Immaculée’s friend Clementine, also a Tutsi, shows her an electrical box where they can kill themselves if the Hutus break in. Immaculée is threatened with violence when outside school and experiences hatred from within when she frightens her roommate at night and her roommate screams that an RPF rebel is trying to break in. Tutsi rebels from Uganda have banded with the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) and are trying to regain their rights and power in Uganda after being expelled in the ethnic tensions of 19. In 1990 the first stirrings of a war come into her life. She made good friends at the prestigious school, which was located in an area of the country hostile to Tutsis, but the students were well protected.

After spending two years at a substandard private school, however, she was admitted to the Lycée de Notre Dame d’Afrique, an all-girls school that was the top of the country.

Despite scoring second-best in her school, she was passed over because of her Tutsi heritage. Her first encounter with this prejudice came when she was 15 and taking entrance examinations to enter prestigious government-funded public schools. But in Immaculée’s limited experience, everyone seemed to get along, with Hutus and Tutsis frequently marrying, befriending, and otherwise associating with each other. The 1959 Hutu revolt against the Belgians and 1973 coup resulted in the death and expulsion of many Tutsis. After 1962 when the Belgians left, the Hutus gained control and made Tutsis second-class citizens. Immaculée explains that her parents never told them the history of Rwanda: German and Belgian colonialists favored the ruling Tutsi class and set up a system where they were socially and politically dominant over the Hutu. Her teacher Buhuro made her leave the classroom until she could identify herself. Her teacher took a roll call and asked students to identify themselves as Hutu or Tutsi, and she did not know which she was. The first time she heard about the division of Hutus and Tutsis was in fourth grade. Her parents were devout Catholics and she was raised with prayer, church, and compassion for others. She had three brothers: Aimable was five years older than her, then Damascene, her best friend, was three years older, and Vianney was three years younger. Her parents, Leonard and Rose, were both teachers and farmers.

Her village was called Mataba and was in the western province of Kibuye, right on the border of The Congo. Immaculée Ilibagiza was born in Rwanda in a village that she thought was a peaceful paradise.

Left to Tell by Immaculée Ilibagiza