SongWriter Season 7 continues with Laurence & Alloys + Solange & Vedaste

SongWriter is a podcast that turns stories into songs, featuring Questlove, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Joyce Carol Oates, David Sedaris, Susan Orlean, and Steve Earle.

Last summer I took part in a performance at a conference in Kigali, Rwanda. While I was in Rwanda, I was invited to visit a “reconciliation village.” These are planned communities that house victims of The 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi alongside what Rwandans refer to as “perpetrators” – those that took part in the killing. Much of the violence in Rwanda was between neighbors, people who had known each other for a long time.

At the village I met Niyonagira Laurence and Mutiribambe Aloys. During the genocide, Laurence fled her village. She was pregnant at the time, and hid for days in the bush. Eventually Laurence grew so weak from thirst and hunger that she decided she would prefer to die quickly.

“I had no other choice,” Laurence said, speaking through an interpreter. “I ran to the roadblock [but] the soldiers refused to kill me. They said, ‘If we kill this woman, as we see her being pregnant, this will bring a curse for us. She will be killed by other people.’”

With few options, Laurence walked to Burundi to escape the violence. It was a brutal, harrowing journey, and she promised to devote her life to God if she survived.

Aloys told the visitors to his village that he was one of the perpetrators who killed members of Laurence’s family. He spoke openly and plainly about this, and asked the visitors to the village to share his story. 

When the RDF (Rwanda Defense Force) finally ended the genocide, Aloys was arrested and imprisoned. He said that he expected to be killed for what he had done. Instead, after he served a number of years in prison, he was offered the chance to apologize to the families of people he had killed, and to ask for forgiveness. Though Aloys was skeptical, he wrote letters to Laurence and others in the village.

Laurence was not inclined to accept the apology she received from Aloys. However, at the time she was having terrible trouble sleeping. One sleepless night Laurence heard the voice of God, reminding her of the promise she made during the journey to Burundi. When Aloys finally arrived at the village, Laurence agreed to meet him. After many conversations, Laurence forgave Aloys.

But years later things became more complicated, when Aloys’ son fell in love with Laurence’s daughter.

“When I heard about his decision, I took it as impossible,” Aloys remembered. He told his son, Uwizeyimana Vedaste, “Laurence cannot give us her daughter.”

I visited the village with Dr. Valentine Ngalim, who studies forgiveness in Cameroon. He told me that he had never heard a story like this before.

“The sharing of experiences by victims and and culprits of the Rwandan genocide helped me to situate myself within the Cameroonian context,” Dr. Ngalim recalled. “I realized that in my context there is a lot of manipulation of truth, and the process of reconciliation is going to be very difficult.”

Laurence’s daughter, Uwizeyimana Solange, remembers how hard it was to understand the history of her country as a child. She said that it was during the community court proceedings, called Gacaca, that she finally understood who Aloys was.

“That’s when I came to learn the father of Vedaste has participated in the killing of my siblings,” Solange said.

Still, this knowledge did not prevent Solange from falling in love with Vedaste. When she was 16, Solange asked her parents’ permission to marry him. Laurence remembered this as the second hardest moment of her life, but eventually she assented.

For their marriage, Vedaste wrote a song and recorded it with the help of producers at a local studio. Solange loved the song, and asked him to write one about their village. 

“I’m addressing myself to children of genocide perpetrators who are in a similar situation like mine,” Vedaste said. “I ask them not to be hostage to what their parents did, and envision a better future.”

The song is called “Imboni Y’Byiza,” and it’s sung by Vedaste and Solange. You can hear it in the episode below, and read a translation of the lyrics at SongWriter.

Season seven of SongWriter is made possible by a grant from Templeton World Charity Foundation.

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