BOOK SA: your window into the 2007 Sunday Times Literary Awards. See excerpts from other shortlisted books: click the ST 07 Book Excerpts tag.
South Africa has become home to many refugees from coups and civil wars in the rest of Africa - including children, some of whom arrive here without parents, family or friends. They face a daunting challenge to find acceptance, and a home, in this strange, sometimes hostile adoptive country. To help them deal with the trauma of their flight and arrival, Glynis Clacherty provided a group of child refugees with suitcases, on which to paint their personal stories and recent histories. These suitcases and the accompanying stories are the subject of her Alan Paton-shortlisted book, The Suitcase Stories.
Here is an excerpt - Paul’s story, illustrated by photographs of his suitcase.
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Paul is 18 years old, was born in Rwanda, and ran away from the country during the genocide. He lives in a shelter for unaccompanied refugees, and attends school in Berea.
Six chickens, four pigeons, five goats, three ducks but no rabbits
I have a memory inside my suitcase from when I lived in Rwanda. My first house was in Rwanda. I remember my first house. The pictures inside my suitcase show my first house in Rwanda. I am not sure if it is there still. Maybe they break it down …
My father was in that house in Rwanda. He was teaching me to look after the animals. I had six chickens, four pigeons, five goats, five ducks. I have those ducks in my mind. My dad used to buy ducks for me. He would say, “Parfait, this is for you, keep it, it is just yours.” He was trying to teach me how, when he is not in front of me or beside me, how I can run my own life with success. “This duck is yours, treat it well.” It was so small and I must look after it until it gets big. He said, “It is yours, and you must keep on doing this and you will see the meaning of this some day.” I am trying to see the meaning of being able to look after myself. But not really yet, because now I am not able to run my own life yet, I am still looking at people to help me.
I always wanted a rabbit and I was always asking my father, “Can I have a rabbit? I have never tasted a rabbit, can I keep rabbit?” My father he said he was going to get me a rabbit next time he goes to town.
But he never went. We had to run away. Now I cannot find him,
I cannot get hold of him. I do not know where he is …”
I haven’t told no one this story
Paul was everyone’s favourite in the group. He had a huge grin and a gentle way. When we began the suitcase work, he did very little artwork. He drew one or two flat and very grey pictures. He painted his suitcase in one colour and drew a large black heart on it. He often took his suitcase and hid it away, so we could not see that he had not done any work. Sometimes the other children drew pictures and said they were his; they realised he was not doing any work and tried to help him out. We allowed him to work in his own time and never commented on his lack of artwork.
One day he began drawing ducks in pencil. They were simple ducks, like a small child would draw. When we asked him about the ducks, he told us how his father had taught him to keep animals when he was young.
He did not say any more, and he carried on for many weeks drawing ducks, and sometimes the house where he lived with his father. All of these were lovingly pasted inside his suitcase or bound in the journal inside his suitcase.
Then one Saturday morning he called me, and said he wanted to tell his story. We sat under the tree in the centre of the grass quad at the school, away from the others. In an expressionless voice with no emotion, he told how he had seen his mother killed in Rwanda. He told how his father had been taken away while they were refugees in Burundi. When he had finished telling the story he said, “I haven’t told no one this story. Lots of people have asked, but I have never told anyone.”
My dad gave me my name. My dad was a businessman in Rwanda and Burundi. That’s why he couldn’t ever be free. In my country they don’t like businessmans who are rich. We used to move a lot. There were always problems, wherever we lived.
I do remember one time. My uncle was at home, and me and my mum and sisters. I remember that day. My mom cooked a rabbit. It was about 7 o’clock. We were sitting in the lounge, talking and sitting, making some fun. I was so young. And my sisters – I am from a family of seven children, I’m fifth. Mama was teaching us some stuff, games – how to carry your friend on the back, how to jump over each other. So we’re having a nice, great time.
There was my mom and my two uncles, and all of us, and other visitors. Then these men came and wanted to take everything from our house. We knew they had come to rob, because my dada was a big businessman and they did not like him, and they wanted to kill him.
They told us that they wanted my dad. Luckily my dad had just left. They said, “If your father is not here, then we want everything in the house.” My uncle was a solider and he said no. So they began to fight. Can you imagine us with our hands fighting the machete?
I ran inside screaming. They said, “Why you screaming?” They took my shirt, they want to cut me in half. Then my uncle he took his hand, on top of me. They chopped his hand in the middle. When I remember that, I get so sick. They wanted to cut my face in half. My uncle saved my life. I don’t know how I was going to look if they should cut off my face. They wanted to kill me – chop two times – and that was very frightening. I still remember it. I still see it.
We called the police. Then we heard the police and the people ran away. All the house was full of blood. I don’t know how they survived, just made it. Others were all hurt, except my mom and my little brother, also me. My dad had saved us. He was on his way home and the neighbours had said, “Please, don’t go there, lots of trouble, screaming.” So dad call the police.
