From the Bushes of Rwanda to the Oscars in Hollywood: Norah’s Journey to America

Story by Norah Bagrinka, Morningdawn111@gmail.com and Hayley Ross, hayley@weavetales.org
Edited by: Hayley Ross, Sheridan Block, Naz Hussein, and Dainelis Rodriguez

Norah Bagirinka is a Rwandan genocide survivor and an advocate for children and women’s rights. Before coming to the United States, Norah worked with many international organizations focused on women’s issues and directed a Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) Program with the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Norah is currently located in Columbus, Ohio.

After living in the U.S., she founded Rwanda Women in Action (now Refugee Women in Action), a nonprofit organization that serves refugee women and their families by connecting them to resources. Norah graduated from Ohio Christian University with a bachelor’s degree in healthcare management. She also served as a translator for the 2008 Emmy awarded and 2006 Oscar-nominated documentary “God Sleeps in Rwanda”. Her ability to understand and speak African languages (Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, and Swahili) and English gives her the means to communicate and interpret for refugees and help provide them with the necessary skills to become independent members of the community.

Since 2015, Norah has served as the delegate for the state of Ohio with the National Refugee Congress, where she seeks to champion domestic and international refugee issues.

My name is Norah Bagirinka and I am a genocide survivor from Rwanda. It is a great privilege to be alive today. God has granted me more time to live. I do not know how long. It might be many years or days, but I must make a difference by sharing my story. I hope that it will inspire many people to appreciate life or be resilient.

Beginning of the Crisis

About 85% of Rwandans are Hutus, but the Tutsi minority has long dominated the country. In 1959, the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and tens of thousands of Tutsis fled to neighboring countries, including Uganda. Hutu extremists blamed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) political party and immediately started a well-organized campaign of slaughter during the early to mid-1990s.

In 1994, the president at the time, Juvenal Habyarimana — a Hutu — was killed in a plane crash headed to Rwanda from France. The RPF said the plane that carried the president was shot down by Hutus, which led to the inception of the genocide.

A list of government opponents was handed out to militias who killed the Tutsis and their families. Neighbors killed neighbors, and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused.

Identification cards had people’s ethnic groups listed on them, so militias set up roadblocks where Tutsis were slaughtered, often with machetes, which most Rwandans kept around the house. Thousands of Tutsi women were taken away and kept as sex slaves.

In just 100 days, about 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda by the ethnic Hutu extremist group. They were targeting members of the minority Tutsi community, as well as their political opponents, irrespective of their ethnic origin.

(Historical context written by Norah Bagrinka)

Norah’s Upbringing

I was born at the beginning of the Rwandan Civil War. My mother married at a young age, and it took her some time to be pregnant with me. Fortunately, I was born some years later when she almost lost hope and was about to be divorced. I am an only child.

In 1962, my parents fled from Rwanda to Zimbabwe because of the civil war. My father was educated and given a scholarship in Zimbabwe at Solusi College. My mother was not educated, but my father homeschooled her.

A few months after moving to Zimbabwe, my father had a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa. He had open-heart surgery and unfortunately died. The war in South Africa at the time prohibited my mother and other relatives from traveling there to bury my father. I was too young to remember my father.

My mother was devastated. She became a widow at a young age. It was extremely hard for her to move on with life without my father. She began drinking and became an alcoholic due to the trauma and stress of losing my father. She could not take care of me. My family decided that I should be sent to live with other relatives in Uganda. They were refugees there, and my father’s sister would raise me. My mother returned to Rwanda even though the civil war was ongoing.

I became a refugee.

In Uganda, I was lucky to get an education. The school I attended was one of the best secondary missionary schools in East Africa. Many Seventh Day Adventist parents from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, and Tanzania sent their kids there. I studied up to high school.

After my studies, I went to Rwanda to find my mother. It took me 20 years to find my mom because I was a refugee and could not go back to Rwanda, and she could not come to visit me. On the day I finally saw her again, she was very drunk and could not recognize me. I realized my mother was left alone. No one was able to help her. She was judged and became an outcast in her community.

My mother represents many women who suffer silently in our communities. In my culture, trauma and mental health is a shame. Most of the time, families try to hide it, leaving a lot of people to silently suffer. I wish my mother were still alive, I would pay all I have in order to make her better.

The Genocide

I decided to stay in Rwanda to help my mother. It’s there where I also met my husband.

My husband and I were classmates in secondary school in Uganda. He went to Uganda to get an education, and after he finished his studies he returned to Rwanda. We got married and he helped me take care of my mother. He was a Hutu. Intermarriages were not common during the genocide as politicians planted such hated among the Hutu and Tutsi tribes.

