{"id":45676,"date":"2022-04-19T19:46:20","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/life-without-life-in-1994\/"},"modified":"2022-04-19T19:52:09","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:52:09","slug":"life-without-life-in-1994","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/life-without-life-in-1994\/","title":{"rendered":"Life without life  in 1994"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dreams did we have?<br \/>\nThose who didn\u2019t lose their dreams lost life and limb. Little were we! Belittled were our ambitions,<br \/>\nWe, the innocent souls stripped of the identity in our lands, Leaders we gave our trust stabbed us till we were no more.<\/p>\n<p>My dream was to evacuate my family from the misery of poverty. But our vision was shuttered by a confusion of our indifferences,<br \/>\nPreachers taught that Tutsis had no home, that their souls would wander in the depths of hell.<\/p>\n<p>So determined to give us hell, I questioned what had happened to humanity and leaders who vowed to protect us.<br \/>\nCertain occasions became depressions, thinking how much I lost and what I was about to endure.<br \/>\nEvery second gone, was a life-long gone.<\/p>\n<p>Sorrowful sounds were at their highest pitch begging for easier ways to die Surrendering to the butchers was a sign of desperation,<br \/>\nSuch shady ideology, I knew my time was up, up and down I played ignoring the fact.<\/p>\n<p>Tick-tack my heart raced into the nothingness of despair.<br \/>\nJordan and James, joyful as they were, I never imagined their fate would end up so unfortunate, laying in the fields mercilessly tortured, begging the tyrants to make it quick.<\/p>\n<p>Oh! How oblivious of their origins?<br \/>\nSo much life unlived, so many promises unfulfilled, and for what? Now I despise my life even in disguise,<br \/>\nThey said you are not one of us, but I asked are you sure?<\/p>\n<p>Parents widowed; children orphaned; a calamity that stormed our nation. Leaving a few but none of whom envisioned a better recuperation.<br \/>\nHatred jungled people\u2019s hearts.<\/p>\n<p>Rain, rain go away was our cry, but pain, pain flowed in us like a waterfall<br \/>\nScared we ran to the mountains and hid into forests, but death haunted us beyond imagination.<\/p>\n<p>Hope lost, Immortality our wish.<br \/>\nSurvival wasn\u2019t an option at all but a miracle.<br \/>\nWe prayed, begged for our life but beggars have no choice, after losing it, I said the die is cast.<\/p>\n<p>Our enemy wished our extinction, they killed our hope, but our unity was engrafted in our mother country.<br \/>\nFierce they looked upon us, death an unquestionable outcome. Beheaded were our throats but not our thoughts.<br \/>\nThoughts of a better Rwanda, Rwanda as a free country.<\/p>\n<p>Today I live, because heroes lived<br \/>\nPeace they left in our hearts to live again<br \/>\nBut the idea of Memento Mori (Remember you shall die) was stuck in us. Every day I question my existence<br \/>\nAnd live for those who left us<br \/>\nTheir bodies were left in this merciless world but their kindness will forever be cast onto us.<\/p>\n<p>Endless love we promise you, courage we owe you.<br \/>\nThe tears you shed and the cross you carried will be a synopsis of the past we should never go back to.<\/p>\n<p>{{I READ YOUR STORY BUT YOU LIVED THAT STONY STORY<\/p>\n<p>POET: NSHUTI SERGE<\/p>\n<p>SCHOOL: Nu-Vision High School. Class: Year 13 PCM}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{In those dark days living was not a choice, Evil<br \/>\nclouded people\u2019s minds.<br \/>\nWhat was unity eluded, no mother wished to raise a child in such a place. People were refugees in their mother country, departure became the only way of survival.}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[75],"byline":[3059],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-45676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poem","tag-homenews","byline-serge-nshuti"],"bylines":[{"id":3059,"name":"Serge Nshuti","slug":"serge-nshuti","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":3059,"name":"Serge Nshuti","slug":"serge-nshuti","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45676"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=45676"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=45676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}