![[UWC/Eng/IO prac/_resources/Pasted image 20250408192801.png]]

Every afternoon, she observed the same ritual. She would —, open her snuffbox crafted from vegetable ivory, — take the first small tokes of fresh tobacco. Next, she would —weave— handiwork — Rosalie was nearly a hundred years old. She often liked to tell the life-story of this or that — recalling the Rwanda of bygone days: heroic deeds in battle, pastoral poetry, panegyric poems, the Intore dances, the genealogy of the clans, moral values…Rosalie would speak slowly and softly in a gentle murmur, with the cadences of a sitar player. —A tear or two was always poised to slide down one cheek.”

I never showed much interest in the
antics of the monarchy and the White Fathers. I always yawned, which
irritated Pacifique, who scolded me for my lack of curiosity. Maman would
fire back that her children were French kids, and it was pointless boring us
with their Rwandan stories. Pacifique, on the other hand, could spend hours
listening to the old woman recalling the Rwanda of bygone days: heroic
deeds in battle, pastoral poetry, panegyric poems, the Intore dances, the
genealogy of the clans, moral values…
Mamie berated Maman for not speaking to us in Kinyarwanda. She
believed that the language would allow us to hold onto our identity, despite
living in exile, otherwise we would never become good Banyarwandas
(“those who come from Rwanda”). Maman didn’t buy those arguments: in
her eyes we were white kids, with skin the color of pale caramel, but white all the same. Whenever we spoke a few words of Kinyarwanda, she
immediately made fun of our accent. So it’s hardly surprising I showed little
interest in Rwanda, its monarchy, its cows, its mountains, its moons, its
milk, its honey, and its rotten mead