Poem: Aloisea Inyumba, Presente
Aloisea Inyumba, presente
Aloisea, my younger sister,
it was love at first sight.
For there you stood
in the garden of the presidential
compound
along with its sister occupant
and you were both giggling
like Spelman girls
at a Morehouse tea.
I saw in you my roommate
from Uganda
with her proud and honest
gaze;
her stoic lack
of pretension:
I saw my other classmates
from Kenya, Tanganyika
Sierra Leone
and
the always
challenged
Liberia.
Dorcas, Constance,
Mary, Caroline.
Not their real names
at all; though I would not
understand this until much later.
Aloisea Inyumba,
you were able to keep,
to live under,
to offer
with your wise and fearless eyes
who you really were.
For this, we black Americans
might have envied you.
But love of your free look
would demolish this.
And you were so clear!
As we poked into orphanages
and dim and dusty huts
filled with the malnourished
whom you vowed
to feed and properly shelter:
This misery is not part of Rwanda’s dream,
you said. We will change it!
You showed me places and shared experiences
I could not believe
could actually exist.
A woman’s answer to the question
of homeless people
especially homeless children
is to take them
into one’s home.
Children were not meant
to live in orphanages. There seemed no doubt
in your mind
about this.
Aloisea Inyuma.
You were the most beautiful
of all the beauties
I witnessed
in your beautiful country.
Zainab, our friend,
also a stellar warrior
for the good of women and children
and by their inclusion
in the health of the world,
also a warrior for the good
of men,
told me of your death.
All I could think of at that moment
was: This too? How can we bear it?
I was so undone to hear this news I could not weep
until now.
For I remembered not only your tireless work
for your people and your loyalty to your
friends who worked beside you, whether in high places
or in low,
I recalled your generosity.
Alice, you said,
when I said to you: I love Rwanda!
Come back and live here.
I laughed.
No, you said, in all seriousness:
Come back. You are home here.
And I tell you what: When you come back
I will see to it that you are given a plot of land
to grow your garden on
and, you said smiling impishly,
best of all,
we will give you cows!
Cows!
Another love of my life, as, apparently,
they are the love of the lives
of many Rwandans.
What is the dream, Aloisea?
Let us make it clear again,
as the world reawakens
to possibilities
until now
barely thought:
Is it the peaceful nation
in which every child is wanted
and adored;
where every woman
has a voice?
Where every man’s dignity
is rooted in nonviolence?
Oh, my beloved sister,
to walk with you in a garden
of collards and tomatoes,
to rest on a hillside in Rwanda
flanked by our cows….
Bliss.
Other women of Africa
will live this dream
after us.
But it is you who
in your brief years
saved it
shining
for us all.
Rest in Well Done. Beloved sister
of our clan.
Aloisea Inyumba
Minister of Gender and Family
Kigali, Rwanda
