Michana crouched on her mat and covered her scarred face with her hands.  It had been such a long day.  She knew she had to get busy, the workers would be here soon, and they needed to eat.  But just now she simply could not move.

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This day had begun like so many others in the huge refugee camp just inside the Rwandan border.  All the able-bodied men and women drew lots each morning to see who would work in the fields, and who would stay in the camp.  Fields of potatoes, beans, and sorghum required constant attention, and behind them the bananas were ripe and needed picking.  Children worked in groups with their teachers, picking bananas, watching the cows and goats as they foraged, and singing their lessons back and forth to continue their schooling while they worked.

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Michana had been allotted camp duty this morning.  She helped care for the elders and those too crippled to work, and the babies and tots.  She also gathered firewood and edible greens and roots, ground maize for meal, made bread and biscuits and the thick, pasty stew that was their main source of nourishment.  It was a large camp, too many children and too few adults who were not maimed or crippled.  There was no wood for building and no straw for bricks, so they lived in rude huts made of sticks and banana leaves and anything they could find.  They survived, but only just.

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Michana’s grandmother, when she lived, had told stories of a beautiful Rwanda when she was a child.  There were clean running rivers and thick green forests; well-tended fields all round the village; houses of brick and mortar and exquisite stonework.  The people worked together then, singing ancient songs in their deep, rich voices as they travelled to and from the fields.  It was a different world.  The Hutus, for the most part, had been indentured servants of the Tutsis.  There were instances of bad behavior on both sides, but it was a system that had worked for centuries and had worked well.  The Tutsis were aristocratic families and owned the land.  They kept the Hutus, fed and housed them, and saw to it that they received at least a rudimentary education.  In return the Hutus performed the work, tilling the fields and harvesting the crops.  Rwanda was a place of peace, beauty, and enrichment.