From Remember Rwanda: a rainbow of broken glass like teeth
a book-length memoir, in progress
April 8, 2014, at the hotel in Kigali
The day before I finally left Rwanda
The hotel where I stayed was in Kiyovu, a posh enclave of Kigal, just a few blocks down the hill from the walled compound surrounding the President’s ceremonial home. Many soldiers with rifles. We were all behind walls there, with guards at the gate, once the sun went down.
I sat at my pale pine desk in the lavender sanctuary of my room. A rainstorm pounded the windows and doors to the drenched side garden, the wall to the street. At the top of the wall, a rainbow of broken glass, like teeth, caught the light of passing cars.
If I stretched my arm out from the desk, I could reach the bed, with its cotton blanket stretched tight across the mattress, mosquito net, pink, tied in a knot above.
I opened the door to the hall.
Raymond, Ugandan, English speaker, all teeth, heard my door creak open.
“Do you want supper, Madamme? You have not yet eaten.”
“Maybe later,” I told him. “What I want is Virunga.”
“Ah, yes. We have Virunga for you. I will bring it now.”
Virunga. They ordered it special for me. The darkest of Rwanda’s beers, named for the national forest in the north, where tourists go to mingle with endangered Silverback gorillas.
Rain brought in flies. Not houseflies, but flying things they called flies, with huge wings, black gossamer, specks of bodies. The wet ones stuck to walls and floors; dry ones buzzed the air like tiny planes. If I wasn't careful, they’d wind up in my room, hide in the mosquito net over the bed, and fall on the floor, where I’d squash them. I tried not to hurt them, but they carpeted the floor, and it was dark.
Here, unlike most Rwandans, I was blessed with heat, running water (reliably warm), a real shower. I had a toilet that flushed when you pushed the button.
And I had Raymond—and golden-eyed Aida, who slept under the desk at night, sending me forth each day to find her a husband. “A Muslim, please, a good man.” She’d had her share of bad. And graceful Yvette—all arms and legs—who was teaching Raymond French; he was teaching her English. They practiced on me every morning at breakfast:
“Qu’est-ce que vous voulez, Madamme?” Raymond would ask.
“Omelette, comme toujours, avec tomates et champignons. Pas de frommage. S’il vous plait.”
My everyday breakfast: omelette with mushroom and tomato, no cheese. Please.
Then it was Yvette’s turn: “We are having no tomates today, Madamme. We are sorry. This is good?”
“It is very good, thank you,” I said. This part of the day was always good.
Yvette’s sister did hair. Yvette got a new do every week: deep auburn braids down her back; then dancing corkscrews. Every few week, they gave her scalp a rest. Au naturel, her hair was like mine, only a couple of inches long. Come Sunday morning, the braids were back.
When I admired a particularly striking transformation—tiny burgundy braids cut short in a bob, with bangs—Yvette had me turn my head this way and that, examined my hair, short-cropped and dark at the root with all this traveling.
“Ma sour peut le faire pour vous, Madamme, si vous voulez.” Her sister could do this for me.
But what worked with those braids on Yvette was the dark hair against the dark skin of her scalp. It blended in. I’d have to have bleach my hair white, or paint my head brown.
Sylvia, the owner, created this pastel oasis, and cultivated her small staff, taught them to serve à la française. Sylvia and her family escaped Rwanda for Congo in the fifties, when Tutsis began to be targeted. She met her husband in Congo. He’s a physicist. He is French.
She lived in France most of her life, still lived half the year in France, raised her children in France. They were grown, so she was back in Rwanda, because her heart called her home, and she had the means to come.
Sylvia was inside-outside in Rwanda, like me. Her blood was pure Rwanda, but she’d come of age in France. I was outside by blood; inside, because to do the work I did, I willed myself to be.
Daniel, an orphan, was the one person at the hotel who’d been there during the genocide. He was nine “pendant les temps tristes.” The sad times, he called them. Daniel was short and soft at the edges. Quiet, childlike, demur next to Raymond’s rockstar bravado, Yvette’s brazen curiosity.
April in Rwanda. It’s rainy season: the sky weeps big loud tears.
I came home mid-day and sat at a table in the dripping garden. Daniel was the only one there. Without my asking, he brought Virunga, knelt by the table. He took a tiny black and white photograph wrapped in plastic from his thin leather wallet, a young woman, unsmiling.
“C’est tous que j’avais de ma mere,” he said. This is all he had of his mother.
“You are like my mother,” he said, in French. “You are kind.”
I looked hard at the photo in my hand. His mother was light skinned, pretty, in a round-collared blouse, with a bow at the neck. It must have been a photo from school.
Sad eyes. Were they sad brown eyes, like mine?
I looked down at Daniel, took his hands in mine. Daniel called me kind. It was so hard to feel kind, to be kind. I felt so badly used, so carelessly thrown away.
I wanted more than anything else to be kind.
“Merci,” I said, “ma chere Daniel.”
I would be leaving him, leaving Kigali.
