How Dare the Sun Rise

Around the time of Sandra’s high school graduation, Princesse got engaged to a man from the Banyamulenge tribe. The wedding was to be held in Rwanda. Sandra got the idea that the family should visit the refugee camp. She told her mother, but Rachel insisted she would never go back. Meanwhile, Sandra was haunted by memories of the massacre. The thoughts frightened her, and she wanted to overcome her fear and embrace the hope that America had given her. She also wanted people within the camp to be reminded that, no matter how isolated they felt, there were people from the outside world who cared about them.

After landing in Kigali, Sandra noticed right away that Rwanda had changed and become more prosperous. She was relieved to be back in a place where she did not have to explain herself to people. She relished speaking Swahili again and relaxed in the friendlier, more easygoing environment.

When she and her sisters visited the camp, Sandra noticed that, despite looking the same and speaking the same language, the refugees were very different. They had become resigned to life in the camp and knew nothing else. Worse, drug dealers were infiltrating the camp, trying to hook the refugees on drugs. Sandra noticed children “playing dodgeball with makeshift balls made of wadded-up plastic bags, tied together with shoelaces,” just as she had when she lived at the camp (168). She remembered how she used to trek for water at the camp, dealing with the interminably long lines, fights, and bullies who pushed her to the end of the line.

As Sandra and her sisters walked around, she noticed a man staring at them as though he knew who they were. He walked toward them and asked if they were Rachel’s children. When they confirmed that they were, he introduced himself as their uncle. He said that his father and the girls’ grandfather are brothers and that he had been close to Rachel in the Congo. He introduced them to his family, and meeting them made Sandra want to help them leave the camp. By the time evening arrived, the girls had to leave. Their uncle asked them to say hello to Rachel on his behalf. While heading back to Kigali on their bus, Sandra thought about how, if it were not for the massacre, her family never would have been resettled and they would still be living at a refugee camp. However, they would also still have Deborah.

The night before Princesse’s wedding, there was a party. At the celebration, Sandra saw many of her relatives, including her grandparents, whom she met for the first time. She saw the resemblance between her mother and grandmother and noted how her mother had inherited her strength from the elderly woman—a matriarch who raised her children independently after her husband’s death. Sandra’s paternal grandfather was very much like her own father—“sweet and serene” (172)—and told Sandra that he had been following her burgeoning activist career. People from his village assumed he was rich, based on Sandra’s frequent socializing with the rich and famous.

When Sandra returned home from Rwanda that fall, she enrolled at Houghton College, a Christian liberal arts college in Houghton, New York. Princesse had previously attended the school. Though the college was close to Rochester, Sandra insisted on living on campus. Living on her own gave Sandra a feeling of independence. She bonded with her new roommate, a kind, quiet young woman named Meredith. She also met a girl from the Ivory Coast named Mary Louise, whom Sandra nicknamed “Nugget”—a nickname her sisters had once bestowed on her. Mary Louise introduced her to a girl named Shannon who came from a conservative Christian family in upstate New York. Shannon and Sandra quickly bonded. Then, Sandra met the beautiful California-born artist Kaya. The final member in her circle of friends was Philip—a young, openly gay man from Pennsylvania who was the son of a pastor.

At school, Sandra had a brief relationship with a tattoo artist named Xavier, who tattooed a tiny black heart on her collarbone to symbolize her emotional state. Like Xavier, Sandra had entered a dark period. Rachel noticed the tattoo one day at church after a woman complimented Sandra on it. Rachel tried to rub it away and sighed heavily after Sandra told her it was permanent.

Sandra struggled a bit with the racial divide on Houghton’s predominately white campus. Dating was particularly difficult. Both Black and white boys preferred white girls. Black women were regarded as less desirable, with dark-skinned Black women being the least desirable. One day, Sandra called her mother sobbing, unsure of why she was sad. She talked to other Black women, who shared their woes about feeling pressure to conform to white beauty standards, particularly straightening and relaxing their hair. Sandra loved her own hair but was aware of how much attention she drew from white people when she wore it natural. Some people assumed she was making a political statement, while white girls sank their fingers into her hair as though they were petting her.

To help bridge the divide, Sandra formed the Black History Club on campus and helped put together an exhibition called “Shades of Black.” Shortly after the exhibit opened, a white male student vandalized the sign, renaming it “50 Shades of Light Black” and putting paper chains all over the walls. Black students who visited felt insulted, as the chains symbolized slavery. School officials found the culprit, who had to apologize and was suspended. Sandra thought these measures were insufficient, as the boy’s cruel joke was a manifestation of a broader problem on campus.

After the incident, Sandra called her mother in tears and said she wanted to leave Houghton because she did not think they liked having Black people around. After Rachel assured Sandra that she would pick her up, Sandra recovered herself and said she would be fine. She still wanted to leave the school but opted to stay and “push for change” (182).

Sandra dreaded returning to school for her sophomore year. She began to have vivid, frequent nightmares about the massacre. The flashbacks made her unable to concentrate, and she became depressed and lethargic. She never shared any of this with her parents, fearing that her troubles would be construed as weakness. Sandra also did not know how to describe her problems, as there were no words in their language to describe mental illness.

When Sandra told her friend Shannon that she did not understand why she was alive, Shannon spoke to a residency director, fearing Sandra would commit suicide. Sandra began seeing a campus counselor who asked questions about her relationship with her family; Sandra tried to keep her answers brief. At their second session, the counselor told her he was aware of her activism and asked if she was interested in doing humanitarian work. Sandra opened up more, sharing her interest in working with displaced people. He listened intently, which made Sandra more comfortable. She then mentioned that she did not understand why she had lived but Deborah had not. She resented how her family behaved as though Deborah was “some distant figure from [their] past” and that Rachel introduced Sandra as her youngest child when, in fact, Deborah was the youngest.

Around this time, Sandra received an invitation from RefugePoint, an organization that works to help global refugees, to speak to the UN Security Council about how armed conflict impacted children. RefugePoint’s co-founder, Sasha Chanoff, was an advocate for the Banyamulenge. After being introduced to the audience by US Ambassador Samantha Power, Sandra told stories about her family, her people, and the massacre.

When Christmas break rolled around, Sandra panicked at the prospect of returning home and allowing her parents to see her in her current emotional state. She was afraid to tell them about the flashbacks and ashamed of the fact that she was failing her classes. She also did not want to return to school.

She told her father that she would be spending the break elsewhere and that she needed to get better. Her father was confused but offered to pray for her. Sandra stayed briefly with a friend who lived near the campus, then called a woman named Diana who lived in New York City and whom Sandra had met through the Women’s Refugee Commission. Diana had offered that Sandra could stay with her and her husband after Christmas, and Sandra decided to go there and not return to Houghton. Rachel texted her immediately after receiving the news, assuming Sandra was pregnant. Sandra turned off her phone and boarded a bus for New York City.