Bezos Scholars Program Sponsors a Global Nomads Group Event
AGAINST ALL ODDS: PROFILES IN RESILIENCY
Moderated by Anna Deavere Smith

 

THURSDAY, JULY 3
8:30 pm
St. Regis Hotel
Tickets $15
available in advance
at the Wheeler Opera House
at Door, as available

BEZOS SCHOLARS PROGRAM
INTERVIEW WITH INGRID

Ingrid was six years old when the genocide of Rwanda devastated her country in 1994. This systematic killing of Tutsis by Hutus took the lives of almost one million Tutsis in only 100 days. Throughout the 100 days of slaughter, Ingrid endured the loss of her parents and her brother, constant threats from the killing mobs of the Hutu extremists and a severe lack of food.

In 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the genocide, Global Nomads Group (GNG) traveled to Rwanda to conduct a series of videoconferences to connect students of Rwanda with students in the United States. It was during this time that GNG met Ingrid. Her journey became the focus of a GNG short documentary “Rwanda Alive: Those Who Listen.” Ingrid’s story is one of resilience, courage and hope.

Now 20, Ingrid recently completed her first year as a pre-med student at Stanford University.

In this interview with the Bezos Scholars Program, Ingrid discusses the great losses for her country and her family, her love of education, how generosity and redemption can grow out of such devastation, and what it’s like for a daughter of Rwanda to live in California.

BSP: What was your life like before the genocide?
I lived in Butare, Rwanda, with my parents, four sisters and a brother. It was a very normal childhood. Both of my parents were teachers. We played with our neighbors and we went to school. There was nothing abnormal about our lives before the genocide. It was simply normal, and then it was not.

BSP: You lost your mother, father and brother. How did you survive?
When the genocide started, our family got together and tried to go to Burundi, but when we reached the border, it was closed. They said we should stay in Rwanda. So we came back to Rwanda, but the situation became really bad. All my family was together by that time, except for my mother who had gone to Kigali a few days earlier. We decided that our family would have a better chance of survival if we split up.

I went with my older sister, who was ten years old at the time. We went to my godmother’s house in another village close by. We walked there by night—10pm to about 3am— and we were very tired and hungry. My uncle carried me on his shoulders. After dropping us off at my godmother’s, our uncle went back to his parents’ house where he was killed. The violence was spreading very fast, and by morning, the massacre was even worse than in Butare, so we had to go into hiding in the mountains. We saw people being sliced into pieces, my godmother and her family was among them.

My sister and I hid and wandered until we found other people who had stopped to rest. We sat with them and a woman asked us “Who are you?” “Where are your parents?” My sister told her where we were from and it turned out she was the wife of our uncle. We stayed with her for a couple weeks and after she was killed, my sister and I were alone again, traveling from bush to bush, and hiding in maize plantations. It was raining all the time and I remember always being wet. And hungry.

In April in Rwanda, the maize is high enough to hide in so the Hutus cut down the maize plantations. And they were hunting us down with dogs. A couple times, they let us go without killing us while saying, “Let them go. They’re just kids. They’ll be killed by hunger or the next guard dog.”

Three weeks or a month before the genocide ended, we were captured. My sister invented a lie that our father was a killer from another province and we were moving with him, but lost him. So the killers thought; “Ah, these are the children of an important man so let’s keep the children and the father will reward us. So one family kept us and we cooked for them, got water for them and cleaned the blood from their machetes. We wondered if the blood was from someone we knew, a friend or even a family member. When they got drunk and wanted to kill us, one of the daughters protected us. We stayed there for about a month until the genocide ended.

BSP: What was your life like after the genocide?
Well, the genocide continued even after it ended because word had not reached those deep villages. But God was watching over us.

After it finally ended, we began to learn what had happened to our family. Mother had been killed in Kigali with my aunt and her family. My brother and father were killed together on May 11, with many other men in the family.

An amazing Hutu family protected my two sisters, my aunt and her family. They offered my family a place to hide, and even had to move to another province when their aid to us put them at risk. Another family in another location protected a fourth sister.

When it ended, we were far from home. The remaining family members thought we were dead, and we certainly thought they were dead. One of our uncles was in the RPF military and came looking for us. Since we were so far away, they had given up hope. But then they saw smoke from a house through the trees in the distance. They walked to it just to ask if anyone had seen us, and who answered the door? My sister!

