Nearly two decades after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, remembrance is no longer a once-a-year event for survivors. It has become a way of life and part of our raison d’être. Reparation, the central topic of this blog, is one of the best ways to officially recognize and publicly condemn the horror survivors lived through. It is also a way to honor the more than one million innocent Tutsi and moderate Hutus slaughtered in Rwanda.
In the short poem below, the author remembers the happy times before the genocide. Now that her loved ones have been mercilessly butchered, she wonders where to find them.
POEM
I wish I was a bird I would fly to you
I wish I was a lake I will blow my breeze to you
I wish I was the sun I will bright you
I wish I was the moon I will light your darkest nights
I wish I knew exactly where u were
I will come straight to you, hold your hand, cry with you or just smile at you
I miss you, I miss you
My heart confuses me
I feel you are no longer
Yet my heart feels you right here?
You are always in my dreams
But dreams feel real
And then I wake up I realize the worst happened
I can’t hug you, laugh with you, cry with you
Yet i feel you are always in my heart, yet I miss u this much?
Tell me where to find u?
In my daughter’s eyes?
My brother’s laugh
My mum’ s hug
My friend’s story
My husband’s kindness
My cousin’ s joke?
Tell me where you are,
I will meet you right there…
Oh, I think I know where you are!
URI HOSE AHO URI NKWIBUKA
NDI HOSE AHO NDI UNYIBUKA
NDI MU MUTIMA WAWE
Twibuke….
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