Copyright © 2019 GM&A Publishing
Excerpts by permission of Publisher
Chapter 8 – A Mud Wall Between Us and Death
Our escape from Butare had just begun. The hurdles got higher and the noose got tighter with each passing day as the killers methodically did their “work.” In the dark of that night, our Witness friends Justin and Joseph, both Hutu, came to take the five of us to Justin’s home in Save, almost two miles (3.2 km) away. (Naomi and Benjamin were still at Adolphe’s home.) (99).
As the genocide had just started in our village, the militiamen were still hesitant to kill. I took the chance to urge them not to take Tharcisse’s life. Not only did they agree, they showed us unusual kindness by escorting us partway and showing us a route that would avoid the night watchmen. Since most of the villagers were involved in the genocide, when we met passersby, we would immediately offer them money to buy drinks, thanking them for not betraying us (157).—Justin
Anything could have happened that night, but we reached Justin’s home unharmed (99).
We could not sleep but remained alert to any ominous sounds outside. Those manning the roadblocks knew we were hiding at Justin’s house. Fortunately, a militiaman named Vincent secretly came to warn us that his Interahamwe friends intended to attack the house and wipe us out. Vincent said decisively, “The family should hide in the reed thicket on the hill behind your house.” He took us outside, parted the branches of the hedge, and led us through the opening into the thicket. He knew the place very well and made sure each of us had a spot to sit comfortably. We did what he said without protest, though it was pouring rain (101).
It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when we plunged into the reed thicket. We hid there until half past three the next morning. We sat there dazed and soaked to the skin. No one dared to move a muscle or say a word (102).
We knew we couldn’t stay in the thicket forever. But if we left the hiding place, where would we go? Vincent … spontaneously offered a solution: “I’ll take the family home and care for them from this day forward.” It seemed like a wise move. Since we had never met Vincent before and he was not a Witness, nobody could make any connection between him and our family. All the more reason why no one would suspect him of hiding us. In the middle of the night, he came to lead us out of the reed thicket. To get us out of the thicket, he played a clever trick. He brought us dark raincoats—the same ones the militiamen used. He led us in groups of three across the fields to his house (103).
[Our] new home would be the small hut in back where Vincent’s goats used to live, a round shack with mud walls and floor. It had a straw roof, a small wooden door, and no windows (104).
Our days and our nights in the shack seemed endless. The shack sat near a crossroads, close by the busiest market in the area. We heard the passersby gleefully exchange stories of their killing exploits and their plans for the next day. With the door shut, the tiny shack felt like a stifling prison cell. And yet we knew that only the mud walls separated us from certain death. [A] small plastic bucket served as our toilet. The place reeked of goat and teemed with fleas and lice. It was not easy to share the shack with these biting roommates. They took up living in our hair and clothes (105).
Why should I be victimized for being a Tutsi? Why should I be kept in a dark hut for months like a dangerous monster while bad people rove freely on the surface of the earth? I kept pondering these dilemmas … (179).—Marie age 14
Vincent did his best to care for us, particularly by bringing food, medicine, and clean water to drink and wash with. During our time of great need, he proved to be a true friend—in extremely desperate circumstances. Truly, his life was on the line as much as ours was. Had we been discovered or had Vincent’s behavior attracted attention, we all would have perished together. In those murderous days, Hutu spies would watch for signs that a Hutu was hiding a Tutsi. For example, if a Hutu fetched more water than normal from the fountain, purchased more food, or cooked more meals than usual, he could be suspected of hiding “cockroaches.” (108).
The survival of Tharcisse’s family presented many big challenges. First of all, people would ask me where they were since they knew that the family had come to my home. [Food] shortages were rampant because all markets were closed, and it was forbidden to move anywhere (158). This was a nightmare for me, and sometimes I could not sleep, thinking about how to avoid arousing suspicion (159).—Justin
We were certain that Adolphe was taking good care of Benjamin and Naomi. We had no idea at the time that the children came close to disaster when Adolphe’s neighbor sent the militia to kill the “small cockroaches.” The men demanded at knifepoint that the children tell where we were hiding (109).
A soldier looked at me with murderous eyes. He did not stop sharpening his machete, clapping his hands, and pointing his machete toward me. While I was crying, he went behind me and struck me with his club. I almost fell down, but Adolphe held me up. The militiaman grabbed his machete and attempted to finish me off. Another militiaman who had worked as a gardener for my dad put his hand between the machete and my chest. The machete went through Kalisa’s palm. You can still see scars on both sides of his hand (191).—Naomi age 11
What kind of inhumanity would make a man strike at an 11-year-old girl with a machete? Only the spontaneous act of a fellow militiaman saved her life (109).
Vincent had three children. Mukamusoni was 14, Kagabo, 13, and Nzabonaliba, 11. The children knew we were in the shack, but they never betrayed us. On the contrary, they willingly cooperated with their father to keep us safe. The stagnant air in the shack created a new danger: coughing. Marie and Pierre had such bouts of asthma … . Kagabo and Nzabonaliba bravely positioned themselves by the shack and pretended to cough (110)!
Vincent heard the terrifying news: “… as long as the dead body of Professor Seminega and those of his family have not been found, everyone should stop his work and search for the fugitives in Butare, and the surroundings, especially in the village of Save” (111).
Usually, when someone was killed, people would know that they had been killed and where they had been killed. Actually, the big challenge about Tharcisse’s family was that there were no records anywhere about their being killed. That’s why the killers kept looking for them (160).—Justin
They ripped the photographs out of our family albums to dispatch to the killers at roadblocks across the region. When the manhunt began, Vincent did not inform us, probably to spare us from panicking (111).
The search went through each and every house in the Save sector, including convents, schools, private homes, and other potential hideouts. One day, the hunt started in the morning and went on until noon, stopping just three houses away from the goat shack. The next day, Save was like a hunting field. The alarm sounded, and hundreds of militiamen resumed the search where they had stopped the previous day, when they were on the verge of finding us (112).
Our friends had decided to move us for a few days to an area that had already been searched. A Hutu couple—François and Félicité—kindly took us in. It was all the more surprising because François … believed very much in Hutu Power. But he supported our presence at his home and cooperated with his wife … . They gave us very nutritious food and kept us safe. One week later, after the searchers gave up, we returned to Vincent’s shack (112).
By this point, the genocide had been in progress in the country about seven weeks, nearly 50 days. Every time our friends hid us or transferred us from place to place, they put themselves in extreme peril. In all, Vincent had sheltered us a little more than a month. On May 25, the situation became too dangerous (112).
The Witnesses in Save decided to transfer us to Brother Jean de Dieu’s place. He had an underground room in his house. We learned that three Witnesses—Elie, Vincent, and his fiancée Immaculée—were already hiding in Jean de Dieu’s underground room (113).