It was very, very weird. We didn’t return to Butare. We began living in Kigali and there were about 60 of us there: survivors. It was so different. People weren’t crying because it was too much. We were very quiet. Nothing made sense. We just pretended that nothing had happened.

We started school, we started living again. My cousin took me in with my four sisters. She got a job and she worked to feed us. Life went on.

This is how it happened for most of the families. People gathered together and helped one another. There were many children who had no surviving families so there were many child-headed households. In some instances, people could only take on two children so the other kids were sent to orphanages.

BSP: Your surviving family members created a new family for you and put an emphasis on education. So much so that you were one of the top students in your country. At what point did education become such a focus for you?
First of all, our parents were both teachers and they always encouraged us to study. I always loved to study, even when I was very young. I started school really early, as did my sisters. Later, the fact that you have nothing else, that education is the only way out, provided great motivation. I know that it’s my only way to be someone. The people who tried to kill us wanted us to suffer, to die, and to not exist. They wanted us to become like dogs, to become nothing. I saw that and told myself that a good way to deny them that is to excel in school.

Revenge will not be my motivation. Life itself will be my motivation. I am alive. I can smile. I am happy. I survived. This is also important in the lives of my sisters and other orphans. My sisters lectured me many times that education and excellence are the way to honor the lives of our parents.

BSP: You and your classmates from Kigali participated in a series of Global Nomads Group videoconferences with American students. What did you learn about American students from those videoconferences? What do you hope they learned from you and your classmates?
I actually learned a lot. When you’re in Rwanda, you spend your life thinking America is like what they show in the movies, so I learned that you are normal people who are interested in knowing what’s happening in the rest of the world. It was a great experience to speak to kids in other countries. It makes you ask: What is America? What is China? It makes us curious about other people.

I hope that the American students become better people from looking at us. Sometimes, understanding more makes you a better person. I hope they’re nicer to their mothers, and I hope they’re nicer to the people who work for them. It’s all about doing small good things in life.

BSP: What it is like for a daughter of Rwanda to become a California girl at Stanford?
Oh my god (laughter), it’s very different. Yes, but not in a bad way. Everything is so much bigger. I never imagined myself here. I speak English but everyone here speaks in slang so I have to ask for meanings. It’s often very funny. My classmates talk about things that I wouldn’t talk about and they do things in public that are very surprising. (more laughter) Do you know what I mean? They are very nice people. I like them so much and this has been good for me. Two weeks ago, it was as hot as it is in Rwanda. But I saw my first snow on a ski trip with dorm classmates. It’s beautiful, so white and very cold.

It’s also a big change in terms of school: different methods of assignments and exams. I had to choose my own classes for the first time in my life. There’s a lot for me to learn.

BSP: I once interviewed a young woman from Argentina who had been among the 30,000 desaparecidos or “the disappeared,” those who were taken, tortured and imprisoned by the military junta in 1977.  One thing she said to me has stayed with me since then: “The survivor’s duty is to remember.”  Do you believe this, too?
This is best time to ask me that as last night I talked to my family members who were going to Butare to commemorate my family and neighbors. They went to graves where they thought my family might be, and offered prayers. I think the duty is to remember. It’s important: but it can make you a good person or it can make you a bad person. You must remember and learn from it. Don’t let your memories cripple your life. You must remember and live.

BSP: You talk about forgiveness and ensuring that genocide does not happen again. Those of us who have had safer lives read stories and feel helpless in the face of such overwhelming atrocities. What can we do? What must be done to ensure that genocide is avoided by future generations?  
I ask myself that question. We must talk about it, make people aware of it. People must know what genocide means, how terrible it is, what it means for generations ahead. We must tell everyone what it does to children, to adults. We must make everyone aware. Constantly aware. Citizens must be aware. Policymakers must be aware. Journalists must be aware. We must all be vigilant.

BSP: How have your experiences as a survivor shaped your goals for the future?
I think being a survivor has stimulated in me a need to help people. In my high school, I was a member of an association of students who survived the genocide. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I was so broken by my time there. Many students in the association had been traumatized. Many experienced flashbacks. By working in the association, I was able to talk to them and counsel them and help them understand that it’s OK, it’s over. This is one of the things that directed me to the journey of becoming a doctor; becoming a doctor will help me understand more and provide an opportunity for me to help others.