June/July 2010 On the Minds of Moms_cover story only

trustinglife laetitia mizero

story by | patricia carlson

Under the cover of darkness, Laetitia Mizero [ lah-tee-see-a mi-zero] ran for her life. Her 6-year-old fingers clutched her mother’s hand as Laetitia’s little legs struggled to keep up in the enveloping African night. In her mother’s arms was Laetitia’s younger sister and beside them ran her older brother. The trio pushed through pastures, tore through towns and raced across the Kanyaru River filled with all sorts of creatures that night. They fled the only country they had ever known, one that was careening toward another bloody civil war. Leaving was the only way to survive.

This was the first time Laetitia would be forced from her home, but it would not be her last. However, all the harrowing events of her life would turn her into a brave woman capable of managing any responsibility, including her destiny. “I’ve had a very fulfilling life,” says Laetitia. “No matter how I ended up in places, I’ve tried to get the most out of life.”

family and war

Laetitia Mizero grew up the second oldest of her family’s six children in the Republic of Burundi, a land-locked country in eastern Africa. She loved learning, reading and exploring but as oldest daughters are often tasked to do, she also had to take care of her brothers and sisters. But even from a young age, she did so with grace and humor. “Her personality made her a fun sister and a wiser loving sibling we could look up to,” says Laetitia’s younger sister, Aline Nizigama who now lives in Toronto. “Laetitia is just an incredibly fun person to be around. But I don’t think this is a secret to anyone that knows her!”

Laetitia gets much of her personality and passion from her parents. Her father, who passed away 5 years ago, was a well-educated artist who would one day run for his country’s presidency. Laetitia says he believed in the power of education and

photos: rialee photography | ria czichotzki

trusting life

instilled in his children a great love for classic literature and learning. Laetitia’s mother came from an affluent background and was exceptionally street smart. “She was and still is a strong-willed woman who was not afraid of anything or anyone, even when things got very

slaughtered by Tutsi extremists. “It’s a small country and lack of education is so high that they knew who went to school and who was educated,” Laetitia says. So, when Laetitia was just 6-years-old, her father could not return to his family and her mother would make a

scary,” says Aline. Laetitia’s mother and father were a perfect match—except for one thing. They came from two different ethnic backgrounds.

Dating back to the 15th century, Burundi was ruled by an ethnic group named the Tutsi, of which Laetitia’s mother descends. In the early 1960s, Belgian colonists began occupying the country and pitting another ethic group, the Hutu’s [of which her father belonged], against the Tutsi. Years of political unrest erupted and while the Hutu took power by force in neighboring Rwanda, a Hutu uprising in Burundi failed. Considering the brutal civil wars between the Tutsi and Hutu, it’s a miracle in itself that Laetitia’s parents married at all.

In the early 1970’s, Laetitia’s father accepted an opportunity to pursue a graduate degree at a college in France. “He was only supposed to be there two years,” Laetitia recalls. Shortly after his departure, educated Hutu’s like Laetitia’s father were being hunted down and

brave decision to take her children to France in order to save their lives, too.

fleeing

In the months that followed her father’s exodus to France, life in Burundi became increasingly hostile and violent. Laetitia’s mother and three children took refuge at her grandmother’s house. “We were children and we didn’t know how bad it was,” Laetitia says. But things were about to get a lot worse.

In 1971, Laetitia’s mother decided to take a brief vacation to visit her husband in France. Full-blown war broke out when she was gone. She raced home [“she was safe to come back because she belonged to the Tutsi, the group who was in power,” Laetitia explains] and decided enough was enough. She wanted her family out of there.

Over a period of two years, she tried desperately to get her children passports so the entire family could be together once again in France. “They denied her three separate times,” says Laetitia. “They wanted my father to come back and get us. In a way, we were like hostages because they knew he would have to come back and sign the papers.”

Instead, Laetitia’s mother gathered her children and a few belongings and fled in November 1973. That’s where we find 6-year-old Laetitia running for her life through the night. The family headed for Rwanda, a neighboring country to the north. Rwanda was also often on the cusp of civil war, but the Hutu were in power there and Laetitia’s mother felt she had a better chance of securing passports for her children.

