son – then running to embrace him when he returned home, ashamed, after disgracing the family. He told about a good shepherd who left his large herd in their enclosure to search for one lost lamb, in danger from eagles by day and hyenas at night. He spoke of a disciple who could walk on water as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus.
Christmas was my favorite time of year. Then Papa told about Mary, a young girl like me, and about an angel telling her she would become mother to the best baby in the world. He described hosts of angels proclaiming her child’s birth, in song, to herders on the hillside at night. But he also spoke of great hardships: that although the baby had been announced by heaven and honored with gold and incense, he had to flee for his life, a refugee with his parents, while soldiers slaughtered the infant boys of Bethlehem. And when he grew up, he was killed, suffering a cruel death out of love for us all. It was more than I could understand. But I knew I loved this child above everything.
Part of our evening ritual was apologizing for any offense of the day. For me, that usually meant making peace with Clement, with whom I fought most. One day I told the whole family I was sorry for grabbing the core when Mama cut up our pineapple – but that didn’t prevent my grabbing the neck when she carved our roast chicken the next day.
In the evening prayer, Papa asked God to heal our mother, who was often unwell. We prayed for alcoholics in our village. We asked for protection from illness – malaria plagued the region – and from evil powers. We also prayed for our father’s work in the hospital, especially for the pregnant women, since mothers sometimes died in childbirth.
One day a baby was born beside the road outside our village, and Papa was called to help. At the end of that week when, as always, our father asked each of us what to thank God for, my sister Rose told him to give thanks for the baby born at the roadside. I always wanted him to thank God that none of us had been bitten by a snake.
Our evening gathering gave me security to face the nights, which were utterly dark in this place of no electricity. Kalambi was ruled by superstition, and most local Barega wore amulets to ward off evil. The scream of a jungle cat foretold bad luck, the villagers said, and you would die if you answered a night bird’s call. Even when someone died of malaria, the death was blamed on magic.
A neighbor whispered to Mama that local sorceresses had killed their own husbands. Mama did not know if this was true, and did not want to know. But when weird sounds woke me in the darkness, or I remembered the neighbors’ dire stories and predictions, I reassured myself back to sleep with one of Papa’s songs.
As I grew into adolescence, I continued to spend time with my best friend, Bishoshi, and her mother, Marthe. I wasn’t the only one at their house. All the kids enjoyed Bishoshi’s cheery, outgoing ways. She seemed to be always preparing and serving food.
One morning while we were eating breakfast, Marthe burst into our house. “Bishoshi is very sick!” she cried. “I can’t wake her!”
Papa hurried out. I pushed my food away, my appetite replaced by a knot of anxiety.
Bishoshi’s condition was too critical for Kalambi’s health center, so Papa drove her to the hospital in Mwenga. On return, he told us Bishoshi had meningitis and explained how serious it was.
A week later she died. She was fourteen.
Losing my best friend was terrible, inconceivable, and I could not stop crying. My parents told me Bishoshi was with God, but that seemed a remote idea. It was my first close encounter with death. How could Bishoshi be alive and laughing one week, and gone forever the next? I was also frightened: if death could take her, what about me?
In the evening, after Papa told us the news, my siblings and I went to Marthe’s house next door. She welcomed us, and she seemed to take comfort from seeing that we shared her grief, so we kept returning. Others joined us. Every day the group of children and teenagers grew.
Over the next couple of weeks, as we continued to meet in Marthe’s house – where I still sensed Bishoshi’s nearness – my heaviness began to lift. I found myself eagerly anticipating our next gathering. And as we sang, prayed, and read the Bible together, a greater joy than I had ever known welled up in my heart. I had never given heaven much thought before, but now it seemed real, natural, and close. The others felt the same way.
One of my friends and I prayed together in Marthe’s backyard. We asked God to show us what displeased him in us – and at that moment, I remembered my quick temper. I decided to fast, to eat nothing for a couple of days, because I knew from experience that good resolutions alone would not conquer my moods. I sensed God was helping me, and that made me glad. I stopped fighting with my brothers and sisters, and I obeyed my parents more readily – not because they demanded more, but because of the peace and happiness I felt inside.
When the adults in church realized we kids were serious about giving our lives to God, they assigned a teacher to support us. They also gave us a room in the mission compound to use for our meetings. We always sang when we got together. Soon nearby villages started inviting our youth group to sing for them too.
I prayed in private now, no longer depending solely on our family devotions. I started reading the Bible myself as well, finding within it everything I thirsted for. Its last section troubled me, however. There I read that one bowl of wrath after another would be poured over the earth, and still the people would not repent. Would I experience such a “bowl of wrath” in my lifetime? It was a fearsome thought, and I decided to leave that part of the Bible until I was strong enough to handle it.
I turned thirteen during this children’s revival and requested baptism. Following a brief preparation course, I was baptized on Christmas Eve, 1977.
KALAMBI HAD NO high school. So when I finished eighth grade in 1978, my parents sent me to Lycée Bideka, a Christian girls’ boarding school with an excellent reputation.
Papa had earlier hoped I might become a nurse, to assist him in his work. But he and Mama realized the futility of this dream when I freaked out at the sight of blood after a child gashed his leg falling from a tree. So my parents suggested I train as a teacher. Gaining a diploma after six years at Lycée Bideka would qualify me to teach elementary school.
Although Bideka was only fifty miles from Kalambi, I rarely went home. The trip, in an open truck with thirty or forty others plus a load of freight, could take up to three days in the rainy season.
These were mind-stretching, enjoyable years. But it was at Lycée Bideka that I first encountered hatred between Hutu and Tutsi. Initially there was no division among us. I made friends with girls from Rwanda, Burundi, and different regions of Zaire, as the Congo was called during this period.
Since five of us shared the name Uwimana –“belonging to God” – the others renamed us to differentiate. I was La Petite Uwimana, because of my short stature. My classmates admired my hair, which is unusually soft. Some of them combed it out into what Westerners had started calling an afro.
When we performed dramas, my role was to sing behind the curtains. Some of our productions were hilarious, although they weren’t meant to be. We laughed till we cried, seeing girls act the parts of wise men in the nativity play.
One lunchtime, the head girl was indignant to discover insects in our beans and pebbles in the rice. “Our parents pay a lot of money for us to attend this school,” she declared, “and this is the food we get?” When she initiated a hunger strike, everyone enthusiastically joined in. Our three-day demonstration was good fun – and the food improved as a result.
Then some new students came from Rwanda. Since they needed help with their French, a classmate, Aurelie, and I agreed to coach them. She and I soon realized, however, that this group was split between Hutu and Tutsi, their antagonism obvious through spiteful comments and the dark looks they exchanged.
Aurelie and I challenged the new girls to accept each other. Some seemed to take our advice, but others did not. Their prejudice was too deeply engrained.
IN 1983 MY PARENTS MOVED to Bwegera, also in the Congo, where my father opened a small clinic. This town, on the road our family had traveled when I was