I now take care of myself and am no longer a drug user.

My name is Germaine Muhorakeye. I was born in 1971, in the Western Province. I now live in Bugesera District, where I moved shortly after the genocide. My mother was a housewife and my father an agriculturalist. My father died when I was still young, but his pension allowance continued to help my mother to raise us. We were seven children in my family; three sisters and four brothers. We lived among cows and coffee and banana plantations. Our grandfather also supported our mother. My good memories from before the genocide, when I was still young, are of family meetings and sharing New Year parties at our house. We used to share good meals, cook, and prepare the drinks for New Year parties together. These were my happiest moments, which I will never have back. I got married in 1992, but my husband was killed during the genocide, after only two years of marriage. Among my siblings who were in Rwanda during the genocide, I am the only one who survived. Almost all of my family members were killed during the genocide, and I myself was abused. My two brothers who are still alive were in the former Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) at the time. I met them again in 1998. The genocide found me in the former Kibuye Province. At the beginning of the genocide, my husband and I went to my parents-in-law. When we reached their place, my mother-in-law said that she would only receive her son. She told him that if he wanted to survive he should stay alone with her because she could not hide me. My husband replied that he could not leave me alone. I was carrying our firstborn on my back. We left and started to search for a place to hide. We eventually hid in the bush near our house. When the genocide got worse, we ran away separately. To this day, I do not know where my husband was killed. I hid in the bush together with my daughter and other women I had met on the way until a group of killers caught us. With the help of dogs, these Interahamwe were hunting people down to kill them. After they caught us, they took us out of the bushes and onto the grass, raped us, and left us lying there. After a while I felt thirsty and went …