The family checked into a cheap hotel. Everyday, Laetitia’s mother would leave 7-year-old Jean-Claude, 6-year-old Laetitia and 3-year-old Nadine alone while she went to the embassy. “We didn’t have any games, maybe one toy for each of us,” Laetitia recalls. “She would close the door and leave us there with food.” Sometimes she would be gone for hours with no success to speak of.

A family friend named P. Claver Mahungiro, who had recently returned from France to his native Rwanda, found out that Laetitia’s mother was in Kigali and that she could use some help. He contacted her and offered her a place to stay for as long as she needed. And if Laetitia’s story wasn’t already dramatic enough, it was about to take a scary and serendipitous turn.

all the harrowing events of her life would turn her into a brave woman capable of managing any responsibility, including her destiny.

france

The family set out early one morning to go meet P. Claver a couple blocks away from the hotel. Laetitia’s mother was holding Laetitia’s hand and carrying her sister in the other. Her older brother was following behind. As the women crossed the street, a car started slowly down the road. Laetitia’s mother called out to her brother to stay on the other side of the street. “But he thought she was telling him to come even though a car was getting close,” Laetitia recalls. “He kept coming and the car ended up hitting him. My mom fainted right away. I was holding my sister’s hand. And my brother, he was under the car and he was crying and saying my mother’s name.”

As Laetitia tells the story, her eyes brim with tears until they tumble over, rolling down her cheeks like raindrops on a window. “My mother came to maybe because she could hear my brother’s voice like an echo. The woman

who hit him was very pregnant and luckily not going fast. She took my mother and brother to the doctor.” This accident happened so close to the place Laetitia and her family was supposed to meet P. Claver it was no surprise that he ended up being one of the bystanders in the crowd. “He took us and we eventually reunited with my mother later,” Laetitia recalls.

Amazingly, Jean-Claude survived the accident without any serious injury. And it turned out the woman who hit him was the very person the family needed to get them their passports. “I know, this sounds unbelievable,” Laetitia says breaking into a grin. “But we’re talking about a country where it’s about connections and who you know. It’s not every woman who will be driving a car [in 1973’s Africa]. It’s somebody’s wife.”

A few days after the accident, the family headed to France with passports in hand and happily reunited with Laetitia’s dad. The next five years were filled with love, learning at top schools and a peace the family had never experienced together. Laetitia began to trust that her life was on the right track. “We always felt that if something happened in our lives, Imana [God] always protected us by putting us on the safe side,” Laetitia says. “So when I say I learned to trust life and Imana, no matter how desperate a situation seems, I speak from experience, numerous of them.”

But her parents felt a pull back to Africa. Laetitia’s father envisioned running for Burundi’s president. Her mother wished to have more children. Friends assured the couple that tensions had eased in their home country and it was safe to return. So they did.

farewell for good

As Laetitia entered 5th grade, the family moved to Rwanda. Three years later, they decided to go back to Burundi and had three more children. Laetitia’s father also began cultivating a campaign for president. “He knew he wouldn’t win but he also knew that if he ran, he would take votes away from a candidate he didn’t want to win,” Laetitia explains. “I’m sure he also felt like he owed this to some of his fellow friends who died in the 1972 civil war. He always felt guilty for surviving.”

In the years that followed, Burundi continued to have ethnic conflicts in cycles. “It was never completely peaceful,” Laetitia says. But during this time, Laetitia continued her education, graduated from college, eventually got married, had a son named Yann and ended up working for Catholic Relief Services, a US humanitarian agency. Still, she says, there were many times she couldn’t sleep at night. “I’d hear shootings all the time, every night. Many friends and relatives died in the most atrocious way,” she says. “Things like that had become normal and acceptable but when I was sitting in my house and thinking about life as a human being, it was honestly not true living.”

Laetitia also began wondering how growing up in that environment would affect her son. “As much as you can live in that survival type of life, you then think of your child. I thought it was ok if I die, but was it ok for me to decide that for my son?”

The answer was no. Coincidentally, at the same time, her parents were deciding that Burundi was no longer safe for the rest of their children, now teenagers, either. They sent them to school in Burkina-Faso in western Africa, where they applied for the refugee status. Four months later, calling the situation in Burundi hopeless, Laetitia and her son joined them, leaving her parents behind in Burundi forever.

At just 28-years-old, Laetitia was now charged with taking care of her own son, plus her brothers and sisters, while continuing to work for Catholic Relief Services.

