Read on Twitter
I keep thinking about this tweet. And my mother. And one December a few years ago. I was visiting my family for Christmas and my mother did something she never has never done before. She started talking to us about life before leaving Burundi. https://twitter.com/isn_marie/status/1056951619538038786
This was the first time she had been candid about what life was like for her before 1972. It was also the first time she talked to us about what happened to her in 72. To say my mother’s life was disrupted at just 12 years old is a huge understatement.
Her father was killed in April or May 1972 leaving behind his young wife, my grandmother, and 6 children. Immediately after granddad's death, grandma packed her children and belongings and headed to Rwanda.
Again my mom was 12 & had five siblings. Being a first born in an African family is tough. Being a first-born girl in an African family is even tougher. Being a first born girl and having five younger siblings, and no father, I will let you imagine what that must have been like.
I don't know anyone who personifies the struggles and unfulfilled potential that is Burundi like my mother. It’s been 46 years since the 1972 genocide against the Hutu in Burundi.
It’s been 46 years, since a twelve-year-old girl left the land of her people. The Burundi she left has changed, yet, remained stubbornly the same.
46 years later, those who killed her father and her dreams have never faced justice. I spend a lot of time thinking about what that must feel like for her. I can't imagine the the pain she has endured for all those years.
