Kevin Alphonse Kalisa

In 1959, my dad, a nurse, had his property destroyed in Gisenyi (in northern Rwanda), and he was sent to Uganda as a refugee. My mom had 3 kids and my step-mom, a shepherd, had 8 kids. I was born in Uganda in 1982 and I was the youngest, with a twin sister, Claudine. My younger brother Silas was adopted.

My family had 150 cows and some bulls. My uncles used to give me cows as a gift, 'courgatsi'. In return for the cows, it was customary to give back some local beer called wagua and my family helped me get it. That is one of my happiest memories from childhood.

I lived in Uganda until I was 5 years old, when I returned to Rwanda with some of my relatives. My parents remained in Uganda and sent their cows with me. In the end of 1987, my parents came back to Rwanda as returning refugees and I went to Nyamata with them. It was difficult for families who had many cows to send their kids to school because children were often needed to take care of the farm animals. I helped my mom to feed the cows and didn't start primary school until I was 8.

In 1992, some Hutus came to kill my family and eat our cows. We fled to a Catholic church in Nyamata but 17 members of my family, including my father, were killed by machetes. I tried to escape from Nyamata to Burundi and got to the border only to see people crossing it getting killed. I returned to Kigali with my brother, stayed there for 3 months, and then went back again to Nyamata with the help of Catholic nuns. My siblings and I stayed with my other relatives at a Belgian orphanage. In that same year, a French family came to the orphanage and took my younger brother, who was 3 years old. Since then, I have had no contact with him because that family does not want anyone to know how my little brother came to live with them.

Because it was still not very safe at the Belgian orphanage (the genocide was continuing), some of my siblings and I fled to Gisimba Memorial Center in Kigali but my mother stayed in Nyamata. My mom was badly beaten there. Although she survived for about a year, she was constantly ill and in pain, and finally died of complications from the assault. My sisters and brothers who remained at the Belgian orphanage were killed, but I and one sister survived at the Gisimba Memorial Center.

After the genocide, there was a system called Kadogo: youth refugees from camps were taken and taught how to fight and use a gun. I wanted to join the army and learn to use a gun so I could take revenge on people who caused so much harm in my life. However, I met a relative who was a captain in the army. He told me I should go back to school, and beat me many times to force me to return to school.

After the genocide I felt very lonely and I did not want to stay alive. However, after I joined a survivors association, I slowly began to open up about my problems even though I learned others were suffering just as much. I went to a Catholic primary school in Kibungo, and eventually enjoyed my schoolwork. After I finished primary school, I took the national exam to enter secondary school in Nyamata. I did well on that exam, and also on the national exams at the end of secondary school in 2002. My twin sister also attended secondary school but stopped going because she had so much trouble coping with the trauma. Now she does not have a job.

I entered Kigali Independent University to study law and am working hard to graduate at the end of 2007. I think that as a lawyer I will be able to protect and help other people. My favorite subject at university is public international law and I enjoy doing research for my final thesis. Though I have some difficulty with tax law, I ask for help from my friends and we work in a group to succeed.

While I was at university, I met a child called Eric who lost his entire family, stopped going to school and became a street child. I told Eric that you have to go to school because it'll help you to find a job, stop you from becoming hopeless and make you forget what happened to you. But Eric didn't want to listen, and he is now addicted to drugs. If I could change one thing about life in Rwanda, it would be to improve the circumstances of street children. It is terrible for them to live as they do now because they will become thieves or terrorists in the future. So it is important to help them before it is too late.