I would be leaving very soon.
a book-length memoir, in progress
April 8, 2014, at the hotel in Kigali
The day before I finally left Rwanda
The hotel where I stayed was in Kiyovu, a posh enclave of Kigal, just a few blocks down the hill from the walled compound surrounding the President’s ceremonial home. Many soldiers with rifles. We were all behind walls there, with guards at the gate, once the sun went down.
I sat at my pale pine desk in the lavender sanctuary of my room. A rainstorm pounded the windows and doors to the drenched side garden, the wall to the street. At the top of the wall, a rainbow of broken glass, like teeth, caught the light of passing cars.
If I stretched my arm out from the desk, I could reach the bed, with its cotton blanket stretched tight across the mattress, mosquito net, pink, tied in a knot above.
I opened the door to the hall.
Raymond, Ugandan, English speaker, all teeth, heard my door creak open.
“Do you want supper, Madamme? You have not yet eaten.”
“Maybe later,” I told him. “What I want is Virunga.”
“Ah, yes. We have Virunga for you. I will bring it now.”
Virunga. They ordered it special for me. The darkest of Rwanda’s beers, named for the national forest in the north, where tourists go to mingle with endangered Silverback gorillas.
Rain brought in flies. Not houseflies, but flying things they called flies, with huge wings, black gossamer, specks of bodies. The wet ones stuck to walls and floors; dry ones buzzed the air like tiny planes. If I wasn't careful, they’d wind up in my room, hide in the mosquito net over the bed, and fall on the floor, where I’d squash them. I tried not to hurt them, but they carpeted the floor, and it was dark.
Here, unlike most Rwandans, I was blessed with heat, running water (reliably warm), a real shower. I had a toilet that flushed when you pushed the button.
And I had Raymond—and golden-eyed Aida, who slept under the desk at night, sending me forth each day to find her a husband. “A Muslim, please, a good man.” She’d had her share of bad. And graceful Yvette—all arms and legs—who was teaching Raymond French; he was teaching her English. They practiced on me every morning at breakfast:
“Qu’est-ce que vous voulez, Madamme?” Raymond would ask.
“Omelette, comme toujours, avec tomates et champignons. Pas de frommage. S’il vous plait.”
My everyday breakfast: omelette with mushroom and tomato, no cheese. Please.
Then it was Yvette’s turn: “We are having no tomates today, Madamme. We are sorry. This is good?”
“It is very good, thank you,” I said. This part of the day was always good.
Yvette’s sister did hair. Yvette got a new do every week: deep auburn braids down her back; then dancing corkscrews. Every few week, they gave her scalp a rest. Au naturel, her hair was like mine, only a couple of inches long. Come Sunday morning, the braids were back.
When I admired a particularly striking transformation—tiny burgundy braids cut short in a bob, with bangs—Yvette had me turn my head this way and that, examined my hair, short-cropped and dark at the root with all this traveling.
“Ma sour peut le faire pour vous, Madamme, si vous voulez.” Her sister could do this for me.
But what worked with those braids on Yvette was the dark hair against the dark skin of her scalp. It blended in. I’d have to have bleach my hair white, or paint my head brown.
Sylvia, the owner, created this pastel oasis, and cultivated her small staff, taught them to serve à la française. Sylvia and her family escaped Rwanda for Congo in the fifties, when Tutsis began to be targeted. She met her husband in Congo. He’s a physicist. He is French.
She lived in France most of her life, still lived half the year in France, raised her children in France. They were grown, so she was back in Rwanda, because her heart called her home, and she had the means to come.
Sylvia was inside-outside in Rwanda, like me. Her blood was pure Rwanda, but she’d come of age in France. I was outside by blood; inside, because to do the work I did, I willed myself to be.
Daniel, an orphan, was the one person at the hotel who’d been there during the genocide. He was nine “pendant les temps tristes.” The sad times, he called them. Daniel was short and soft at the edges. Quiet, childlike, demur next to Raymond’s rockstar bravado, Yvette’s brazen curiosity.
April in Rwanda. It’s rainy season: the sky weeps big loud tears.
I came home mid-day and sat at a table in the dripping garden. Daniel was the only one there. Without my asking, he brought Virunga, knelt by the table. He took a tiny black and white photograph wrapped in plastic from his thin leather wallet, a young woman, unsmiling.
“C’est tous que j’avais de ma mere,” he said. This is all he had of his mother.
“You are like my mother,” he said, in French. “You are kind.”
I looked hard at the photo in my hand. His mother was light skinned, pretty, in a round-collared blouse, with a bow at the neck. It must have been a photo from school.
Sad eyes. Were they sad brown eyes, like mine?
I looked down at Daniel, took his hands in mine. Daniel called me kind. It was so hard to feel kind, to be kind. I felt so badly used, so carelessly thrown away.
I wanted more than anything else to be kind.
“Merci,” I said, “ma chere Daniel.”
I would be leaving him, leaving Kigali.
I would be leaving very soon.
