Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Immaculée begins Chapter 1 with the story of her birth: “I was born in paradise. At least, that’s how I felt about my homeland while I was growing up” (3). She gives a sweeping overview of the history of her native country, Rwanda, writing that it is “breathtakingly beautiful,” and she notes that the German settlers who came to the country in the 1800s called the country “the land of eternal spring” (3).

For Immaculée, growing up in Rwanda is an idyllic experience: “In my village, young children walked eight miles to and from school along lonely stretches of road, but parents never worried about a child being abducted or harmed in any way” (3). Immaculée is born in the province of Kibuye, in the village of Mataba. Her childhood home overlooks Lake Kivu. Immaculée outlines what would have been a normal day in her life during childhood: She and her father and brothers would often go swimming in Lake Kivu, returning home to meal of hot rice and beans, prepared by her mother. Immaculée’s father and mother are conservative, God-fearing people who work hard to provide for their family. Her mother is a teacher and a homemaker, who tirelessly cooks, cleans, looks after the family farm, and also teaches at her full-time job at a primary school in Mataba:

The beans she prepared every morning were grown in our family fields, which Mom tended every morning while the rest of us were still sleeping […] And then, after the morning chores and getting us off to class, Mom would walk down the road to start her full-time teaching job at a local primary school (4).

Both of Immaculée’s parents are educators, which makes them “adamant believers that the only defense against poverty and hunger was a good education” (5). Immaculée’s father is an accomplished student and teacher who “received many honors and promotions during his career, rising steadily through the ranks from primary teacher to junior high school principal:“He was eventually appointed chief administrator for all of the Catholic schools in our district” (5).

Immaculée’s parents met in the summer of 1963, while en route to a mutual friend’s wedding. They married within a year, and their lives grew from there, as their family also expanded. They prospered, due to both parents working hard at their teaching jobs and selling the beans, bananas, and coffee harvested from their farm. Immaculée’s family experiences relative wealth compared to others in the village. They have two vehicles—a little car, as well as a motorcycle—which is practically “unheard of” in Mataba (6).

As devout Roman Catholics, Immaculée and her family are motivated by religious beliefs. When Immaculée is 10 years old, she sneaks away with her friend to go to an elderly priest’s house to beg him to turn her into a nun. In addition to being Catholic, Immaculée’s family is “Christian in the broadest sense of the word,” meaning that they “believed in the Golden Rule and taught us to treat our neighbors with kindness and respect” (7). Both her parents do work to benefit less fortunate members of their community, and Immaculée’s father and mother are often sought out in times of crisis by various people in their village.

In addition to her mother and father, Immaculée introduces her three brothers. Aimable, the oldest child, was born in 1965. Aimable is the “most serious” member of the family and very a “sweet-natured” person who detests violence (9). Damascene is the second eldest child and three years older than Immaculée, born in 1967. Immaculée describes him as “brilliant, mischievous, funny, generous, unbelievably kind, and irresistibly likable” (10). Damascene is also an excellent student and gifted athlete: “He studied constantly, but somehow managed to find time to earn a brown belt in karate, become captain of his high school and university basketball teams, and serve as chief altar boy at our church” (11). The youngest of the family is Vianney, who will grow up to become “a handsome, strapping young man who towered over” Immaculée, but she “never stopped feeling like it was my responsibility to look out for him” (11). Vianney is a “precious boy” who trails after Immaculée “like a puppy dog” (11). AsImmaculée is the only girl in the family, and because Rwanda’s culture is a patriarchial one, Immaculée’s parents are stricter with her than with her brothers, giving her extra household chores, enforcing a tighter curfew, and selecting her friends on her behalf.

