Pacifique Bonheur: Guiding a path through Rwanda's dark history

His second name ‘Bonheur’ means ‘happiness’ in French. But for Pacifique Bonheur, happiness is an ideal that only existed in name for most of his life. It is something he had given up hope in ever finding until the year 2000, when he started working at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Gisozi as a bookshop attendant. Two years later he got a promotion, elevating to the position of guide. He was only six years old when his mother and all his five siblings were killed during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. As the years went by and he matured into adulthood, Bonheur withdrew into himself and soul-searched. Soon, finding new meaning to life became his major preoccupation. He speaks highly of his first job at the Memorial: “I found that this was a direct way of teaching people about the Genocide.” Noble job As a guide, Bonheur’s work is, in his own words, “to educate using every single word that comes from my mouth”. In fact, he prefers to call himself a ‘genocide prevention activist’ instead of a mere guide. He explains that the mandate of the memorial is “to revive our history and also to protect it, knowing that there are people who deny it, people who don’t want it told. We are custodians of this history”. “The memorial is open to anyone to see everything around. It speaks to everyone and transmits a message that is very broad. We show people what can lead to conflict, but also how you can recover from it; the commitment of the youth to social development, and how people can develop home-grown solutions to their problems –all these things are well documented in the memorial.” Bonhuer argues that having been through the worst of times, people need to see and realize the sacrifices that Rwandans have made for the sake of a better nation. The faces of some of the victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. It is job in which he takes immense pride, a job he would never trade for any other: “To work here is like being in a sanctuary of pride, the pride arising from the outcome of your work. When you talk to people and they come to thank and appreciate you for it, you can’t think of any other job. Otherwise I know where the bucks are,” he says in reference to the accounting option he once pursued at university. He explains that as a guide, his duty is to “make whoever visits the memorial to go back home safe and in the same state of mind they were in before visiting.” “This is a job that I do with great feeling, knowing that it will help improve lives. It’s a huge pride to work here, and I can see it through the eyes of other people. When people know that you work here they salute your heart.” Genocide survivor Bonheur was born on 2nd February 1988 in the former Cyangugu district, in the Western Province. He still remembers 1994 like it was yesterday. “Everything I saw is still fresh on my mind,” he says. “The first time I heard of the killings was on a certain Wednesday. Then on Sunday, part of my family went to church and in the afternoon when they returned my mother took me to a neighbor, Mariana, who became my rescuer. I survived death but this is not what matters the most to me. I survived with the help of someone who took the risk of death on my behalf.” The first death he witnessed was that of his grandfather’s househelp, who had also joined Mariana’s family for refuge. Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. “They had hacked into his head and blood was pouring out from it.” “One day Mariana took me to a pastor who was a family friend. On the way to his place, she showed me a corpse which was lying in the middle of the road. I think the message she wanted to send to me was that this is what is happening to people”. He feels forever indebted to the old woman: “Mariana undertook a great risk to protect me. I remember one time when killers came and tried to force their way into her house at night. She stood at the door and bravely told them that there was no one in the house and chased them away.” She describes her as his book, reference and hero. “My memories of events are still mixed up. I can recall everything that I saw, but she is the only one who can arrange the events in perfect order. I was only six years at the time.” He stayed with her for a better part of the Genocide. After some time they sought sanctuary at the home of an old man, the father of his aunt’s husband. “I went with her and her son and we crossed Lake Kivu to a place called Shara. During the day we would stay home, but at night we would hide in the bush in holes that had been dug for ripening bananas. She had her own hole and I had mine.” They lived like this until Rwanda Patriotic Front fighters liberated their area. Father and son reunited One day he saw a white car drive into the compound and it was one of his father’s friends. “He told me that my father, Samuel Ntwarabakiga, was still alive and that he was living in Butare and wanted to see me. By this time I did not know if any of my family members was still alive.” His father lived with many other friends, in an abandoned house whose owner they did not even know. “I was happy to see my father again. It was a new experience living with him, and seeing him cry sometimes. It was a very emotional time that had a powerful impact on me.Whenever we would sit together he would ask me questions. It was a time of turmoil and chaos, a situation where you had a story to share but couldn’t open your mouth to talk. It was the case with me and many other people.” This was a far cry from the family life he had once known: “What I remember is that before the Genocide, ours was one big happy family. My grandfather was the wise man and chief of the family, who was always there to protect it.” In 1995, his father remarried, and the young Bonheur returned to school. The following year, he moved to an even better school –Helena Guerra Primary School. “This is where I reloaded my knowledge, made friends, and started living again”. In his P2 vacation he came to Kigali for the first time, and stayed with an uncle who had fled to Bujumbura and later Belgium at the start of the Genocide. “To tell you the truth, I believe he is someone who contributed greatly to the rebuilding of my life, not with material things, but my internal self. This is a man I was very free to talk to. He re-educated me to discover again the value of life.” He kept visiting and staying with the family during vacations, and when he joined secondary school, moved in permanently with them, something that had always been his wish. He moved to La Colombiere High School in Kigali where, in his third year, he topped the national exam. He eventually completed his high school at Groupe Scolaire St. Joseph Kabgayi. “I was grown up now and could think. It is at this time that I started reviving and remembering the events I had witnessed. I joined AERG, a genocide survivors’ students association and I started finding myself. I was one of the people trained to deal with trauma cases. We organized talks to revive memories and rebuild lives of survivors.” He also started to appreciate fully how bad the Genocide was. “I went beyond thinking of the loved ones I’d lost, to thinking about what we can do to rebuild the lives of others, something significant.” As we part ways I ask what his plans for the nearby future are, and as if on cue, he retorts: “I want to do something in honor of Mariana before she ends her days in this world …a documentary perhaps, or something written. I want it to be something about me, but through her eyes, because she knows my story best.” He also wants to resume school, but for something different, not accounting. “May be project management, maybe leadership and humanity or something similar”. Bonheur is married to Aniella Gateka and the couple have been blessed with a three-month old son.

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Pacifique Bonheur: Guiding a path through Rwanda's dark history