Chapter 1: The calm before the storm. March 1994
When I close my eyes, I can still envision those distant days, albeit my memory has faded.
“Samantha, come and play soccer with us.” My brother always teased me. Sometimes I obliged, and he always laughed in glee at my clumsiness with the ball as he was running laps around me. This took place in the soil field next to the river where the children of our village met.
“Yuhi, stop being mean to me!” I remember shouting. I remember the old worn-out ball and the fields and rivers, but I cannot remember my brother. When I think of him, I only remember him teasing me and his joy and laughter when he scored a goal. Whenever someone scored a goal, it was always a debate as we didn’t have proper goalposts. Instead, we used our shoes as goalposts and played barefoot. This was important. We needed the shoes to avoid stepping on rocks or venomous animals when we helped our parents on the farmlands. On the other hand, our sports field was clear of stones, so why would we wear out our shoes when playing barefoot worked just as well?
I remember coming home after a day in school, followed by fishing in the river. We ate umitsuma, a mix of cassava and corn. This was our staple. We rarely ate animal proteins except when one of us was lucky enough to catch a fish. Our days were joyful, we were poor, but at least our poverty brought us together. It was not like the cold suburbia I experienced after escaping to Australia.
Occasionally, my dad told us about news from the rest of Rwanda. Our family didn’t have a TV. We did not even have a radio, but we knew how to read, so we followed the headlines in the newspapers they sold in a nearby town. Sometimes we kids ran to town and picked up old newspapers from the rubbish bins. It was too wasteful to buy today’s newspaper when old newspapers gave us the same opportunity to read and learn different languages. On a good day, I found newspapers in Kinyarwanda, French, and English. I loved learning languages, and I imagined myself travelling the world. My brother Yuhi found my fascination with languages silly. “How often do you ever speak to someone who doesn’t know Kinyarwanda? The white man never comes here anyway.”
“Don’t be stupid, Yuhi. Samantha’s desire to amass knowledge will make our village proud one day. We in the Nyamwasa family have always valued knowledge.” My father, Mutara, replied.
“I guess books are good for her since she won’t be a professional footballer when she grows up,” Yuhi smirked and ran off to play some football.
When Yuhi had run off, I spoke to my dad about something I had read in the newspaper. “Dad. The newspaper said President Juvénal Habyarimana is facing problems with the peace plan. Why is that? Why can’t people live in peace?”
Mutara gave me a worried expression and explained. “The devil and evil spirits influence people to want discord. It’s the way of the world. You can only improve things by helping the good spirits around you.”
“But will we be safe?” I asked
“Man cannot know his fate. Only our God, Jesus Christ, knows. To speculate on these matters is to show arrogance. We must pray that things will work out.” My father said with a solemn voice.
Looking back at our talk, I believe that our father had a foreboding of what would happen. While a part of me blames him for not taking precautions, I also understand. We cannot let fear govern our lives. My father’s lack of preparation is also understandable, as our part of the country was never involved in the civil war that ravaged the north from 1990-1993. Yet, after the short-lived peace, the worst was to come.
Looking back, I also recall a conversation I had with my mother, Rebecca, before everything fell apart.
“Why can’t I have another sibling? Ours is the smallest family in the village.” I asked.
“I don’t know. We have been praying to Jesus Christ every night for another child.” My mother replied. I joined my mother in praying for another sibling that night, but nothing happened. In retrospect, I have realised that my mother and I were genetically predisposed to the same condition, with one dissimilarity. She had two children before she got old enough for the condition to appear.
