Rwandese Flowers
Chapter I
2004 – Rwanda Remembers the Dead
On the morning of April 6, 2004, I was once again in Rwanda, a small sovereign Republic of Central Africa, which borders Uganda to the north, Burundi to the south, Congo (formerly Zaire) to the west and Tanzania to the east. It was the second time I visited it and, on that occasion, with the aim of overcoming some traumas resulting from my first passage ten years earlier. It would be an emancipating experience, and it required great courage for me to return. Paradoxically, nobody can put back the clock of history because most things time cannot mend. Thus, I was going to revive an epoch full of unpleasant memories and inevitable consequences that had marked me deeply, taught me some valuable truths about life and were still hanging on my mind.
In 1994, when I left Africa for the first time, my father, an American senator, took me to a family's long-standing therapist in the United States of America. This professional suggested I visit Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. I did not believe I was troubled enough to need any psychological assistance to be happy. However, since Father wanted me to get therapy, I responded positively to his wish because as his daughter, I loved him and felt pleased when he approved what I was doing.
The government of President Paul Kagame organized a weeklong event during April 7-13, 2004 to remember the ten years of the Rwandan Genocide that occurred from April 6 to July 10, 1994. It was a social catastrophe due to the mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis in most cases, and moderate Hutus. The Hutus with whom they lived together in the country perpetrated the massacre hand-to-hand during violent and bloody actions. Close to eight hundred thousand people died over one hundred days. These numbers are similar to the death toll of the roughly four years of the Civil War that claimed the lives of about three percent of the US citizens.
My psychoanalyst thought it was the right opportunity for me to face the unresolved issues from the past. At first, I refused, yet he convinced me with the argument that many days had already passed since the incident, and we had been working on my emotional for too long. Under his reasoning, I was ready to deal with all that. Why would I reopen old wounds if I had already gotten over the unpleasant memories? Were they still disturbing me as strongly as that? It was not rational.
"Isabelle, if you attend the event in Kigali and return well, I will know that Rwanda is water under the bridge, and therefore, I say to your father that you no longer need my help, and we can end our analysis sessions."
"Do you swear? Please God!"
Getting rid of my tedious friend was a priceless reward. Then, I put it all in two pans of a balance, weighing up the two possibilities: the wrong choice on one side, and the missing of a good one on the other, and I made up my mind to visit Central Africa for the second time.
Three ethnic groups live in Rwanda: the Hutus, who form the majority, make up eighty-five percent of the population, the Twas, less than one percent, and the Tutsis, more or less fourteen percent. The Twas were the first settlers to reach the mountainous region of present-day Rwanda, around the sixth century BC. In sequence, the Hutus arrived in the mid sixth century AD, and, finally, about one hundred years later, the first Tutsis got there. The Twas communicate with one another in Rukiga, their original language, although they also use Kinyarwanda, English, and French as other Rwandans do.
In Rukiga, the prefixes MA and BA indicate singular and plural, respectively. The word Batwa (Twas) is plural of Matwa, Bahutu of Mahutu and Batutsi of Matutsi. The terms Twas and Batwa (Rukiga plural) are synonyms, since they refer to more than one individual as well as Twa and Matwa to one. The Twas are a Pygmy citizenry of small stature, average weight, and height about a meter and a half, who are indigenous to Central Africa and parts of Asia. Reports of their presence in the region go back to the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs.
