Life begins again for nation trying to awake from a nightmare of genocide

Past the parliament building, high on a hill and a symbol of Rwanda's fledgling democracy, a smattering of men watch television in bars and traders on every street beneath sit in the glare of the sun. Nothing looks out of the ordinary.

To the western visitor, used to the steady hum of people doing business, many aspects of this country look reassuringly familiar.

To assume life is simply meandering along, however, with Kigali's

people untroubled and happy, would be a huge mistake.

Instead, like all the other inhabitants of this ignored and neglected nation, they are trying to get over one of the darkest periods

witnessed anywhere in the world in the last century. They are getting over it but, as any Rwandan will tell you, the process will last a lifetime.

Over the last decade, Yorkshire people have raised more than 1.3m through Cafod's annual Lent Fast Day, and nearly 7m in total in the vast Leeds diocese, for the aid agency's work in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Despite that generosity, however, Rwanda's long journey from a land destroyed by genocide, to one of peace and prosperity, has some distance

to run.

Whether in the city or the country, both of which the Yorkshire Post visited during six days in Rwanda, there are thousands of stories of women who have been raped, of families shattered by violent killings and of homes gone forever amid one of the most savage ethnic conflicts the world has seen.

It is remarkable that Rwandans seem not to bear more hostility to the Western world which, in 1994, stood by and did so little. In the space of just 100 days, between 800,000 and one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered by militant Hutus in an orgy of violence prompted by the shooting down of the plane of president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu.

In the capital, Kigali, the genocide memorial centre bears the names and photos of some of those killed and urges the world to never forget.

The survivors have been helped in countless ways by Cafod, which started life when a group of nuns joined forces to raise money to help starving mothers and babies in Dominica. In Rwanda it has funded Avega, the genocide widows organisation. For many women the support of Avega, in Rwamagana, east Rwanda, has meant the difference between living and dying.

Jocelyn Ingabire, who lives in Gishali in Rwamagana, East Rwanda, was raped during the genocide and her husband and children murdered. The ordeal left her with Aids, but she doesn't know whether she was

infected by the sexual assault or the attack with machetes.

Today Jocelyn, 43, survives on the vegetables she grows in her garden and the milk from her cow, which was given to her by Avega. The charity's counselling was the start of her journey back to some kind of normality.

"After the genocide we felt like we were not living because we felt lonely. We felt like we were not part of society. As time went on this was just aggravated.

"We had lost life and felt like not living. We did not like living at all. That is how Avega came in."

Jocelyn said a female Avega worker was the first person to try to help her after she lost her family. She knocked the woman back initially but in time was won over by her compassion, and they began to talk. Jocelyn got counselling once a month initially and then twice.

"First I could not feel anything. I kept on getting counselling and she visited me at home with a sense of love. I kept on getting stronger and I felt I could do something."

Jocelyn started to work and, with the help of Avega, cultivated the vegetable patch that sustains her today and provides a modest income. When the garden is harvested it provides one of the few moments which make her feel happy.

Like a lot of Rwandan women, Jocelyn looks 10 or 15 years younger than her age, despite having endured the most appalling horrors. This isn't down to girlishness, however, because even when she proudly showed me the potatoes, onions, celery, pineapples and bananas she grows, every gesture was permeated by sadness.

The other things that Jocelyn has in common with so many other women, despite traumas past and present poverty, is a strong religious faith. Her sense of calm today, however, belies the anger she felt with God after she endured such a series of tragedies.

"I felt God was useless. But I forgave God and God forgave me. Now I like pray to so much. It is very helpful to me. And I feel happy when I sing and people love you because of that. "

In Nyagasambu, a settlement a short drive from Rwamagana which we visited a few days later, similar expressions of faith could be found. Images of Mary and Jesus were pinned on the walls of homes that were little better than mud huts.

A belief that God is on their side is one of several convictions which have endured among Rwandans. Like their faith in the neighbours and Avega staff who have become their surrogate family, in the power of education to change their lives, and in the strength of their country to recover, their religion gives them hope.

For those who have seen their kith and kin murdered, expressions of joy must remain a rare thing, but with every year that goes by they get that bit closer – as hard as that may be for us to understand – to a sense of peace.

n To find out more about the work of Cafod. go to www.cafod.org.uk or call the Yorkshire office on 0113 275 9302.