Only God Knows Tomorrow

Nyira, Rwanda

Rwanda was home. Life hadn’t always been easy, you know it wasn’t, and then it got better. She started a business. She was okay, happy, finally, after the dark days. She had three children. Her husband was a general.

After what she saw life could be, after the grace that carried her through, her life was more than she could ask for.

Then ghosts of the past continued to follow her.

Years after, the stain of the genocide had not fully left minds and hearts.

In 2021 came knocking.

Her husband was targeted, attacked. She knew they would come for her and her children. And so, she fled.

Her life, her business, her home, her husband… all gone.

She fled east to Uganda.

She is grateful for life, but life is hard, she repeats over and over and over…
Life is hard, she looks downcast.

On the journey, she says people caught up with her and took advantage of her vulnerable situation. They cornered her, and as she resisted their strong arms and violent intent, she could not do much. She was raped.

She continued to run to Uganda.

Later, she found out she had HIV. A result of a rape along her journey to refuge. 

How? How? How had her life become this after so many years after the genocide. Nearly thirty years later.

Her back is in constant pain, a reminder from when the men forced themselves on her as she resisted them, her body hitting a decrepit wall as she fled political persecution.

She makes mandazi. She can barely walk long before the pain in her back renders her bedridden for days after she has been on her feet too long.

Her children help in selling items. Hawking. Illegally.

If they are caught, the KCCA will take away their stock and they lose everything.

The people sneer at her when they learn she is Rwandese.

She needs capital. Funding to start a business. She wants work that can accommodate her bad back, one where she does not have to walk for long.

They fled because they had to. Not because they wanted to. They left everything they knew behind, the roads, their friends and family, many of whom they watched die, their businesses.

Now they are in a new country and they are struggling.

Jobs are hard to get. Most do not have degrees. But they are determined to make do, even if just for today.

They come here and people think they are using up resources. No, they want to work, sell something, eat tonight at least.

But they can’t.

She wants to be independent, like she was back home. But how?

She will sell anything. She will do anything for herself and her kids. She will push aside her pain, her illness, her throbbing feet and bloodied memories.

Sometimes she will be successful, many times she is not.

Only God knows tomorrow.