Immaculée and her family are Tutsi, though Immaculée becomes aware of the distinction between “Hutu” and “Tutsi” only when she is in the fourth grade. Immaculée’s teacher takes roll along ethnic lines, instructing first Hutu students to stand up and then Tutsi students. Oblivious to racial differences, Immaculée does not know if she is Hutu or Tutsi, and so she remains seated. Her teacher is irate at this, and he forces her to leave the classroom until she figures out which tribe she belongs to: “I collected my books and left the room, hanging my head in shame. I didn’t know it yet, but I’d just had my first lesson in Rwanda’s ethnic divide, and it was a rude awakening” (13). Immaculée flees outside, crouching and crying in the bushes. Damascene, her big brother (who is 13 years old), comes to her aid. He asks her what happened, and when Immaculée explains, it is revealed that Damascene is also unaware of what tribe their family belongs to. He naively guesses that, if Janet stood when Hutus were named, then they too must be Hutus, since Janet is a friend. Both siblings are unaware of the animosity between Hutus and Tutsis because their parents are not prejudiced, and therefore did not pass down this tribalistic hatred to their children.

Rwanda is comprised of three tribes: Hutus, Tutsi, and Twa. The primary conflict that animates the extreme racial divide, and ultimately leads to genocide, is between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority; the Twa are a “pygmy-like tribe of forest dwellers” and represent a very small percentage of the population (14). In the early 1900s, German and Belgian colonialists help usher in a race-based and classist system of discrimination in Rwanda. The Belgians particularly promote Tutsis so that they will become the ruling class and generate income that will be returned to their Belgian overlords. When the Tutsis try to free themselves from Belgian control in 1959, the Belgians “turned against them” and “encouraged a bloody Hutu revolt, which overthrew the [Tutsi] monarchy. More than 100,000 Tutsis were murdered in vengeance killings over the next few years” (15). The Belgians leave Rwanda in 1962, but by that time, the foundation has already been laid for a long-standing, violent struggle between Tutsis and Hutus: “a Hutu government was firmly in place, and Tutsis had become second-class citizens, facing persecution, violence, and death at the hands of Hutu extremists” (15). Though Immaculée is mostly shielded from the ethnic divide by her parents, the conflict first touches her life when she is just 3 years old in 1973. Hutu extremists burn down her family’s home. No one is harmed, and because she is so young, Immaculée does not understand what is happening or why it is happening.

Immaculée becomes more aware of the meaning of discrimination when she is about to enter high school at 15 years old. Though she is one of the top students in her class, she is barred from getting a scholarship to attend a private high school due to her being a Tutsi. School administrators in Rwanda seek to create what they call “ethnic balance” in schools, which gives Hutu students an advantage by placing them in the best schools and unfairly prevents Tutsi children from securing a good education. When Immaculée’s father learns that Immaculée did not receive a scholarship, he tries to get her enrolled at a different private school. To do this, he sells two of the family’s cows and uses the money to secure Immaculée’s admission at a newly built private school three hours away from Immaculée’s family home. Immaculée spends two years at that school, working very hard, until she one day takes a government test for honors students, to see if they qualify for admission to the top public schools in the country. Through the test, Immaculée earns a spot in Lycée de Notre Dame d’Afrique, one of the best schools in Rwanda. Immaculée and her family rejoice.

Immaculée takes to life at Lycée immediately. She loves the new campus and makes several new friends. With tensions between Hutus and Tutsi mounting, the children are strictly forbidden to leave the campus grounds without an escort: “It was scary out there, but within the walls of the school, I never felt any ethnic discrimination” (22). Damascene visits her at her new school and advises her to stay pious and to “‘[p]ray, Immaculée. Pray before you do your homework and whenever you’re preparing for a test or exam. Then study as hard as you can’’ (22). Immaculée looks back on these moments and is grateful to have had Damascene in her life.

Rumblings of civil unrest begin in in Rwanda in 1990, when Immaculée is in her third and last year at Lycée. Immaculée recounts how the day begins without a hint that the country is on the verge of total civil unrest: “It was a beautiful sunny afternoon […] my classmates and I were waiting for our Civil Education class to begin and wondering why our teacher was late” (23). When the teacher finally arrives, he is pacing and clearly upset. He informs the class that, through the school administration, he just learned that there has been an attack on the country and that it poses a very serious threat, in the immediate future and “for a long time to come” (23). He further explains that a group of Tutsi rebel exiles crossed into Rwanda from Uganda, and they are intent on fighting to win the country back to Tutsi control. The fighting, primarily, at this point is between the Tutsi rebels and soldiers of the Rwandan government.

