness to tell my story. This book shares your inspiration and I dedicate it to your Spiritual Mentorship.

I again thank Sam Munderere, an employee of SURF in Rwanda, whom I met when he was on study leave at the University of Westminster in London. He introduced me to David - the former Director for SURF, London - who then introduced me to other organisations, mainly The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, and encouraged me to tell my story to children in schools.

I give tribute to Olivia Marks-Woldman, The Executive Director of The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) who kindly visited my humble residence in Hackney to interview me about my experience of the 1994 Genocide. Since then she has

invited me to speak on behalf of The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust at some of the most prestigious venues. Thanks to Olivia and her team I have had the privilege of addressing large audiences, and many dignitaries. She has introduced me to the Guardian Newspaper, which published my story, and to ITV News, which aired part of my testimony in its news bulletin. I have had the privilege to share my story with the Mayor of London at City Hall and other places. I was privileged to be invited with my husband to attend Her Majesty the Queen's Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. I, like other survivors, were invited to have dinner with David Cameron, then Prime Minister, at No 10 Downing Street. My husband and I had chance to meet Mr Speaker in the House of Commons.

My husband and I were also privileged to be invited to dinner with a Royal family where we met Prince Charles, who is now King. He attentively listened wondering how I survived the terrible moments.

At the beginning, I thought no one would be interested to hear what happened. I thought it was a horrible story for people to hear, I thought I was hated by everyone, there was no point to reveal who I was or what I had been through. Once I shared my story, though, I saw how people reacted in a good way, and others began to appreciate their lives. I decided to share without any fear, as many were benefiting from my story.

Thank you, Molly, for your yearly invitation to speak to the students at Turing House School. The respect and sympathy I have received is something I never thought I would get.

I want to thank with all my heart the RPF Inkotanyi for sacrificing themselves to come and rescue those they could. The country is no longer divided but rather a united nation, together in harmony, as one people: the Rwandese people, nothing more, nothing less. They rebuilt and conciliated the people.

My family and I would like to thank the pupils at Hampton School who have been working with me since 2015. I hope that you agree that the boys who have helped me write my book have done a wonderful job. Thank youAdam, Sam, Jatin, Euan,

Svajan, Ethan D and Ethan G, Sanjit, Marco, Junhee, Tioba, Oliver, and Rahul.

To know that I am heard by you all is a true blessing, and I thank you.

Knowing that my story has touched people is truly an honour. My story, as well as that of many other survivors, will be heard, and I thank all of you for the support you have given to me making this into a reality.

My thanks also go to the teachers who helped with this great project. Thank you to Mrs Partridge, Mr Knibbs, Dr Flanagan and Miss Bellingan who very kindly looked at drafts of the book in detail.

Let me thank my family ( My siblings Ruben, Rusi, Amon, Mannaseh, Rose, Charleston, Emma) who stood with me. Let us keep in our heart what our parents planted in us “love one another “.

My deepest acknowledgement goes to my family : My husband that accepted me for who I was and gave me beautiful and wonderful children. To Marigold, Marietta and Marilene who always supports me in all I do, - they give me endless joy, comfort and love that I never thought I would be blessed to have.

For 25 years of marriage , my husband is indeed there on behalf of my brothers ( Charles, Dani) , my niece Odette and my father. They were the ones who sacrificed for me when I supposed to have gone with them.. Without my family where would I be?

I humbly appreciate the Rwandan High Commission for their immense support to my integration into the United Kingdom. The guidance and facilitating in writing this book; their great efforts of assisting me promote Rwandan culture, history, values, and for helping me share my story with the world have been pivotal to writing my journey. I’m deeply thankful for the collaboration and resources provided which have enriched the authenticity of my journey. Your support has not only impacted my life but has also strengthened my bond with my motherland and United Kingdom, my newfound home.

I want to thank His Excellence Paul Kagame for leading the country, taking care of Rwandans as his own children. For rebuilding and developing Rwanda to be the beautiful harmonious country we see it to be today.

Most of all I thank my Heavenly Father: my God saved me not because I was better than those who lost their lives but because of the purpose He wants me to achieve while on this earth: to speak on behalf of those whose innocent lives were taken.

Rwanda, 1994.

For one hundred days men, women and children were hunted and killed simply because of who they were. More than a million were murdered just because their identity card labelled them as ‘Tutsi’.

Sophie Masereka was just a teenager at the time. From April to June 1994, she fought to stay alive, targeted each day by killers because she was Tutsi. Many of those who sought to murder her were the neighbours she knew so well. Sophie was saved by the courage of relatives and strangers, her own remarkable bravery, luck, and what Sophie herself can only describe as ‘miracles’.

This is the shocking, but inspiring, true story of a teenager’s determination to survive in one of the darkest episodes of human history.