Between despair and hope, sad memories linger on

With obvious rage and pain, Joseph Munyawera recounts his suffering during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. His entire family was killed. He was just 12 years old at the time. Brought up by a stepmother whom he says resented him, Munyawera narrates his sombre account of the horible atrocities. “My brothers, sisters and mother died in the Genocide and my father who had become physically handicapped gave me no support when my stepmother forced me to leave my home,” Munyawera says in a dry tone. As if staring at a distant object, he recalls how his elder sister was chopped into pieces and mother raped as he looked on before being forced to flee for his life. “At that moment it was unbearable and hard to imagine,” he says emotionally as if trying to remember every single detail of that fateful day. He found consolation when he married five years ago, though the joy was not to last long. Sadly the wife succumbed to AIDS after two years leaving him with a baby girl. “By then I had a young daughter, and when I was also diagnosed as HIV positive in February 2007 I could no longer cope,” he recalls with sadness. When he heard the news of his HIV status, he remembers being swept over by a sense of desolation and despair because nothing good had ever happened in his past, “and it will be the same with my future.” The infections he must live with leave him feeling battered and bruised but fortunately at the end of each month, Munyawera goes to the hospital in Gikondo to pick free medication. Since he lives in Butare, sometimes he misses the medication because he does not have transport and as time goes; he is growing weaker and weaker. “When I still had my strength, I could manage to find food for myself and my child. But since I’m in poor health, I can’t even find the money to buy milk for my child.” He says he has lost all hope and now awaits death. According to him, finding enough to eat is enough for the little time he is left with on this earth. Munyawera’s story is a tip of an iceberg; just one of the many who endured the unspeakable and haunting experience. But unlike others Munyawera was ‘lucky’ to finally meet the killers of his relatives though they have not come out to fully confess and guide him in securing the remains. He with profound strength tells a moving story of his unexpected reunion with his relatives’ killers. He met a long time neighbour who confessed to killing his mother but denies any involvement with his two brothers and three sisters yet they were all together at the time. “His name is Francois and is currently under going trial but it does not help much because he does not provide any information about the fate of the rest of my family members.” Munyawere says that despite his despair and lack of hope in a better life, he has forgiven Francois. Ends