from How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child
|
The next morning, the UNHCR officials started building tents. They put some strong logs in the ground and stretched green tarps across the top. Our new homes. The tents were separated into "rooms," with sheets of tarp serving as "walls," but there was no privacy. There were women's tents and men's tents. We had nothing, no furniture, no mosquito nets, just thin mattresses placed flat on the ground. It took several days for officials to deliver food. In the meantime, Dad bought snacks from the kids by the roadside. My parents said the situation was temporary, and I think they really believed that. We had been displaced before. I thought we would just have to endure this incredibly uncomfortable camp for a little while.
Life in a refugee camp is bizarre: There's no school, nothing to do. No toys for kids, no dolls, no distractions. People sit there all day long. For the first week, I thought it was kind of exciting because some of my friends were there; their families had fled the city like us, grabbing rides however they could. Since my friends were now living within a few feet of me, we could hang out all day and eat dinner with my parents at night, kind of like an endless slumber party.
My friends called my parents "Mama Sandra" and "Papa Sandra." We didn't use terms like "Mr." and "Mrs." In my culture, that would be considered impersonal and disrespectful. I loved eating meals with my friends every night. My best friends were there, two girls around my age named Justine and Ziraje, and a boy named Inge. We would hang out together during the day, looking for things to do, thinking up games to entertain ourselves. We played one game with a ball made of wadded-up plastic bags and rubber bands: One of us would stand in the middle of two others, and we would try to hit the person in the middle with the ball, sort of like dodgeball.
Sometimes, young men from Burundi would come to the camp with bikes to see if anyone wanted to be taken anywhere, and my brother Alex managed to befriend some of them. This was a huge bonus, because they would let us play with their bikes. Alex taught me tricks on the bike, like how to let go of the handlebars while I rode.
Weeks went by. I missed school terribly. But I continued to think that we would be going home.
My siblings and I spent much of our time in line for water, standing with empty jugs to fill from a giant plastic tank in a blue tent. The water tank was huge, the size of a spacious living room. Trucks would come regularly and pump water into the tank. The line for water was always crowded, and sometimes the water would run out after we waited in line all day. We went there almost every day. I was so little that I would often get pushed to the back of the line. I was never successful in retrieving water from that tank. My older siblings were much better at it.
For food, each family had a card to show the authorities to get their rations. Every few weeks, UN workers would deliver the rations of rice, beans, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and a flour mixture called sosoma, made of soybeans, sorghum, and corn. The amount of food you got depended on the number of people in your family. There was no variation in our meals--no greens, no meat, no fish. The women cooked with clay stoves fueled by coal, and the camp always smelled of fire and smoke. People were provided with pots for cooking, but some women had brought their own. Many of my family's things had been stolen on the drive to the camp, but we still had our photo albums, which my mom had grabbed on the way out of the house. I would often flip through them with my friends since we had so little to do.
On the days the food was delivered, I got depressed. It was as if we had been reduced to beggars. Mom and Dad waited in line with their card for their designated food supply, and it was disheartening to see my parents so powerless. All of us kids in the camp could see that our parents were no longer in control. How could parents assure their kids that everything would be fine when we could see how vulnerable they were? They couldn't hide it. We appreciated the food, but it was a demeaning and demoralizing experience.
The camp had a handful of outhouses, separated for women and men. The toilet consisted of a hole in the ground, unsanitary and smelly. To bathe, we put water in a bucket and splashed ourselves with it, using soap we bought from local vendors via the kids on bikes. It was a far cry from our comfy house back in Uvira with indoor plumbing.
Every day I dreamed of going home. I couldn't fully comprehend why we had been displaced, why people would resent us so much that they would drive us from our homes into this barren, desolate place.
We tried our best to stay positive. At six o'clock in the morning everyday, people would gather outside in the middle of the camp for prayers with the pastor. Sometimes I would go with Deborah and my mom; other times I would sleep in, waking to people singing and clapping--happy sounds. Every Sunday, people gathered for church in the courtyard. On the cool, crisp mornings, I would nestle with Mom, resting my head on her shoulder.
At one point, some of us kids were taken to the Congolese embassy in the capital of Burundi to take final exams. Congo had national finals for sixth and twelfth grades. I was in sixth grade, and I went. We were offered food at the embassy, but I was too nervous to eat. The kids who did eat--including Princesse, who was in twelfth grade--got very sick, throwing up from food poisoning. The Congolese workers at the embassy had tampered with the food. Even the school kids were targets. I never got the results of my exam.
