Those of you who have resigned yourselves to the inevitability of a weekly encounter with this tiresome narrative, in the name of ‘Reflections’, will recall having read a story of me and a gentleman called Kanyeshyamba.
Those of you who have resigned yourselves to the inevitability of a weekly encounter with this tiresome narrative, in the name of ‘Reflections’, will recall having read a story of me and a gentleman called Kanyeshyamba.
The original names of the gentleman are Jaques Van Der Loo but, being a veteran of this hilly land (he has been here for 58 years now!), he has understandably adopted a local name.
This Kanyeshyamba, however, was not exactly born in Rwanda. He was born in the then Belgian Congo and had Congolese nationality. He was born of a Dutch father and a Belgian mother, but if you think he is of mixed parentage you won’t have heard half his story.
However, before we get tied up in knots by his story, what is the exact story of his father’s country of origin?
The Netherlands, or Holland, is not only confusing in its naming. It has many inexplicabilities, among them its very existence as a country. You are not as ancient as yours truly and should remember that in your Geography lessons they used to tell you that the country is below sea level.
You wondered then: if that is true, why isn’t the country under the waters of the ocean?
If you got the answer to that, you’ll agree with the popular saying passed on to me by Prof Tonny that "God created the Dutch and the Dutch created Holland”. The country is actually ‘carved’ out of water, having been practically ‘fished’ out of the Atlantic Ocean and protected by dykes.
The Dutch, those amazing people that begat Kanyeshyamba’s father, are among a few peoples in the world who can decide on the size of the country they want. Any time they want more land, they only need to claim it from the ocean.
Unfortunate Rwandans, we cannot grow sideways as we are tightly hemmed in by neighbours and our only possible direction of growth is upwards. Imagine a Rwanda of a number of storeys!
Maybe after our "Vision 2020” we should think of a "Vision Rwanda Plusieurs Etages”. Then, when the vision has been attained, a visitor at an entry port will be asked by our immigration officials: "Which Rwanda do you want to visit, first floor or fourth?”
But back to Kanyeshyamba. The man is a product of The Netherlands and Belgium, has been a Congolese (many of them are not ‘Congoleses’!) and now may soon be Rwandan! Considering his knowledge of Kinyarwanda and Rwanda, I don’t see him failing the nationality test.
However, if you think he is a product of many lands, wait till you listen to the story of his whole family.
Kanyeshyamba is married to a Rwandan with whom they have five children. The son is married to a Portuguese and the first daughter to a Costa Rican. And the mélange gets giddier the further down you go.
The second daughter is married to an American. And that son-in-law to Kanyeshyamba is son to Peter Tosh, the famous Jamaican musician. Tosh fathered that son on a Congolese woman. The third daughter….all right, I’ll spare you the dizzying details!
So, what would Interahamwe have done in the face of such dilemma! The way they like dividing people into ethnic groups, what would they have called Kanyeshyamba’s grand children?
And Kanyeshyamba has met none-too-few Interahamwe of his own. It was thanks to a stroke of luck, he said, that he escaped being turned into lunch. It was going to be goodbye not only to getting children but also to his precious life.
As soon as he said that, it opened floods of memories. Yes, I’d heard about the manner in which colonialists in Belgian Congo had been sent out of the country, but I’d never associated it with somebody that I’d come to eventually know.
We’d heard how the Congolese ate – yes, ate! – any White who was not able to run away in time. In 1960, if you were Belgian and you did not manage to sneak out of Congo, the Congolese grabbed you and tied you, face towards tree, onto that tree. Then they’d make fire as they made carnivorous chants.
Even before the fire was ready, a Congolese would have already chopped off the buttocks of a White and put them on fire to roast, amid the victim’s loud protests. We had heard – as Kanyeshyamba now confirmed – that sometimes a small number of Congolese soldiers tried to protect the Belgians.
Still, if a Congolese caught a soldier off guard, he would sneak to a White and chop off the arm that wore a watch, then run away. That way, the Congolese would not only have got an arm for his meal but would also have got a watch in the bargain.
Luckily for our Kanyeshyamba, he was rescued by a group of his Congolese friends who were hunting with him by River Luama, near Gatanga. He was smuggled all the way to Bujumbura, Burundi, where he was placed in a refugee transit camp. Later, he was able to rejoin his parents in Rwanda.
Goes to show you that Interahamwe exist in many places, as do saints amidst them.