Twilight

In large numbers we trooped, communally fleeing another round of genocide about to burst at the Eastern part of the country. We were all free Congolese but now, we have been torn from our homes and hope to become refugees in our ownland. For two days, we had journeyed, daubed with dust and weariness. Thousands of little children, now disrobed of innocence, lugged on their battered heads mountains of tattered mats, heavy bags and other bits and pieces. Reduced to mere skeletons, this unquenchable fire had forced them all into swift maturity. Unlike their mates in other parts of the world birthed into the tenderness and greenness of supple spring, they were born into gushing guns and vile violence. Most of us were women: married, widow, cripple, old and pregnant. And we bore the greatest chunk of this burden on our cracked backs. With bitterness, we reaped the works of male monsters, whose selfish war drove us away from our security and rest. We were mothers, scattered in pursuit of what...