I had a dream that one day I would become a President of Burundi-my native country. The civil war between Hutus and Tutsis changed my vision and ambition. At my early age, my father was poisoned to death, and not only did I suffer from his absence in my life, but his death is in my dreams every night. With the little time I spent with him, I realized that he was a man who cared about his family and about others. In the village, everyone loved and respected him. I wanted to be like him and reach the goals he could not reach. I saw myself becoming the Burundian president upon finishing my studies or living in a foreign country. Somehow, I thought of the United States of America. I had those feelings of destiny, but I did not know exactly where to biggin and end. I was a child; I thought that going to the United States of America was as simple as crossing our streets. In 2000, one of my dreams came true and moved to the United States of America. After going through many obstacles, I was able to overcome them and thank God, of who I am today. I saw many innocent people die like animals and corrupted governments who tortured their own citizens. Every person I engage in conversation asks me where I come from; and no one knows where Burundi is. The other questions are how and why am I in the United States. More importantly, when I say that I was/am in the US military, people are surprised and want to know why did I join the US military. The following story is about me, from the little village in Burundi, located in the middle of nowhere, to the US military.
From Genocide to War on Terror
Why the U.S. Navy?By Nicolas NibikoraAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Nicolas Nibikora
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-1550-3Chapter One
My Memories
When I was born in the middle of nowhere, not in the hospital like any other child, I was told that my mother gave birth in the middle of the night. The clinic was about nine miles away from our house, and there were no ambulances or ability to call 911. Actually, no emergency call system exists in Burundi. My mother preferred to deliver at home in darkness using the flames of firelight. About two years after I was born, the fighting between the Hutus and Tutsis started, and we moved in the middle of the night to hide in the tea plantations. I was carried on my mother helper's back, and my mother had other siblings to take care of. Being a child and not knowing what was going on, I was happy to be outside at night and look into the beautiful sky shining with the moon and stars.
I understood that the conflicts or confrontations between the two groups did not take that long like the one that started in 1993 and still undergoing today. However, there were some casualties, and many Hutus took refuge in neighboring countries: Rwanda, Tanzania, and Congo.
In my childhood, I did not know who was a Hutu or who was a Tutsi. In fact, in our house, many people came to do work for the exchange of money. In the middle of the night, we used to have five or six people from other provinces asking for accommodation because they were trading some of their arts or goods for food, and they had to walk a hundred miles away because no transportation was available and were going house by house for the house made goods trade. They had to make sure that at the sunset they were in our house for a night. We did not know them. They were not our relatives; they were just Burundians looking for a place to sleep at night. Every night we saw different faces. My mother did not want to turn them away. She had to give them accommodation and food. Maybe most of them were Hutus, and we were not looking at them as Hutus, we were looking at them as human beings and Burundians who needed somewhere to pass the night.
I used to go with the visitors and stay overnight in their houses. My parents did not have to worry about my overnight stay in strangers' houses. In fact, they were not strangers. They were neighbors. Italian priests lived not far away from our house; they used to come and carry me in their arms and take me to their villa. My mother used to say that I was so loved by so many people and worried that I might one day be in a country of majority white people and be farther away from her. Her worries came true, and here I am far away, many oceans between us, and I am the only child she cannot see whenever she wants.
When my father passed away, it was like a storm. I could not understand that I was not going to see my father at all. He had not been in my life for long because I was about twelve years old. Until this point, he has not disappeared from my memories. I would say that in 40 percent of my dreams, I see my father standing beside me. When he was still alive, I used to challenge him in mathematics and ask him many questions related to the life experiences of the people who were always in our house. "My son, you will be a smart person, and I am proud of you," he said. He loved me; he always brought me clothes and shoes on his return home from work after a month or two of absence. He had to work far away and had other land about a hundred miles away from home, which he had to take care of. He was a father, and he was a loved person in our village. Unfortunately, because of his relatives' jealousy of his success, he was poisoned to death. During his vacation, he had to make sure that our neighbors had food to eat. He had to visit them, and he had to visit the schools to make sure that everything was in order. He stood up for every parent who could not afford to pay the school fees for their kids, and who were forced to abandon the school because they did not pay the school fees. He was a rock and man of justice.
I wanted to take his legacy, be there for him, and accomplish everything he could not. To begin with, he was not educated, as he had finished only elementary school. However, he was more intelligent and respected in our village because of his common sense and contribution to the community. Our neighbors used to tell me, "You look like your father, and hoped that I would be e like him." He was not afraid of speaking out for the others.
A year after his death, I graduated the sixth grade and headed to the middle school. The middle school was in the majority Hutu area; actually, not a single Tutsi lived in the area except some elementary school teachers from other provinces and communes. This place was about twelve miles away from the capital city. At the time, nothing was really going on as far as hatred between the Hutus and Tutsis. We ate together, drank together, prayed together, and slept in the same dormitory. The funny thing was that the open dormitory we lived in was shared between boys and girls. The only thing that separated us was a piece of triplex, and we had the same entrance ... We did not have shower rooms. We had to use a bucket, and two or three people sharing the water at the same time used one bucket. We had to find a corner in the back of the building, actually outside, to take a shower. Girls and boys could see each other naked while taking a shower or when we went to bed. Amazingly, there was that mutual respect of gender, and no sexual scandals happened. We were like sisters and brothers. We shared everything like brothers and sisters.
Most of my free time, I stood in the corner by myself at school, thinking not only about my father but also of what I would become in my future. Sometimes I would approach the groups of my classmates, but I would be listening what they were talking about. If they were not interesting subjects, I had to walk away and be in my corner and meditate again. They were always playing around after school, and I preferred to stand by myself and think. What was I really thinking of? I wanted to change the country. I was really dreaming, and that was impossible. One, I was too young; second, I did not have education-I was just in seventh grade, and third, I was just a child who was building in the air and sky. At the time, the only thing was occupying me in my free times was reading the Bible and Catholic songbooks. These books were in my hands all of the time after school. Even if I did not have to be in their groups, my classmates loved me. They loved me because of my smile; I smiled to every person and looked younger among them. The nuns in charge of the school considered me the quietest and most disciplined child they had ever seen since they started school. Even if they thought so, if there was something wrong, I was the first person to denounce it. No matter who was doing something strange or wrong, teacher or student, I had to stand up and denounce it.
During one of my school breaks, I was the only child who was at home among my other siblings except my youngest. Two were away in military service, one was in Russia for his studies, and the other one was still in school. My grandfather had land on which the government had planted trees and somehow decided to cut them down. At the time of my school break, it was open land. The Mayor wanted to distribute the land to his favorite businesspersons to construct houses on it. Because of the corruption, some businesspersons paid this mayor so...
