grandfather tended his cattle, sheep, and goats. In the evening, he herded them into their enclosure, pulling thorny branches across its opening as protection from predators.
Seeing a mass of fish in a large crock one day, I happily anticipated a fish fry, such as we occasionally enjoyed in Kalambi. To my shock, however, Tateh Ephraim started hoeing the fish into the ground in his banana grove. His explanation – that fish made good fertilizer – startled me, but I never doubted him. His crops were excellent.
Although Tateh Ephraim had never been to school, he had taught himself to read. When his day’s work was done, he put on the pair of glasses Papa had sent him, relaxed into his comfortable chair, and read his Bible. One evening he called me to his side. “Scripture says hard times will come over the earth in the last days, my child,” he said. “People will change their ways for the worse.”
Another time he remarked, “When I read the Bible in Kinyarwanda, I understand it best. Kinyarwanda is the most beautiful language in the world!” I avoided Clement’s eye, afraid we might burst out laughing. Kinyarwanda was the only language our grandfather knew.
Sundays we joined our grandparents on their forty-five minute walk to church in Karengera. Tateh Damaris, a woman of style, wore an elegant mushanana. Usually kept for rare celebrations, this traditional garment is tied at one shoulder and falls in graceful folds to the ankle. Along our way, we had to traverse some rickety planks over a swirling creek. While I hesitated, my dignified grandmother traipsed confidently across in her high heels. I felt proud to see how respectfully my grandparents were greeted by everyone we met along the way – Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa.
4
Wakening
MY FATHER’S FAITH shaped our family’s outlook. Through daily example, he and Mama taught us children to love our friends and neighbors – and enemies – and to trust in God, no matter what.
The way Papa described a coming kingdom of peace and justice, I expected to wake up to it any morning. I would peek outside, hoping to glimpse a leopard romping with a baby goat, or a lion eating straw like an ox. My mind stopped short, however, at the idea of my baby brother putting his hand into a viper’s nest. Shuddering, I turned my imagination away from snakes.
Singing was as natural as eating in our home. Since Papa could read music, he often taught us songs from his Kirundi and Swahili songbooks. His favorite, picked up at the Billy Graham crusade – Mbega urukundo ry’Imana yacu, “How great is God’s love, beyond all telling” – accompanied us through the years.
Every evening, we gathered in the living room to sing, pray, and listen to Papa’s Bible stories. He described a father scanning the horizon for his disobedient 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
