Life Laid Bare by Jean Hatzfeld

Author:Jean Hatzfeld [Hatzfeld, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59051-669-0
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2013-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

MARIE-LOUISE KAGOYIRE,

45 Years Old, Shopkeeper The Main Street of Nyamata

My parents were small farmers and livestock breeders. They gave me permission to finish my first year in secondary school before starting to look for a husband. In our customs, girls marry earlier when the parents aren’t rich.

One day, I came to visit a maternal aunt in Nyamata. On the main square, a gentleman noticed me and liked what he saw. His name was Léonard Rwerekana, and he was already a successful businessman. We began winking at each other, on a few occasions. Still, in those days, the girl was not supposed to accept any kind of advances directly, so he asked my aunt to be the go-between and she pressed his case with my family. The gentleman walked an entire day in the sun to go visit my parents—who said that a man who had come on foot should not be made to cool his heels any longer. I got married when I was nineteen years old.

At the time, Nyamata was a straggling village of mud-brick houses with sheet-metal roofs. It wasn’t until 1974 that buildings of stone and concrete appeared. Léonard constructed his first house on our lot, then a warehouse on the main street, followed by some new stores. In 1976 he bought a van, an old, used van, but it was the first private vehicle. Then he opened the cabaret La Fraternité and some restaurants, developed the trade in beans and beverages, bought some fields and cattle. In 1980, with two new vans out on the road, he was the most important shipper in the area. Mounting jealousy was already coming between the Tutsi and Hutu business communities, because the Tutsis were prospering faster than the Hutus. One reason for this was that the Hutus coming from Gitarama didn’t know any of the customers in Nyamata. Another reason was that the Tutsis kept their clerks on for five or six years, until they were able to open their own little businesses, whereas the Hutus were always turning over their employees. But the most important thing was that the Tutsis worked with their inventory on hand and never borrowed money from anyone.

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