As a Tutsi, Immaculée listens to her teacher’s words and feels ashamed that she is affiliated with the violence in Rwanda. These rebels are part of a political group known as the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), made up of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi exiles who were forced to flee the country by the Hutu majority. Hutus believe the Rwandan Patriotic Front simply wants to overthrow the Hutu government, but Immaculée explains that their primary objective is to live in a free and equal Rwandan society. News of the war forces classes to be over for the day. The school director allows students to listen to the radio to stay informed, but Rwanda’s national radio service is “little more than hate propaganda” at that time, and the announcers “claimed that the rebel soldiers lived in the forest like animals, ate human flesh, and consorted with monkeys” (25). These reports heighten fear in the general Hutu public, further escalating the conflict at hand.

Clementine is one of Immaculée’s few Tutsi friends at Lycée, and the next day, she pulls Immaculée aside. Clementine takes Immaculée to a utility building on the campus and shows her a high-voltage electrical box, saying, “‘If Hutu extremists invade the school and we have no way to escape, we can come here, pull down this lever, and stick our hands in. We’ll die immediately—it’s better to be electrocuted than be tortured, raped, and murdered’” (26).

As Christmas approaches, the national radio service—which only broadcasts Hutu extremist propaganda—reports that the Rwandan Patriotic Front has attacked the presidential palace. Meanwhile, Immaculée goes home to celebrate the holiday with her family. When she arrives in her village, before getting to her family home, Immaculée discovers from a neighbor that her father has been imprisoned, though the neighbor does not say why. When Immaculée finally arrives at her family’s house, her mother is there and makes no mention of her father’s arrest until Immaculée asks directly. It turns out that, soon after the war began, government soldiers attacked Immaculée’s father at his work, hauling him off to the town jail where he was denied food for several days. Two weeks later, when President Habyarimana succumbs to international pressure and allows thousands of Tutsis to be released from Rwanda’s jails, Immaculée’s father is released. After the holidays, Immaculée returns to Lycée to finish the last few months of high school as war intensifies: “The rebels were winning more battles and pressuring the government to allow exiled Rwandans to return to the country and share power with the Hutus” (29). Immaculée makes plans to go to university, in spite of the country’s civil war growing and intensifying.

In the summer of 1991, Immaculée learns that she has been awarded a scholarship to attend the National University in Butare. Immaculée and her family are absolutely thrilled, and they celebrate with a huge feast: “We stayed up all evening laughing, eating, and talking about all the good things that lay ahead. My parents seemed very young to me that night, as though a weight had been lifted from their shoulders” (31). Immaculée intends to study psychology and philosophy “so that I could learn about the inner workings of the human heart and mind, but the scholarships were limited to open spaces in specific programs [...] The government assigned me to the applied science program” (32). Immaculée heads to Butare, four hours southeast from her family home to begin her new life as a college student.

Immaculée enjoys life as a university student: “I loved my classes and studied hard, but I also enjoyed the fun and freedom of being at university” (32). She begins dating a fellow student, a young Hutu man by the name of John. Immaculée tries to have the normal life of a college student, but “[d]espite on-again, off-again peace talks and cease-fires, the fierce fighting between the Tutsi rebels and government troops continued in the north” (33). The leader of Rwanda, President Habyarimana, founds a Hutu military group specifically targeting youths called “the Interahamwe,” which translates to “those who attack together” (33). Immaculée first notices the Interahamwe’s presence in Kigali, when she sees a group of boys mob an elderly Tutsi woman. They beat her and steal her shoes. Another incident with the Interahamwe occurs when Immaculée and her brother are en route to a wedding via a bus. Suddenly, the bus is swarmed with members of the Interahamwe: “At least 300 Interahamwe were standing in the road blocking our way, all of them looking ridiculous in their clownish outfits, but dangerously wide-eyed as well” (34). The driver of the bus says he refuses to drive through the mob; rather than be late for the wedding due to the bus reroute, Immaculée and her brother go through the mob, despite the fact that, as Tutsis, they are at great risk of being attacked by the Interahamwe. After a quick prayer asking God for protection, Immaculée and her brother miraculously make it through the Interahamwe.