For The Love of Mother (Part II)

Icyimanimpaye was a name their own mother, who had eight daughters, wished she had given to a son she never had. My grandmother lifted me and said “Cyimana, my first grandson, welcome, welcome sweetheart. Grow up, go to school and take up responsibilities!”

Running Nyiraneza’s shop, my mum became very good at meeting customers’ needs and her input improved revenues significantly. When the war broke out in October 1990, the business went down as the conflict escalated. In April 1994 when the genocide started, I was five. We fled the country and managed to reach Goma, the capital city of North Kivu in DRC, then Zaire. On the way we met a former classmate of mum’s who had relatives in Goma. They offered us accommodation.

The situation in Goma was chaotic. There were people all over the place on the sidewalks. Soon people started dying in their hundreds. Mum told me it was due to cholera. I often saw soldiers of the defeated army being stripped of their uniforms and weapons on the streets by Zairean soldiers. One day my mother bought a toilet paper in the morning for 200 zaires. When she returned to get another one in the evening the price had increased to 800 zaires! That’s when she decided to use the little money she had left to get out of Goma.

She bought a ticket to Nairobi, Kenya from Air Zaire. We reported to the airport on the day of departure but we were told that the flight was postponed. We reported again to the airport for three consecutive days, but there were no Air Zaire flights. Mum was eventually told that the plane had a puncture and they were waiting for tyres. An immigration official offered to assist her get a flight. He took her ticket away and asked her to report again the following day. Mum would report to the airport with me in tow and holding our small suitcase. After three more fruitless attempts, a plane from Kenya carrying humanitarian goods landed. The immigration officer tried to secure a seat for my mother, but the mzungu (white) pilot dismissed him. When the pilot returned a few hours later to have his passport stamped for his return journey to Nairobi, the immigration officer arrested him and accused him of travelling with a woman’s passport, even though the picture and names clearly belonged to him! The pilot realised that he had to cooperate and he took us on board. To date, we laugh to tears whenever we recall the incident.

Once in Kenya, we settled in a bedsitter in a commercial cum residential mall in Kawangware slum. Mum started plaiting hair and soon she had a big clientele. Two years later she partnered with a Kenyan friend to open a hair salon. I was attending the best primary school in the slum but my mother wished for a better school for me. I had become very fluent in Kiswahili but I hardly spoke English.

At the turn of the millennium, my mum returned to Rwanda to renew her passport and get one for me. Her father was in jail, accused of taking part in the genocide. Her mother’s life revolved around caring for her jailed husband by taking food and other items to him, and trying all avenues possible to prove his innocence and settle his release. She was assisted by her son who was working for an international NGO. Mum didn’t pay any visit to her father despite grandmother’s supplications. “Let him experience how it feels to be wrongly accused,” she responded whenever grandmother would ask her to forgive the old man. One day mum met a former client who needed a trusted person in Nairobi to supervise the loading and offloading of his trucks. She gladly offered her services.

Upon returning to Nairobi, a shock awaited mum. Her business partner had sold off the salon and moved to an undisclosed location. Mum immersed herself in her new venture, offering her services to more wealthy truck owners from Rwanda, and before long the new venture proved much more lucrative than the hair salon. Her clientele expanded to business owners from various sectors to whom she became a representative in Nairobi. Mum opened an office in the Industrial Area and bought a car. She acquired a maisonnette in Komarock and rented it. A year later she bought a flat in Jamhuri Estate and we moved from the slum. She enrolled me in the same school as Kwitonda’s.

My grandparents and my uncle were moved by my mother’s happiness and their visit turned into an opportunity for daughter and father, who had since been released from jail by a Gacaca court, to finally reconcile. When she heard of the turn of events, Mama Kwito chased our relatives out of her house. Kwitonda put them up in a fully furnished apartment for the remainder of their stay in Kenya. We were dumbfounded as we had never seen Mama Kwito in such a state of rage before. I was convinced she regretted the day she met my mother.

Mama Kwito and mum met at a Sports Day event at the school that Kwitonda and I attended. Impressed by the fact that then 15 years old Kwitonda could converse with his mother in Kinyarwanda, my mum gifted him a copy of ‘Ibirari by’insigamigani ‘, a book that explains the origins of some Kinyarwanda proverbs. Kwitonda confessed to me years later that he was there and then smitten by the elegant, bubbly new friend of his mother. Our families became very close. Kwitonda and I spent countless sleep overs at each other’s place. We were like brothers. Kwitonda took me under his wing, mentored me and often protected me from bullies.

Kwitonda greatly admired my mum. She instilled in him a passion for business. Despite numerous admonitions from his mother, Kwitonda never addressed my mother as Mama Cyimana. He always called her Mahirwe as if they were age mates, which mum found amusing and sweet. Eventually Mama Kwito gave up and got used to that state of affairs. I was very close to Mama Kwito, whom I considered as my second mother. She taught me respect for hard work, and whenever she had a bout of anger, I was the only one who could calm her down. Our mothers often exchanged on the circumstances in which they became mothers, in hushed tones whenever we were present, but we managed to piece things together. Mama Kwito tried to convince mum to forgive her father, but mum wouldn’t hear any of that. 

At school each year we celebrated Mother’s Day. I acquired the habit of buying or crafting a gift for my mum. However, growing up, it became more and more challenging to come up with fresh gift ideas. One day as I was lamenting that I had no idea what to offer my mum, Kwitonda suggested something that I had never thought about. Funny enough he was having the same challenge and I knew exactly what his mother would love. From then on we swapped. I would get a gift for Mama Kwito and he would get one for mum and we would exchange them before presenting them to our mothers.

At 25, Kwitonda completed a master’s degree in business development and marketing. He found a good job as a marketing executive but quit after a few months to start his own business. Mama Kwito was annoyed as she felt he should have cut his teeth in a stable job, a position I shared. However my mother supported Kwitonda, took him under her wing and mentored him. For three years they met on a regular basis. She helped him set goals, strategize and stay focused as he built a successful marketing consultancy. Kwitonda gave my mother fresh ideas on how to grow her business and she was one of his first clients. She admired his creativity and his resolve to make it in life. Their relationship evolved gradually and irresistibly from a mother/mentor-and-son kind of relationship to a romantic one. I guess mum realised that Kwitonda was no more the teen she helped Uwituze bring up. He had become a responsible hard working young man and the potential companion for life she longed for.

My mother often felt the urge to share her new found happiness with Mama Kwito, but she feared how her strict friend would take the fact that she loved a man 17 years younger, more so Uwituze’s beloved son. However when they jointly purchased a house and moved in together, they decided that it was time to inform Uwituze.

The following morning I was woken up by a call from an angry Kwitonda. He had come across a long post done by his mother on Facebook. I quickly logged in and I was horrified. The post was going viral.  Mama Kwito was portraying my mum as a ‘mother’ who was sleeping with her ‘son’. The netizens had gladly grabbed the post and were sharing it in the hundreds. Continue to Part III / Read Part I

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This short story was initially published in a slightly shorter version (3491 words) on Typotic. Here I’m giving it to you in it’s entirety (3997 words) in three instalments. This is the second one. 

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