Battered, bombed and shot, but look where I am today

I chose to live. Oswald Mwizerwa watched as his family was raped and bludgeoned to death during the Rwanda genocide. Taken to Europe to recuperate and start afresh, he demanded to be flown back home, to the consternation of his adopted parents. Years later, his life is slowly gaining meaning.

I was taken to a local hospital from where the medical NGO, Medicine du Monde, took me to Uganda for further treatment. My leg, shattered by a grenade, had to be cut at several points till above the knee before a point from which the wound could heal was identified. In Uganda, I found myself in the same hospital with several other Rwandan children. My benefactors would eventually fly me to Brussels, Belgium.

A French family offered to adopt me, transferring me to Marseille to a paediatric hospital called Timone Enfanta, where I remained for six months. I was later enrolled in school.

Aged 11 and with sufficient recovery and wisdom that comes with age, I became more conscious of the fact that, though comfortable, I was living in other people’s country. My heart grew fonder and fonder for my motherland and I could not stop requesting to be taken home. How I hoped to survive there was the least of my concerns.
However, my foster family would not relent.

I eventually became hysterical. I became irritable and could neither eat nor sleep well as I demanded that I be taken back to Rwanda. The French family yielded and contacted Medicine du Monde to help trace the surviving members of my family. My mother, Mnkandori Annonciate, another survivor of the genocide, was tracked down and arrangements made for my travel back to Rwanda.

Being an amputee, life in a village in a country recovering from genocide was quite a challenge, but I was determined to soldier on.

The bursary
I joined school and later benefitted from a bursary fund for genocide survivors through secondary school. In 2005, I got a government scholarship to finance my post-secondary school education at the Kigali Institute of Education. I did a course in social studies, education, geography and economics, majoring in the latter. I graduated in 2009.
Soon after my graduation, I landed a job as an accountant with the Catholic NGO, Caritas Rwanda.

From Caritas Rwanda, a better opportunity came my way and I became the headmaster of College St Christopher in Kayonza in East Province. As a head of a learning institution, I was comfortable earning a good salary, and entitled to a car. I was able to support my mother and other relatives.

However, I always felt the urge to pursue further studies. I believed a graduate degree was my best bet for a better and more secure future. Against the popular wish, I quit my job in August 2011 to pursue a Masters degree in project management at Mt Kenya University in Kigali.

I currently depend on temporary jobs and donations from well-wishers to survive. Though I am no longer able to support my 65-year-old mother and siblings, I believe that it is a sacrifice worth making. With education, one can never go wrong.

My family members
My elder sister, 32, is a policewoman while my younger brother, 22, is waiting to join college.Any plans for a family?
Not surprisingly, I have had problems with relationships as some girls are shy to be identified with a man with an artificial leg.
However, I believe my disability is not an inability in any way. I look forward to marrying some day in the future. For now, my focus is on completing my MBA degree programme.

In retrospect, I have no reason to hate Hutus. And that was my stand when we faced those who targeted us during the genocide before the Gacaca (local court). I told my mother to refuse any compensation from them as they did not seem any better than us.
I believe in humanity’s common destiny and that you do not achieve much by destroying others.