In a Rwandan reconciliation village, collaborative efforts among women give hope for unity
Anastasie Nyirabashyitsi and Jeanette Mukabyagaju think of each other as dear friends.
The women’s friendship was cemented one day in 2007, when Mukabyagaju, going somewhere, left a child behind for Nyirabashyitsi to look after.
This expression of trust stunned Nyirabashyitsi because Mukabyagaju, a Tutsi survivor who lost most of her family in the Rwandan genocide, was leaving a child in the hands of a Hutu woman for the first time since they had known each other.
“If she can ask me to keep her child, it’s because she trusts me,” Nyirabashyitsi said recently, describing her feelings at the time. “A woman, when it comes to her children, when someone trusts you with (her) children, it’s because she really does.”
It wasn't always
