Meeting Marie

Extract from the Diary
by Karin Demuth

A journey through rural Rwanda: everything is tropically green. There are fields of banana bushes, little houses and numerous round huts made of mud and with leaf-covered roofs. People are on the move everywhere, either coming from or going to their fields, some on bicycles but most of them on foot. Everything seems so peaceful. It is hard to imagine that such terrible things happened in this country.

Our first visit to the SOS Children's Village: we have a look at the clinic, the training centre, the school and the kindergarten. The kindergarten teachers are just announcing the start of the lunch break by beating the drums. The little "whippersnappers" storm over to us, shake our hands and look inquisitively at Fred's camera. Some of them seem to feel safer keeping their distance. Some of them rub their heads against our stomachs. I am told later that this is a special form of greeting. I find it a very moving one.

Our translator is Joyeuse and she is an educated woman. And not only that. When Marie says that her joy in life is that the children in the SOS Children's Village call her "maman", Joyeuse cries for the first time and I join in straight away. Marie explains that her life in the SOS Children's Village has sometimes been difficult, especially when seeing the terrible state of health the children were in when they first arrived. Marie shows us photographs: Coucou, for example, weighed less than one kilo when he was found. Now he is an active, happy and intelligent boy who shows no signs of being shy. We are interrupted by a sweet one-year-old twin girl who has just woken up. Whilst Marie takes Nadege back to her room, Joyeuse bursts into tears for the second time: what a blessing it is to see how healthy, strong and happy the little girl is and what a terrible fate would have befallen her had she not been taken in by the SOS Children's Village. Before we leave, Joyeuse says that she would like to say a prayer for the family. I cannot understand the words, because she says it in Kinyarwanda but it is very emotional and the word "SOS" is often mentioned.

Marie's Story will be published here soon

All these mother's stories come from SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy. Copyright is reserved and no unauthorized use permitted. Use for non-commercial purposes may be requested. The interviews telling about the lives of some SOS Mothers form part of an interesting study on being a replacement Mother to children in need in SOS Children's communities worldwide.