Maria's story continues "Tears of Hope"

Mount Muhabura

My husband died at the hands of Ntoni, my own brother. Ntoni was at first in the army but later, together with some others, was sent home from the army. But when the 1994 war started, the discharged soldiers were recalled. Ntoni must have been happy to handle a gun again. He was a greedy man,I suppose it was the army that made him like th

He had never forgiven my husband: As I had told you earlier, my husband had never paid bride price for me, Ntoni held a grudge about that.. He had hoped the bride price would go to him, as brother of the bride. He, therefore, used the prevailing confusion of the war during our flight to carry out his revenge.. He was stationed in the area we passed thru as we fled. He found my husband and the children and duped them into believing he was going to offer them some help. My poor husband did not know how wicked the man could be. At night he tied him up and hit him repeatedly on the chest with a butt of a gun. He must have burst his lungs or his heart. The boys watched helplessly, while their so called uncle left him for dead.. The frightened children sat next to their father as the blood oozed from his mouth and nose throughout the night.

As soon as the light of day showed them a path, they ran to the roadside to seek help. Passers-by did what they could to help, but the damage was so bad, he died later that day. All this time I was happily following behind , unaware of what was happening. I did not find out until much later when I ran into the children in Goma town.

I had never been to Goma town ,many of us fleeing had never left our villages before. It was just by sheer luck that I noticed my children sitting alone like orphans on the veranda of some building.. I expected their father to be somewhere nearby. Then the children tearfully told me how their father was killed. I was horrified but not surprised. I had known the depth of Ntoni’s wickedness for a long time.

In Goma-Gisenyi we were heaped in camps. We would stay a few days, sometimes one night, in one camp and then move on. We stayed at Mugunga camp and at another one near Goma airport. My mother-in-law died in that camp. The next day we just abandoned the body and continued. That was common. A person would die and would be left unburied as people continued fleeing. There was no time and nobody prepared to bury the dead. Everyone was trying to get as far away from the Rwanda border as possible.

We were later moved to a camp at Gatare near Sabginyo Mountain. We lived in this camp for over 6 months .It was a bad time for me. I was sickly even before I became pregnant.. With the pregnancy and the bad conditions, I got worse. I was very weak and yet to survive one needed to be strong. You should have seen the pushing and shoving when rations were being distributed, it was not for those without strength. The children were still very small, they could not fight in that crowd. It was a very hard time. Only Bikira Maria (mother of Jesus) kept us from dying.

I would wait until the fighting was over and everybody had got their rations and left the compound before crawling to pick up the fallen grains from the dust, mud or even human excreta .We could have died from hunger, dysentery or any other disease, but , surprisingly the children did not get sick.. Do you see this rosary? It never leaves my neck It kept us, me and my children, alive in that camp.

All this time I kept close to my husbands relatives. I feared that if I died and they were not near relatives, they would be all alone. But when times get really bad sometimes people become bad also, that is what happened in my case.. It was clear that the children and I were a burden to them. They had to share with us the little food they had .I could see the bad feelings in their eyes, it was so unreasonable. They could see I was very ill, I hated having to depend on them. I always wanted to do things for myself. The situation was really bad.

In the distance from the camp I could see Mt.Muhabura tantalizingly close. I knew that just behind it lay my home. Many an evening I would just sit and look at it and pray.. At that time it was hard to imagine that I would ever see it from this side.

Maria raises her eyes to Muhabura. This conical-shaped volcanic mountain stands tall and majestic astride the Ugandan-Congo-Rwandan border. Because of it’s size, it looms so close it appears much closer than it actually is. The view is breathtaking!

There is not a whiff of mist. It stands high dressed in clear nakedness, like the innocent nakedness of a baby. This mighty giant was washed clean by the rain of the previous night.

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