During the genocide, my husband and I were working for the church. My husband was one of the church leaders. Many Tutsi families came to hide and sought shelter at the church, hoping the killers would fear to attack it. My husband would try to provide food for the Tutsi families.

One day, with more than 2,000 people in the church, the killers attacked. Only a small number of people escaped death that day. My mother and I were very lucky. For three months, we had to run and hide. It was beyond human imagination and it is not easy to write about. To me, it seemed as if all demons had visited Rwanda.

While my mother and I were running away from the killers, we came across a roadblock that was made by the Interahamwe, a group of community members trained to kill. They stopped people and asked for ID cards, which would indicate your tribe. I threw away my card because I thought the killers would then not be able to identify me. When I reached the roadblock, I recognized the man who was my gardener. He was the head in the roadblock.

“Tutsi here, Hutu here,” the men began to say. “If you know you are Tutsi, this side. If you know you are Hutu, this side.”

I began to struggle. I was unsure what I would be considered. I am Tutsi, but I married a Hutu. As I stayed with my husband, men at the roadblock began to yell.

“You don’t belong to that side if you’re married to him ”

He came and pulled me to the other side. Men with machetes started coming towards me.

“Please, please don’t kill me!” I said, raising my hands.

As I was putting up my hands, the man who worked was my gardener before the genocide came up to me. He said that he was the one to kill me. I begged him not to kill me with a machete but to shoot me.

He refused and cut my hand and my leg.

Then, he immediately pushed me, my mother, and three other ladies, aside. He got some leaves and bandaged my hand and asked me to forgive him because that was the only way to save me.

“Please, forgive me. This was the only way I could spare your lives,” he apologized. “Now, run! Run for your safety.”

Becoming Queen Esther

Ten years after the genocide, I met a journalist who wanted to get pictures and stories of survivors. I introduced her to five women and became her interpreter and helped translate for the five women who told their stories. With their stories, the journalist made a documentary titled, “God Sleeps in Rwanda”.Through this documentary, I was able to travel to America in 2005. To come to America, I had to apply for asylum because I was not safe in my country. I received asylum in 2005. Because of my work with the documentary, I was invited to speak at the Seventh Day Adventist Church’s Annual Camp Meeting Conference in Ohio. The church wanted to see “God Sleeps in Rwanda” and learn about the role of the church during the genocide. After speaking to the congregation, they prayed for me. After the conference, the pastors asked me if I wanted to move to Ohio. They helped me start a new life there.

Initially, I would have come to America after I finished high school because I got a scholarship, but unfortunately I was not able to come. I lost my scholarship because I was a refugee in Uganda, and it was not easy to obtain a passport. During my time in America, the documentary God Sleeps in Rwanda was nominated for an Oscar in 2006 and won an Emmy in 2008. I was invited to walk the Red Carpet in 2006.

Norah at the Oscars in 2006 Source: Getty Images

It was a great experience to find myself walking on the red carpet in Hollywood. The paparazzi asked me who I was presenting and what kind of attire I was wearing. I wore African attire. I remembered the story of Queen Esther. I introduced myself as Queen Ester to the paparazzi, and from then on I got a new name.

Like Esther, I feel God delivered me from death for a special purpose. Imagine going from dying in Rwandan bushes to walking with the riches of Hollywood. I realized that I was chosen for a special mission: to advocate for refugee and immigrant women.

I want to make a difference. I want to give hope to other women.

Today in America

My mother survived the genocide, but she was very wounded and died a few years later. My husband was in jail in Rwanda. I would not be safe staying there, so fate decided that we separate. I would come to America.

Living in America, I was able to go back to school. It was a very scary moment, but I obtained my bachelor’s degree at Ohio Christian University in healthcare management. A couple of years later, I was also fortunate enough to bring my three sons from Rwanda to the US. We all live in Columbus, Ohio now.

Photo of Norah at her graduation from Ohio Christian University with a bachelor’s degree in healthcare management Credit: Norah Bagrinka

I survived the genocide because God gave me a second chance. I do not know how many years that I am granted to live, but I just live each day as my last day and try to make a difference.

What would you do if today were your last day?

Norah was a member of the Spring 2021 cohort of the New American Speakers Program. To learn more about her journey to America, visit our YouTube channel.

Norah currently is seeking out ways to make public speaking her career and is open to being reached out to speak at events across the country.

Check out her previous work with the United States Holocaust Museum as well as her presentation at TEDxColumbusWomen

Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of WeaveTales and its employees.

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