REFINED BY FIRE 2

and social support during this time. He helped me identify a
hostel and I soon moved out of my aunt’s home. He was living
with his sisters at the time. Little did I know that the decision to
leave my aunt’s home would cement the bond between us even
more. As the days slipped by, a conflict began to brew within my
soul.
While the emotional part of me was growing deeper and deeper
in love with Patrick, the logical part of me wondered what I was
getting myself into. Some days I would wake up troubled, a little
apprehensive of what could come out of this forbidden union.
However, the more the months and years passed by, the harder
it became to keep away from Patrick. Inevitably, our relationship
evolved from a deep friendship to a romantic one. We started
dating secretly. The year that followed this development was
surreal. We were in love and like any other couple attracted to
each other, we did everything possible in the circumstances to
build a strong relationship. As we were beginning to really grow
as lovers, our worst fear began to unfold. Word of our
relationship started doing the rounds among our friends and the
few family members living in France then.
I watched in horror as my short-lived romance quickly turned
into a nightmare. Suddenly, I was a wanted woman. Patrick’s
father sent out spies to find me and put an end to my
relationship with his son. I was forced to go into hiding by
moving from state to state. Whenever I knew that they were
stalking me in one state, I quickly moved to another, incognito.
The next step was to use force. I was declared a wanted person,
and the department of military intelligence through the
Rwandan Embassy in France was given the task to arrest me
because I was now considered a criminal. They bought an airline
ticket for my deportation. The plan was that once I arrived in
Rwanda, I would be jailed. They maintained that I was a threat
to the security of the country and accused me of treason. The
manhunt started in a foreign country as the decision was made
at a high level of a respected country’s institution. Why had the
Government invested so much in hunting me down?
6