“I know I was too young to be a ‘parent’ of such diverse age groups and I’m sure I made many mistakes,” she says. “However, my goal is always about doing the best with what I have and understanding that I’m human.”

But if you ask one of her sisters, Laetitia mothered her siblings lovingly and gracefully. “For about five years, she filled the very big shoes of two parents on her own

and did this without losing her sense of self, her sense of dignity and her bigger place in the community,” says Aline. “I think we turned out okay, partly because of the way she raised us in the absence of our parents.”

During her time in Burkina-Faso, Laetitia dreamed of something brighter for herself and her family. She applied for refugee resettlement to come to the United States where she knew opportunities for her son and brothers and sisters would be greatest. Although she knew lots of people in the United States already, Laetitia chose not to pick a new location based on that.

“I didn’t want to be a burden to them,” she recalls. So, in the fall of 1998, the group packed their bags for a place called Fargo.

finding a new home

Laetitia and her family were the first Burundian refugees to come to Fargo. “I always say Fargo picked me,” she says, half-jokingly. She was the only one who spoke English fluently and she acted as a liaison between her family and their new community for the first few months.

“I’d never heard of Fargo before,” she says. “My brother Jean-Claude had seen the movie and I was really glad I had not seen the movie knowing what I know now!”

Amy Scott, a former case management supervisor for Lutheran Social Services, met Laetitia at the Fargo airport as she arrived with her family as refugees from

Burundi. “I remember being impressed by her energetic presence, command of the English language and her calm demeanor despite landing in an unfamiliar country and being greeted by total strangers,” Amy says.

Aline says she and her siblings were thrilled and worried at the same time when they found out that they were going to Fargo. “In our wildest dreams, we could not have foreseen that this is where life would take us,” Aline says. “As a family, we took this as an opportunity to see what was out there, and a once in a lifetime chance to rebuild our lives given the fact that our birth place offered little hopes for a safe future.”

Laetitia helped her younger siblings dive into school while she found work as a case worker with Lutheran Social Services. Her husband joined her a short time later [they have since divorced] and they had a daughter, Coley. “If she weren't my mom, I wish she was,” says Coley, now 9-years-old. “She's a great person to live with and to her siblings she's very responsible and dedicated to what she does.”

Over the next decade, Laetitia’s tumultuous history faded away. Her siblings moved on to college and successful careers as architects and pharmacists. Laetitia eventually became the Family Involvement Coordinator and Cultural Liaison with SENDCAA Head Start Early Head Start program, a job she maintains today.

It wasn’t until other refugees from Burundi started arriving in Fargo almost three years ago, that the memories of her past came flooding back to Laetitia. “It’s like the memories never existed,” she says. “I never thought about it until a friend sent me an email asking if I knew anything about ‘1972 Burundian refugees’. I started emailing her back and I found myself typing a second page to her. Before I knew it I was deep into my emotions and remembering how I left and crossing the Kanyaru River that night as a child, and crying profusely.”

Laetitia never sent that email. Instead, she turned it into a file on her computer titled “the book I hope to write someday.” She plans on interviewing her mother for more details, something she regrets she never did with her father. Even though Burundi is the source of a lot of pain, it is also home. Laetitia has returned to Burundi several times, bringing her children along. “They love it,” she says. “But the way I miss Burundi, they miss Fargo when we’re there.” So for now, Laetitia is content to call Fargo home, too. But she has dreams of returning to Africa, hopefully with a Non-Profit or the United Nations in some capacity.

Laetitia’s best friend Kathy Neugebauer says she can see that happening, in part, because of Laetitia’s attitude toward life. “She is grateful for all that she has and all the opportunities that have come her way. While many of us complain that things should be better, she is calm and happy that life is not worse,” Kathy says. “If all of us would count our blessings rather than the desires, we would be much happier.”

If you ask Laetitia, she would tell you that she is where she is today because she chose to live her life to the fullest no matter what obstacle stood in her way. When war forced her from her home, not once, but twice, she bravely decided to move herself and her family to another country with hopes of starting fresh. And when, as a child, she had to leave all of her belongings to crawl through a river at night, and again, as an adult, when she chose to leave her parents behind, Laetitia never let those situations define her. She decided her own happiness. “I want my children to know that their happiness is not in anybody’s hands than their own,” she says. “You always have to be ready to start over if you need to.”