How Dare the Sun Rise

Flooding was another difficulty Sandra and her family faced in Uvira. During the rainy season, the river rose and overflowed in the streets. To soothe the children, Rachel wrote optimistic songs. Church was also a source of comfort. The community gathered for an all-day service, much of which was spent singing and clapping.

Another event Sandra looked forward to was a dance procession organized by kids in her neighborhood. A key part of the procession was the reenactment of a wedding, for which a stand-in bride and groom were chosen. The kids spent weeks choreographing the dance and writing songs. They also raised money for the procession for the food and drink served afterward. When Sandra was 10, the 20 children—12 female dancers and eight boy drummers—made her the bride in the mock wedding. Her groom was a boy named Merewe. Sandra had wanted to be a dancer and felt bashful about being romantically linked to a boy, even though it was all pretend. On the other hand, she liked being the center of attention. The procession took place in April 2004 and was the first and last in which Sandra would ever participate. A couple of months later, her family fled Uvira, and most of the girls who danced in the procession were later killed.

In June 2004, hostility toward the Banyamulenge people increased. At school, Sandra endured more teasing, and teachers began warning the children there would soon be trouble. One morning, while Sandra was getting ready for school, Prudence left home and returned in a yellow minivan, which a stranger was driving. He walked into Sandra’s room and ordered her to pack. Sandra first packed the pale-blue dress she wore during the dance procession, then helped Deborah pack. The family figured they would only be leaving temporarily.

They all squeezed into the yellow van. As they rode through Uvira, they saw people scrambling to escape the city. Some tried to get into their van, but there was no more room. Suddenly, they reached a checkpoint. Men with guns had created a blockade from furniture and stopped the van. Flanking the road was a mob of angry Congolese men, women, and children. They were wielding knives, machetes, and guns. The crowd approached and started to rock the van. The family’s belongings were tied to the roof, and their attackers pulled down the goods and ran off with them. Worse, Sandra and her family could not roll up the windows to protect themselves. People reached in and grabbed at them, snatching away the watches they were wearing. Others spat at them.

Just then, the driver exited the van and took the keys, leaving Sandra and her family vulnerable to the attackers. One of them, a middle-aged man, reached into the van and punched Deborah in the face. Rachel and Prudence had to restrain Heritage, who tried to get out of the van and fight off the crowd.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a young Congolese man appeared. Prudence told him that their driver left and took the keys. After giving the young man a description, the family watched him depart; he returned 10 minutes later with the keys. He got into the car and drove through a weak spot in the blockade. He got everyone to the Congolese border and then drove off. There, everyone got into a semitruck provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)—the refugee arm of the UN. Sandra recalls that the truck was packed with people and smelled “like rotten food” (55). The truck took them across the border into Burundi and dropped them off in an empty field “near a town called Gatumba,” where everyone camped that night (55). 

There were hundreds of people sleeping in the field that stretched along a highway, and none of them had tents or mattresses. The UNHCR provided the refugees with itchy blankets, and the only food available peanuts and little cakes, sold by children on the roadside.

Sandra recalls how boring life in a refugee camp is. There was nothing to do but sit. Thankfully, some of her friends were there; with them, she played games. Though her family no longer had many of their possessions, they still had their photo albums, which Sandra perused with her friends when they got bored.

As the weeks passed, Sandra missed school. To get water, she and her siblings stood in a long line, waiting to fill jugs from a giant tank “the size of a spacious living room” (58). To get food, each family had a ration card, which they showed to UN authorities to get rice, beans, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and sosoma—a flour substitute made of soybeans, sorghum, and corn. When they had to use the toilet, they went to outhouses for men and women, which were unhygienic and smelly.

Despite these conditions, Sandra and her family tried to stay positive. They and the other refugees woke at six o’clock every morning to pray with a pastor. On Sundays, they attended church services. At some point, Sandra and some other children in the sixth and 12th grades went to the Congolese embassy in Gitega—the capital of Burundi—to take exams. The officials offered them food, which caused those who ate it, including Princesse, to get ill. Thankfully, Sandra was too nervous to eat. She concluded that Congolese food workers had “tampered with the food” (59).

When they returned to the refugee camp, they also returned to their boredom and the heat. Then, one night, while Sandra and Deborah were lying down to sleep, they heard gunfire.