“As parents, we must ask: What kind of society do we want? Are we teaching our children to love their country?” These are the guiding words of Louise Ingabire Kalisa, a survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and now a mother committed to raising her children with love, knowledge, and purpose. “I teach my children our history,” she says. “Society is built from home.” At just nine years old, Ingabire lived through horrors no child should witness. The youngest of eight siblings—five girls and three boys—she grew up between two homes: one in Nyanza, Southern Province, with her mother and their cows, and the other in Kigali, where she lived with her father and attended school. “Kigali felt more like home. That’s where I spent most of my childhood.” Even before 1994, she encountered discrimination because of her identity as a Tutsi. “I was only eight when I realised something was wrong. Some children didn’t want to play with us. There were just two of us Tutsi in class. But after a few days, they’d forget, and we’d play together again.” She recalls a moment from their neighbourhood, Remera ya Kabiri (now Kimironko Sector), around 1992, when a new market was opened. “That market was off-limits to Tutsi. One day, I followed our housekeeper there. We were stopped at the entrance. They told him, ‘Inyenzi—cockroaches—are not allowed here.’ He lied, saying I was Indian because my skin had a very light complexion and he gave them Rwf1,000 and we left without buying anything.” When the Genocide began on April 7, 1994, schools were on break. Ingabire and her siblings were in Nyanza, while their parents were in Kigali. “My mother had taken an aunt to the hospital, so we were alone—just children. My oldest sister was in Senior Six.” At first, Nyanza was calm. “For two weeks, we went to church, unaware of the gravity of what was happening. Then news began to reach us.” Two cousins, who had escaped Gikongoro (now Nyamagabe District), told of houses burned and people slaughtered. Then, one Sunday at church, a man who had just returned from Kigali stood up. “He said, ‘People are dying in Kigali. I saw Kalisa and his wife dead, and here you are greeting their children in church.’” That’s how Ingabire learned her parents had been killed. “I cried so much I fell ill,” she said. That same evening, they fled their home and hid in banana plantations. “We were terrified. People searched for us, but didn’t find us. In the morning, our uncle told us to wear as many clothes as we could and escape.” Her older sister knew an Adventist family in town. They took them in. “They had sons who prayed every day at 4 a.m. One of them would take us to hide in the bush and bring us food and water. We stayed there, soaked by rain, bitten by ants. He told us never to move, no matter what.” The Interahamwe militia suspected the family was hiding Tutsi. “They searched the house several times. Each time, the family helped us escape in time.” After about a month, they were finally caught. Armed men took Ingabire and two young cousins to the same man who had announced her parents' death. “He said, ‘What should we do with these children? We’ve killed their entire family.’ Then he described how our relatives had been killed and burned.” Pretending to comply with authorities, the man wrote a note claiming that the children were handed over as a “lesson” for future generations—to show what Tutsi looked like. He returned them to the family who had been hiding them. By June, the tide was turning. “We heard some areas like Ruhango were being liberated. More people fled and camped near where we were hiding.” One day, while returning from fetching water, they were stopped by two young men. “They pulled our hair, told us to check our noses to see if we were Tutsi. A shepherd saw and ran to alert the family. After that, we were told never to go out again.” The family disguised their escape once more. “We carried basins on our heads to hide our faces,” Ingabire recalls. “We made it to the Zone Turquoise, though we never stayed in a refugee camp.” Then came a miracle. “One Tuesday, we were drying cassava when a car stopped nearby. A woman stepped out—it was my mother. I fainted. I thought I was dreaming.” Her father had been killed on April 8 and is buried at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, but her mother had survived. “She took us and our little cousins back to our home in Remera. Slowly, my siblings returned—except one, who was killed in Gisenyi.” Their mother raised them alone. “We returned to school and rebuilt our lives in a peaceful country. There was no more discrimination in school or in the market.” Ingabire expressed profound gratitude to the RPF-Inkotanyi, who stopped the Genocide. “No words will ever be enough to thank them,” she said. She now believes the responsibility lies with every Rwandan. “It’s up to us to protect the peace they restored. And that begins with love—taught at home.”
