The time Chantal Umubyeyi’s life seemed to be getting better, fate cut it short by causing death again. Most of her infancy was without parental love coupled with poverty.
She virtually struggled through school.

On completion of her secondary school, the realization of a comfortable life was within reach. For five years Umubyeyi was involved in a relationship with a man who finally asked to marry her. She had found love again. They later got married and were supposed to live happily.

But from around the corner fate was jealously waiting to strike. Just ten months into marriage, death cut short her happiness and dissolved her life again into the past troubles. Umubyei’s husband unexpectedly died of a heart condition leaving widow.

Recalling the fateful day, "when my husband died things became worse. I had to look after my siblings yet I had no job.”

"There was no reverse of the situation. I was back to hunger and financial problems. He was paying school fees for three of my brothers. One was in primary and two in secondary,” she recounts.

Born in 1979, Umubyeyi’s childhood had been characterised with sad troubles. Earlier, her parents had fled the 1959 genocide.

They had sought refuge in Burundi and after settling down, they got engaged in personal businesses. She was later born in exile with three of her brothers.

But in 1993, war broke out in exile. At the time her parents were in Bujumbura doing business.

"An auntie told me that my parents had died when we were fleeing for our lives,” she remembers. She never had a chance to prove whether they had actually died. Prior to their death Mubyeyi’s parents had distributed them to relatives.

"It is this auntie that helped us get into Rwanda,” she said. They arrived in Rwanda during the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

"On arrival we had so many financial problems and we lacked food. Our auntie was also financially unable to cater for us. She went begging to provide for us,” she vividly recalls the harsh times after crossing over from Burundi. Her parents’ death happened after she completed primary level.

Umubyeyi narrated that the Rwandan government through Ministry of Local Government was footing their school fees but along the way there was still a lack of funds.

"After senior two, I didn’t study for a whole year because the ministry didn’t have money.” It is during her education struggles that she met a man she only mentions as Jerome, an agricultural specialist.

"The next year a friend called Jerome, an agricultural specialist, who later became my husband paid for the rest of the years,” she said. Their intimacy developed as he paid her school fees.

He proposed to marry her immediately after secondary. They decided that she would commence school after marriage. But ten months in marriage, Jerome suddenly died.

"He left the work place on Friday in the evening. That day he had been away in the field not in his office. On returning, he told me that he was not feeling well. I thought he was just tired. We went to the hospital that night. The doctors told me that he had a heart problem but comforted that he would be fine.”

Fresh on her memory, Umubyeyi still recalls 11:47am as the exact time he passed away. Amidst her overwhelming sorrow, their neighbour, she describes as affluent heard of what had befallen her and paid them a visit.

"I got to know Christine Nyakamwe after my husband’s death. She came back to visit me and found out that I had had a rough past. Then she pledged to be a mother to me.”

With a smile Umubyeyi says; "God changed our lives by bringing this woman in my life.”

In 2005, her job search came to an end when Nyakamwe made her a secretary in Aigle Blanc a building that she owns located in Kacyiru.

"After the job offer, I was able to pay my brothers’ school fees,” she says happily.

Modestly she says; "with the education I have, I am not qualified to do the job. But I have learnt on the job. She even taught me everything at the job. After pain now I am full of joy.

Recalling the past experiences of deprivation and comparing it to the present happiness she has acquired, Umubyeyi whole heartedly gives the glory to God.

"I got saved in 1997. After the Lord helped me through a lot, I decided to give my life to Him [God],” Umubyeyi says with confidence. A message to fellow women is that they should protect morality and lean more on God in hard times.

"What helped me was not to compromise my virtues and keep in prayer. There are girls who are commercial sex workers.”

They put their lives in danger. There is no life there, it is just death. Job 42: 2 says that everything is possible with Him [God].”

Contact: barigyetony@yahoo.com