Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84Plough Quarterly • Spring 2016 33 Had you faced discrimination as a Tutsi before the genocide? When I was twenty-one years old, friends invited me to visit them in Bugarama, a town in southwest Rwanda. They hoped to help me find a job at CIMERWA, a large cement- manufacturing plant there. One day, I was walking along the road when the prefect (préfet) of the regional authority drove by in his white pickup. He stopped his car and arrested me on the pretext that I didn’t have the correct papers. When he searched my handbag and found a photograph of a friend who had invited me to apply for a job at CIMERWA, he accused me of coming to spy on the company. He took me to the mayor, hoping to convince him to send me to a nearby prison, but he would not. Dissatisfied, the prefect then took me to an immigration office near the border. He told the Rwandan officials there that I was a refugee Tutsi from the Congo seeking employment in Rwanda. He knew that I had become friends with Charles, the man I later married, and he knew that Charles was helping me find a job at CIMERWA. After some discussion, they decided not to send me to prison but instead to fine me and expel me from Rwanda. On the receipt for the fine, the prefect stated the official reason for my punishment was that I was inzererezi, a Rwandan term for a vagrant woman or lowlife. The officials heaped verbal abuse on me. The next day, the prefect followed me to the Congo border crossing. “You will never get a job in Rwanda. There is no chance for Tutsis in Rwanda,” he shouted after me. Denise, (left) and Charles, (back row third from left) visiting Denise’s parents in the Congo in August 1993. This is the only photo Denise has showing her, Charles, and their two young sons (front row).