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ackground? What prejudice! There was no happiness in the life<br />
we were trying to build in Rwanda and Patrick and I had to make<br />
a very drastic decision. Having lost favor with his father and<br />
having no source of income, was there anything left for us to live<br />
for? The harder I searched, the more difficult it was for me to<br />
see it. It was time to act, and to act fast.<br />
Patrick and I sat down and had a very serious talk about our<br />
prevailing circumstances. Looking around us, there was nothing<br />
to inspire us to build a future together. Our families did not<br />
approve of our union, most hypocritically said they supported<br />
us, but truthfully did not. There was so much negative energy<br />
emanating from the stares, from jabs thrown here and there,<br />
from muffled whispers when we went to church together or<br />
were out shopping. Frankly, I was disgusted. I felt that life in its<br />
simplicity had been complicated by societal misconceptions, I<br />
felt suffocated. I needed to breathe, and the<br />
earlier I found a solution the better it was going to be for me.<br />
After our very intense dialogue, we agreed to make a move. Our<br />
decision was one — go back to Europe. From that moment, hope<br />
sprung up in me again. I had something to look forward to. I had<br />
tasted both: having been born and raised in Rwanda, and having<br />
spent over five years studying in France, the latter was definitely<br />
a more conducive and unbiased community where we could<br />
build a life together. As a matter of fact, there are no tribal<br />
differences in Europe, so we felt it was the perfect environment<br />
to grow and raise our children into. The decision having been<br />
made, I went to sleep in peace. We had been in Kigali a little over<br />
three months since our return from France. We thought our<br />
documents were still valid because (we thought) our visas were<br />
still up-to-date, and we had booked return tickets. When<br />
Patrick retrieved our travel documents, he was flabbergasted! It<br />
turned out that we had become a little too comfortable and<br />
forgotten to renew our documents just in case things didn’t<br />
work out. Our documents had expired.<br />
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