Valerie was born on the 6th of June, 1975, meaning she celebrated her 49th birthday just a few weeks ago. However, she says the genocide of 1994 and the horrors she experienced at that time left her looking much older and many people mistake her for her daughter’s grandmother. Valerie recently shared her story with us; a story of loss, fear, love, courage, forgiveness, community and … goats! As we celebrate International Widow’s Day this Sunday, we wanted to take the opportunity to share Valerie’s story with you, highlighting her strength and bravery in the face of tragedy.
Valerie is mother to three children. She has a grown 27-year-old son and her youngest daughter is 15 years old. Her middle child passed away at only 16 years old during the Covid-19 pandemic of unknown causes and she still feels the sting of his loss. Valerie is part of the Good News International community of Masaka, but her story starts far from Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, where she sat down with our Creative Manager Chris Hoskins to tell her story this June. It began in the south-western village of Kibeho where she lived with her parents and five siblings. In 1994, when Valerie was 19 years old, the genocide against the Tutsis and the most horrifying period of her life began. When the massacres started, she fled with her family but was separated from her mother from the beginning, leaving her with her father, brothers and sisters. Thinking it safe to return to the village, they did so, but Valerie recalls the awful day the killers came to her home.
“My father told me to to run away. I ran and climbed up an avocado tree. While I was at the top of the avocado tree I watched the killers come and kill my father, just at the bottom of the tree. After they killed him, they left, so I came down and I just started running away. During the night I went to hide in a home, which belonged to one of the killers but I had no idea. He caught me, and he called other killers to come and they started raping me. Every day I was raped by different men. They held me as a captive for the rest of the genocide. They raped me every day – different men. I don’t even remember how many men raped me.”
When the RPF soldiers came to liberate the area, Valerie managed to escape with a large crowd of people. She found a soldier that she knew and told him everything. He was able to bring her to Kigali to a military camp where she could receive treatment for her extensive illness and injuries following her ordeal. Along with many others, she was then moved to an orphanage for accommodation where she met her future husband. Once they decided to get married, they left to go to Masaka, where Valerie lives today.
Valerie lived together with her husband until 2008 when their third daughter was born. A year that brought the joy of new birth also brought the tragedy of death, and that same year her husband passed away. She said at that point life became very difficult again, and she was just weeping every day. She could do nothing but weep. Apart from losing her husband, she was also living in a very old, dilapidated house that felt like it would fall down around her at any minute. She spoke to the community president who told her she had to meet Comfort International’s partners, Good News International. He encouraged her to join the community in Masaka and “get her happiness back”.
He introduced her to Ben and Clement from GNI who became close friends and she always remembers what they said to her; “if you are ready to live, God will give you life again”. Here she was able to start sharing her story and allow healing into her heart. “At that time I had no hope for my life, but after I joined Good News I found happiness and my hope returned. I was so happy to be part of the Good News Community.” GNI were able to give Valerie a goat which turned out to be a blessing in her life. The goat started giving birth and she could sell the kids to pay school fees for her daughter to go to school. The goat was given to her when a Comfort International group from Arbroath High School visited the community in 2017 and Valerie still has her trusty caprine to this day! Every year she produces kids, as well as manure for crops. What a great goat! GNI were also able to provide repairs for her house and today she proudly shows off her beautiful home which is not old and not leaking!
“During the genocide, all my emotions were expressed through tears – it was tears every day. After the genocide, my emotions were characterised by hate because of what people did to me. I just hated people and I had hate in my heart. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, I always wanted to be on my own and stay in the house and never talk to anybody. I felt I didn’t have anyone to trust to tell my story until I joined Good News. That’s when I could meet people and be open, and that’s when I started to share my story. Of course in the beginning I didn’t share everything, just little by little, because I thought in the beginning if I shared my story they would laugh at me and not be able to do anything for me. But as people from Good News started coming to me and talking to me and sharing a word of comfort with me I was able to open up and share my story.”
Valerie still has challenges in her life today. She mourns the death of her young son and wonders at the mysterious cause of his death. She misses her husband and fights to raise her other children on her own, making sure her daughter still gets a good education. She talks about forgiveness, and the freedom that comes from that. She says she no longer has hate in her heart, but still has to deal with the consequences of her ordeal. She says sometimes the memories come back and overwhelm her, but she doesn’t feel hate. She says, “God is so good. I thought I would die, but He rescued me.” Just a few weeks ago, Valerie was robbed, including all of her clothes and her daughter’s school books. Thankfully though, she is part of an amazing community. GNI can help her with the fees to buy new books and she tells us that the dress she is wearing is that of a kind neighbour who has given her some of her own clothes. Community has changed Valerie’s life.