We returned to the refugee camp and continued to sit there in the heat with nothing to do, day after day. And then came that fateful night, when the sound of gunfire approached while Deborah and I lay down to sleep. I never imagined it would be the last night I would see my little sister alive.
Life in a refugee camp is bizarre: There's no school, nothing to do. No toys for kids, no dolls, no distractions. People sit there all day long. For the first week, I thought it was kind of exciting because some of my friends were there; their families had fled the city like us, grabbing rides however they could. Since my friends were now living within a few feet of me, we could hang out all day and eat dinner with my parents at night, kind of like an endless slumber party.
My friends called my parents "Mama Sandra" and "Papa Sandra." We didn't use terms like "Mr." and "Mrs." In my culture, that would be considered impersonal and disrespectful. I loved eating meals with my friends every night. My best friends were there, two girls around my age named Justine and Ziraje, and a boy named Inge. We would hang out together during the day, looking for things to do, thinking up games to entertain ourselves. We played one game with a ball made of wadded-up plastic bags and rubber bands: One of us would stand in the middle of two others, and we would try to hit the person in the middle with the ball, sort of like dodgeball.
Sometimes, young men from Burundi would come to the camp with bikes to see if anyone wanted to be taken anywhere, and my brother Alex managed to befriend some of them. This was a huge bonus, because they would let us play with their bikes. Alex taught me tricks on the bike, like how to let go of the handlebars while I rode.
Weeks went by. I missed school terribly. But I continued to think that we would be going home.
My siblings and I spent much of our time in line for water, standing with empty jugs to fill from a giant plastic tank in a blue tent. The water tank was huge, the size of a spacious living room. Trucks would come regularly and pump water into the tank. The line for water was always crowded, and sometimes the water would run out after we waited in line all day. We went there almost every day. I was so little that I would often get pushed to the back of the line. I was never successful in retrieving water from that tank. My older siblings were much better at it.
For food, each family had a card to show the authorities to get their rations. Every few weeks, UN workers would deliver the rations of rice, beans, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, and a flour mixture called sosoma, made of soybeans, sorghum, and corn. The amount of food you got depended on the number of people in your family. There was no variation in our meals--no greens, no meat, no fish. The women cooked with clay stoves fueled by coal, and the camp always smelled of fire and smoke. People were provided with pots for cooking, but some women had brought their own. Many of my family's things had been stolen on the drive to the camp, but we still had our photo albums, which my mom had grabbed on the way out of the house. I would often flip through them with my friends since we had so little to do.
On the days the food was delivered, I got depressed. It was as if we had been reduced to beggars. Mom and Dad waited in line with their card for their designated food supply, and it was disheartening to see my parents so powerless. All of us kids in the camp could see that our parents were no longer in control. How could parents assure their kids that everything would be fine when we could see how vulnerable they were? They couldn't hide it. We appreciated the food, but it was a demeaning and demoralizing experience.
The camp had a handful of outhouses, separated for women and men. The toilet consisted of a hole in the ground, unsanitary and smelly. To bathe, we put water in a bucket and splashed ourselves with it, using soap we bought from local vendors via the kids on bikes. It was a far cry from our comfy house back in Uvira with indoor plumbing.
Every day I dreamed of going home. I couldn't fully comprehend why we had been displaced, why people would resent us so much that they would drive us from our homes into this barren, desolate place.
We tried our best to stay positive. At six o'clock in the morning everyday, people would gather outside in the middle of the camp for prayers with the pastor. Sometimes I would go with Deborah and my mom; other times I would sleep in, waking to people singing and clapping--happy sounds. Every Sunday, people gathered for church in the courtyard. On the cool, crisp mornings, I would nestle with Mom, resting my head on her shoulder.
At one point, some of us kids were taken to the Congolese embassy in the capital of Burundi to take final exams. Congo had national finals for sixth and twelfth grades. I was in sixth grade, and I went. We were offered food at the embassy, but I was too nervous to eat. The kids who did eat--including Princesse, who was in twelfth grade--got very sick, throwing up from food poisoning. The Congolese workers at the embassy had tampered with the food. Even the school kids were targets. I never got the results of my exam.
We returned to the refugee camp and continued to sit there in the heat with nothing to do, day after day. And then came that fateful night, when the sound of gunfire approached while Deborah and I lay down to sleep. I never imagined it would be the last night I would see my little sister alive.