The Life of a Tutsi

At school in Social Studies we learned about the Hutus and Tutsis and a terrible genocide. If you are easily saddened please do not read this poem. Thank you!

The Life of a Tutsi

On a dusty wooden floor he lies,

When he wakes up he opens his eyes.

With a filthy yellow cloth he washes his face,

He feels like he is out of place.

He brushes his teeth and combs his messy hair,

Then he hauls himself down the creaky wooden stairs.

He looks around the tiny abandoned shed,

He is famished because he hasn’t been fed.

There is nothing for him to eat,

So he goes outside feeling beat.

He was impassive of all the corpses on the ground,

He doesn’t make a single sound.

He tries not to think of his mom and dad,

Because not knowing where they are made him sad.

Most of the Tutsis had disappeared,

And this was the thing he feared.

When the men came with knives and guns,

He knew a massacre had begun.

He had crawled into the closet and closed the door,

And now his body felt real sore.

He had been in the closet for two nights,

And outside the sky was still not bright.

There was no sight of light, just gloomy clouds,

“Why are the Hutus so mean,” he said aloud.

He looked around for anyone he knew,

There was no one there so he felt blue.

Then he heard the sound of an engine roar,

And stumbled through his house door.

He got back in the closet he was in last night,

Trying to get away from sight.

White people emptied the trucks,

And they walked through all the filth and muck.

Someone noticed a whimper in the house,

And tiptoed in as quiet as a mouse.

She opened the door to find a six year old boy,

And seeing him gave the person great joy.

She was a girl with a white shirt,

And being a doctor she knew he was hurt.

Quickly and carefully she took him outside,

And put him on the truck for a ride.

While she was on the truck she cleaned up the guy,

He was quiet and very shy.

He noticed a red cross on her outfit,

                                                           But all he did was sit.

He looked at her big brown innocent eyes,

As she takes a deep sigh.

She is very patient and wants to make him smile,

She tells him if he does he’ll make her trip worthwhile.

He turns his mouth upward in a weak ark,

The sky was no longer that dark.

The girl touched his shoulder like his mother did,

And he knew he was an orphan kid.

He knew his parents were now only in his heart,

And that the bond they had would never break apart.

So he started to sob in the woman’s arms,

And she told him that they would do him no harm.

They took him to a place that would take care of him,

And from that day on his life was no longer dim.