Agnes

How do you console a girl who’s just had everything she ever based her life on turned upside down?

I have rarely felt so useless as just now when Agnes, my house girl broke down crying and a story tumbled out which with every twist and turn got darker and more dispiriting. Each time I thought that was it, that there couldn’t possible be another fold in the story, another event or fear was voiced, and tears welled. I don’t know if it is a Rwandan way of telling a story – parts are repeated over and over – and then comes the next part, which is repeated once or twice, before the next twist is uncovered but it makes for a wild-eyed audience, and I had a lump in my throat. She is in the room next door to me, she said she had too much ‘sorrow’ to go home but that she will leave at 5am. She started by saying she has not seen her eldest sister since Sunday. Then it turns out she was pregnant. She left her parent’s house in the middle of the deep country after dark. She stayed a few nights at a friend’s house in the town, but then today this friend, Godasse told Agnes that she was no longer there.All she knows is that she wanted to go to the river, but Godasse tried to stop her.
All this was being recounted in broken French. It’s almost a type of French pidgin we speak together. I break down my French grammar to make it easier for Agnes who never finished secondary school, and so some of the sentences are always slightly contorted. And several times I had to ask exacty what that meant in a Rwandan sense, such as ‘going to the river’. Agnes wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. Instead she just looked away and said it was a big big problem and she was very very afraid. The tears were still there but stubbornly not slipping over.
Agnes’s sister was not married. If Agnes is anything to go by the family are very religious. My house is currently adorned with messages and pictures drawn by Agnes telling me God loves me, and with various biblical quotations. She goes to church at least three times a week and is in the choir and runs the prayer sessions –all this at the age of 21. Last week she spent the night at the top of the highest mountain you can see for miles praying with 3 friends, on a mini-retreat. So perhaps having an unmarried pregnant sister would have brought shame upon the family. Were the parents angry? “Yes but now they are afraid. They ask where their child is and nobody can answer”.

Only then did Agnes say that her sister had been raped.

But far from removing the shame, this merely increases it. How can a 28yr old woman not be married? Was she asking to be raped? Who would then want to marry a soiled woman? The man who raped her then apparently asked her parents whether she would marry his younger brother – at this point the parents knew nothing and said yes. This was 6 months ago but the sister kept herself hidden and didn’t let anyone know about her condition – apart from Agnes and a few close friends. Then Agnes mentions how the rapist, Fas, who lives amongst them still is already married, and has 5 children.

Something went wrong with the idea of marrying the brother, so then Fas, the rapist, offered for Agnes’s sister to become his second wife. Can you imagine marrying your rapist?

“Maggie, now I know that all men, all all men, all of them are bad”.

Aged 21, Agnes has lost all faith in half of humankind.

And then it continued. This man turns out to be the church leader in the very church that Agnes devotes half her life to. He is the co-leader of the prayer groups and the choirs. “How can this man, this Christian do this? I don’t understand”. And so her belief in the church is now tainted too. This Christian leader, with 5 kids and a wife, a so-called respected member of the community rapes a girl, and then (the story continues to unfold) threatens Agnes with the same fate. Since Agnes wants to stay out of trouble, he then tells her parents that Agnes is ‘fooling around’. When she goes to prayer group she speaks to all the men. And she spreads propaganda. Bad things all about him (ie, if you ever hear anything bad about me in the coming weeks it’s all lies and nothing to do with me).

I am sure the story will continue to unfold. But what makes it wose is that it isn’t a story. And yet here I am writing about it. I have no idea what to do. I have a sobbing girl in the other room terrified about where her sister has ended up. And all I can do is write about it. And that makes me feel ashamed, as though I am using it as some great ‘scoop’ or something when in fact I just have no idea what to do. I think I find writing quite therapeutic, but will it help she who needs help most?