Some Perspective

I met somebody that had quite an impact on me recently. I was talking to some shopkeepers in a local market when I met her. We started chatting and I introduced myself. She gave me her name, Chantal. Chantal, as I found out, is Rwandan, and appeared to be about my age. She said she's been in Nairobi for 5 years. I asked why she left Rwanda five years ago. She said because she could not stand to see the neighbor that murdered her mother and most of her family with a machete. She then proceeded to open up completely about the most horrifying story I've ever heard someone tell in the first person. I'll summarize.

In 1994 Chantal was nine years old and lived in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, with her parents and 10 siblings - all Tutsi. The day the genocide started, they were having a family reunion at her house. She recalls having fun playing with cousins. The fun was interrupted by chaos, machetes, and blood, as her neighbor broke in and attacked them. This neighbor was a close family friend, someone they had broken bread with on many occasions. Unfortunately the neighbor was also a rebel sympathizer and heeded the call of the rebels to exterminate the Tutsi's. Her father was the first to be killed. Followed by the majority of her siblings and extended family. And when I say killed, I'm not talking about a quick death. They were chopped to pieces, slowly and methodically (first hands, then feet, etc.). A few people were allowed to survive temporarily, to be used as slaves. Chantal and the few remaining siblings were kept hostage and made to sleep in the jungle, where it seemed to rain every night. They were even forced to eat food that had been soaked in the blood of their family. While dying, her mother told them to try to escape to their church, because she thought it would be a safe house. Chantal and a few siblings eventually made it to the church, where they found a lot of other survivors crammed in a small room. It's hard to imagine, but their luck went from bad to worse. The pastor turned out to be a rebel sympathizer and lead the death squads to church. The pastor opened the doors and the rebels poured in, slashing and raping. Chantal was hit in the back of the head with a machete and fell to the ground, a wound which gave her permanent hearing damage in one ear. While on the ground she was forced to watch a rebel raping her twin sister. However, her twin sister decided that she was not going to let herself be raped, only to be hacked to pieces afterward, so she reached for the raping rebel's grenade, pulled the pin, and blew herself up, taking the rapist with her. Chantal managed to make it out alive by playing dead, lying amongst the other dead bodies for days.

After the genocide ended, her and her two surviving siblings ended up in an orphanage. She spent the next decade just trying to survive. She went through a series of emotional states, including feeling numb to everyone and everything, not knowing if she would ever be able to love or be loved. She also resented the fact that she was never able to bury her parents; she thinks their bones might be at the Rwanda Genocide Museum. She eventually left Rwanda because everything reminded her of the genocide, causing crippling flashbacks. She couldn't deal with seeing the murderers on the street, people who were never punished. Her murderous neighbor has yet to even apologize, and has the gall to say "hello" when he sees her. She also said she doesn't think much of the US and the UN, because she saw them come to rescue their own and leave the locals to certain slaughter. As she puts it, "The white people even took their dogs with them, but no black people were allowed" - enough to make you sick to your stomach.

But since moving to Kenya, things have been improving for her. She found god, and is determined to forgive all those who committed the acts - something I'm pretty sure I could not do. She's also trying to tell her story to people, in an attempt to come to grips with it, which is why she requested I post it here. She writes poetry as an outlet and has a remarkably positive outlook. You would never know such a horror story would exist in the memory of such a warm person. She is one of those people that makes you happier to be around. I'm sure the experience left her with deep emotional scars, but you wouldn't know it when you're with her. She's taken what life gave her and is performing jiu jitsu on it.

My problems just became trivial.