The thieves said, “We will be back.” All were injured. My dad decided to drop the business and do nothing. Things were getting serious. He left everything. We moved just nearby, not at the same place. We got to live in a small house in Kigali. People must see us as themselves – we did not want to be different.
They said they would be back. One day they came back. I don’t know how did they know where we had moved. And they sent people in the middle of the night. They wanted a large amount of money. My dad said, “Sorry, I can’t get all that.” They say, “Okay, then say goodbye to your life.” But my dad was prepared. He had put the money in the house. We thought our dad was going to be killed. But he gave them money. Then they said, “You know what, old man, we were here to kill you but you were ready for us.” I’ll never forget that word. “Old man, we were here to kill you but you were ready for us.” I was in the house screaming. I was then about nine. So my father was saved.
But in the war, my mum was killed. We were living in Rwanda by this time, in 1994. I was ten. What happened was, my father had a sickness called heart attack. If he do movement, he get so terrible. And anytime he could die. My dad said, ”War now is coming. People are dying anytime, anywhere. So guys, how about this? Leave me alone, because I don’t have that long way to go.” He wasn’t that old, maybe about 50 years. “I’m okay,” he say, “but I don’t think I’m going to make it. My heart pressure. I’m going to die on the way. Leave me alone.” And he gave us money to make our way to Burundi.
Then my mom said, “We never can leave you.” My mama’s friend said, “Your husband mean so, you have to do what he say.” So she agreed. We took organised transport. It was in the war. People were getting killed with knives. All of them. The cars were a lot on the way to Burundi.
My mom says, “Drop the car, let’s just walk, because we can’t make it in the car.” We walked. And then there was shooting. In front it was me and my mom. My sisters were lost by now, just me and my mum and little brother. Then they shoot her in her intestines. I just stayed with her, with my brother. Many people were walking past. Then her friend came and take her away and put her in a car.
I said, “Okay, if this is happening, I’m going back to Rwanda to tell my dad.” So I took my brother and I walked back the other way. All the people were coming this way and we were walking the other way. I was so young. All I could think was to go and report this to my dad. It was in war. He couldn’t do nothing, it was very far from home, but I was walking to tell him.
On my way back I meet with this uncle. He said, “What are you doing? All the people walk one way, you’re the only one person going back. All the people are going out of there, what’s your problem?” I said my mom is dead. He said, “Okay, don’t worry.”
He put my brother on his back and we went across the border.
We heard that my mom was dead. We sent a message to my dad. He said, “I’m going to try my best to come and see you guys. I can’t leave you alone like that.”
He just arrived and say, “We got to move out of here. We got to move again.” We walked. My dad was sick. He walk slower, slower. We would walk two metres, sit down, drink cold water. About three days of us walking.
This one lady came. She never even knew us but she said, “
This father have a serious problem. Can we help your children?
You will meet them if God want to.” Dad said we can’t. “We must die together. Must stay together.” She say, “Don’t think you’re going
to make it. You have a sickness. I don’t think you can escape with children and all of you make it. How about we take your children? You are left here.”
He say, “No ways.” The lady went. She gave him a water to drink. We had no water. We came to a house and we stayed there. That is where they come and take him away, my dad. My dad said, “If you see them calling me, don’t cry. Pretend you are not my child. You just walk away and save your small brother.”
They came at 6 o’clock. We were listening to the news. They come. They put him in a truck. Just take him. I had no idea what’s happened. That’s the last time I saw him. That was the last day to meet my father. That was my last day. I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. No clue.
My brother and I were alone now. The neighbours knew what happened. They took us to government office, and then they went to put us in an orphanage in Burundi. Me and my little brother, maybe he was six or five years. My brother was called Claude. I think he’s in Kenya. This Holy Sister said, “There is better orphanages in Kenya.” She used to travel countries. She said, “Do you mind if we take your brother?” I had no choice, because Burundi was also at war and any time I could die. They can only take one of us. I said, “No problem.” Then they took him. They used to come to tell me what’s happening. I can write to him in the orphanage. But I haven’t written. He don’t even know me.
Then I found my uncle. Connections helped him find me. Because these Holy Sisters, they had every orphanage in the whole country, and they put up pictures with your name, and go to ask people. I don’t know how they find out, but they did get my uncle. He came to fetch me. He just brought me here to Johannesburg.
That’s it. It is a sad story. I get on with my life. If I think, it’s too much. I haven’t told no one this story. People don’t know this. They don’t deserve it. It was difficult with the suitcase. I wanted to keep my story separate from me now. That is part of life but it is too much, it is too much.
