RETELLMany days, weeks and around a month had passed in that tiny bathroom. After a few days, the Pastor had thrown in 2 other women into our little space making it more difficult to do well, anything. They were dressed as Interhamwe killers, but soon after they figured they were just as scared as the rest of them in there. Immaculee had known one of the girls, Malaba, who was about her age but never really spoke to her. The other young girl, Solange was a brand new face. They had told the other women that one of the Pastor's daughters, Marianne, was hiding them in her house since the genocide had begun. Having been known to be a kind and compassionate lady, the killers were very suspicious and continuously searched her home. Sooner or later Marianne knew they would find the two women so she disguised them as Interhamwe killers and somehow managed to create a Hutu identity card for Malaba. Due to the absence of Solange's identity card, they feared they would be stopped constantly. So, Marianne encouraged them to severely act like the Interhamwe, yelling, "HUTU POWER, KILL THOSE COACKROCHES!" and waving their grenades, machetes and guns in the air. They eventually made it to the Pastor's house.
One night, Immaculee drifted off to sleep and dreamt of Jesus. In the dream, He had told her that once she got out of that bathroom, most of the people she loved and cared for would be dead and gone. He told her not too mourn too long for her family because they were with Him now, and they were happy. Did this mean her whole family had been killed in this nasty genocide? She hoped not. Not too long after the dream, Immaculee could hear a group of men talking outside her window. One of the few men were talking about the capture of a young man. He said, "This boy had a master's degree from university, and the killers kept taunting him about it- they asked him why they'd caught him if he was so smart. One of them said he wanted to see the brains of someone with a master's degree, so he chopped the boy across the head with his machete. Then he looked inside the skull." She prayed to God that this boy hadn't been her dearest brother Damascene, due to the fact that only very few Tutsis men in Rwanda earned a master's degree, and he had been one of those men. At this point in their survival, there was nothing to do but continue to pray and keep hope. The Pastor would come into the bathroom now and then, informing them on what was happening throughout the city and country. The killers came and went as they please arriving unannounced all hours of the day claiming they hadn't done a good job searching. They were either ordered to or grew bored and felt like hunting Tutsis. Immaculee kept her faith. She had even been starting to think about what she would like to do as work after she got out of the bathroom. That's when God put another idea into her mind. Working for the United Nations. Although there was just one little problem. She did not speak or understand english. That is when she asked the Pastor if he had any english dictionnaries or books that he could lend to her so she would be able to study. Once again, the Pastor doubted her saying it was a bad idea. He eventually gave in, and Immaculee was hard at work. She tried to make out many words and phrases, but the only sentence that she was able to say was, "Hello, my name is Immaculee." But due to her strong faith, she continued to pray to God to guide her through those long days.

RELATE:

I am not too sure in which way I can relate to Immaculee. At this point, I can only say that I am similar to her in the sense of learning new things. In this case, she was learning a whole new language and I am trying to accomplish the same thing. Although it is very hard to do so, she never once gave up. When I find things get too hard, I tend to give up quite easily but remind myself why I started in the first place.

REFLECT:

I pretty much learn the same things throughout each blog post, because the moral of the story never really changes. Here, I would say that I learned to never give up when times are hard. If a woman who was stranded in a tiny bathroom with 7 other women was able to not lose hope, and even have the strength to learn a whole new language despite what was going on just on the other side of the room, I think we could do the same. And we have it so much easier as well.