As he finished the story he put his head down on his knees and I put my arm around him and we sat still for a very long time. Then Diane called us for lunch. We walked back to the comfort of noisy voices, paint, Pasco telling jokes, and warm and tasty Kentucky chicken.
Slowly, Paul began to show signs that he was starting to make the story a part of his life, and not keeping it separate: a step that trauma psychologists say is important. He was also beginning to rewrite his story. There were signs of him beginning to see himself not only as a victim of the genocide, but as a survivor, a hero even.
Soon after he told me his story, we went away on weekend retreat with the group. The retreat began on a Friday evening with a lighting of candles, to remember people we love and have lost. Paul lit a candle for his mother and father, brothers and sisters. And then, just as we were about to end, he stepped forward and lit another candle.
This candle is for the boy who was me, the ten-year-old boy. The boy who survived, who walked and walked and survived, even though he was ten years old and did not know what was happening around him. This candle is for the ten-year-old me.
Some months later we were working on large journey maps. The children were using magazine images on a collage to represent their journey to South Africa. Paul had been cutting out small pictures of shoes from a Getaway magazine all morning. They are arranged in pairs on the map he had made, almost 30 pairs of shoes. I asked him, “Paul, why all the shoes?”
They remind me that I walked. I walked and walked and walked. I was a small boy but I walked. They remind me that I was a survivor, that things were very bad and I was only ten years old, but I walked and walked. And I survived. The shoes remind me of surviving.
I did not have any phone number in my head
One Saturday there was a quiet hum of work in the art room; everyone was working quietly on their collage maps. I was helping one of the small children with a drawing when my cell phone rang. It was Alistair, saying he had just had a call from Paul. He has been arrested for not having papers and was in the cells at Hillbrow Police Station. He said he would call a friend of Paul’s to see if they could go together to get him out. I passed the news on to the others. The older boys were worried. They talked together quietly instead of working. We heard no more that morning. We had lunch, packed up, and Diane and I left, promising to let the boys know if we heard anything.
Late that night, Paul’s friend phoned to say that Paul was out. The next week he added a number of drawings to his suitcase, drawings of the arrest.
I was coming here to the art without expecting nothing on my way. I didn’t expect nothing even though I see police behind me. I knew I had papers and stuff so no one can arrest me, and I wasn’t even really worried. Then they came and ask me about my papers, asking me, “Where is your papers?” I took out the photocopy that I usually use – it has a stamp on it from Hillbrow Police Station. So the strange thing was, they read the paper and say, “Where is your original?” And I said, “I do have an original but it is at home, so I have a copy that have a stamp to prove it is not fake, not artificial.” Then he check out the paper, and said, “This is not allowed. You must come to the car.” At the police station I try again to explain and the policeman say, “I am going to slap you!”
Okay, I need help, I was thinking. I thought, “No one knows where I am.” I think, if I didn’t get help, something will happen to me. I did not have any phone number in my head. I found a paper and it had Alistair’s number, and I was so happy because I had someone to phone. I called Alistair, and he said, “Can I speak to policeman?”
And he was rude to Alistair, he couldn’t just be nice to Alistair. I was thinking, something need to be done here. He is policeman, and he has to take people as people. He mustn’t think he is on top of everyone. Then Alistair asked, ”What did the boy do?” And he say, ”He has got photocopy paper.” And then after he dropped the phone on Alistair.
Alistair called Jacques who came to get me out. When he got there they said I was out, but I was still in there. So he left me there. Maybe at 5 o’clock they came and called me and said you can go. I didn’t know how can they let me go just like that. They didn’t tell me nothing.
I love nature, especially the trees I walk past every day
After we have worked on our art and eaten lunch, we often sit under the tree at the school and talk. This is the opportunity to check up on each other, to ask about those who are missing. The group has become an alternative family for many of the children, especially for Paul. One Saturday we were talking under the tree, and Paul asked me, “Glynis, can I ask something? If you are not sure what to do and you don’t have family, who can you ask for advices? Do you think it is good to make your own decisions? Does a person need somebody who has experience, or are your friends enough? Can you believe in them and trust them?” I suddenly realise what it means to be alone with no family.
I pass this wall in the morning when I come to school. When I walk to school there are some trees that I love. I walk under them on the way to school. Sometimes I am in different moods, but the trees make me be happy.
I think about that I need to do something with my life, because I’ve been saved a lot. A lot of people in my country say, “You know what, when we grow up we’re going to be soldiers, and go and revenge, and take guns and kill people.” I promised myself I would never do such. I don’t want to be a soldier. The kid who killed my mom, let him go. I knew him. I can never do nothing, never take a weapon and try to revenge, because I’m going to change nothing. Hate makes things more serious, and my country is going to go lower and lower and lower, so there is no solution. To say “See your mom dead, grow up and go to kill people,” that is no solution. There is no solution. I will never, never take no weapon.
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