Episode 1: Lydia Nimbeshaho
LYDIA NIMBESHAHO Part 1
Trauma and Memory
KELLY
Trauma changes the brain, making it hard to remember—even the good memories. Lydia, once an adorable little girl with a loving family, now struggles to recall those joyful moments.
I met Lydia on a bright fall day in Dallas, a city rich with art, culture, and history. Just around the corner from Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, stands the Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. The museum's golden exterior glimmers in the sunlight, but inside, it holds reminders of humanity’s darkest times.
Founded by Holocaust survivors, the museum’s mission is to remember. At the ribbon-cutting, a speaker, her voice heavy with emotion, brought the crowd to silence. In her struggle to speak, there was a glimpse of answers to our deepest questions about human suffering.
LYDIA
I want to tell people that healing healing is getting the ability to live after death.
KELLY
You see, the speaker was that little girl named Lydia. Lydia Nimbeshaho, was a 6 year old little girl in 1994 living in Rwanda.
LYDIA
I’m not too sure if I’m going to be able to laugh again
but I want to encourage everybody to have hope in the unknown life after death cause you know
there’s life after death and if people can find a safe place to honor themselves to go through
their transition to heal to be restored I truly believe that they get the ability to be able to fly again
on their own
KELLY
Lydia explained that we all experience death. It’s not just the physical kind we think of. She explained that we all get the chance to live after death. We called Lydia after the ceremony to hear more about what she meant.
On this episode of Qavah, we talk to one of the bravest people you will ever hear.
LYDIA
I want to tell people that healing healing is getting the ability to live after death.
KELLY
You see, the speaker was that little girl named Lydia. Lydia Nimbeshaho, was a 6 year old little girl in 1994 living in Rwanda.
LYDIA
I’m not too sure if I’m going to be able to laugh again
but I want to encourage everybody to have hope in the unknown life after death cause you know
there’s life after death and if people can find a safe place to honor themselves to go through
their transition to heal to be restored I truly believe that they get the ability to be able to fly again
on their own
Rwandan Genocide
KELLY
Lydia was born into a storm brewing between her native people, the Tutsis, and the Hutu people.
LYDIA
it was the problem between to Tutsi and the Hutu issues discrimination no accepting Tutsi as Rwandan you know there’s so many conflict between Tutsis and Hutus but that has to go back during the colonization when colonizers came to our country you know to take over the country they had to do anything cause in the beginning we had a very united country which we speak the same language, we look at them sometimes you can see myself in another person maybe identified as a Hutu you know that didn’t see the difference but they had to separate us using our usual parents, land, hate things like that you know that started you know separating the country using ethnicity background and for us in Rwanda Tutsis were in leadership not because we hated Hutu but you have to understand the meaning of Tutsi if you can put that in in there and King Rwanda and our own context you can it means that to see if somebody who’s wealthy so if you talk about Hutu its like a few things somehow too that’s the words to describe like Hutu wasn’t about like people hate or whatever it was about our social classes but when they came in and the program ethnicity question that how we look, what we have, our position then they were like you know what they have the power. It’s a long story but going back yeah one country speaking the same language but planting that hatred among Rwandans from colonizers that’s who started building that hatred you know step by step until we ended up in genocide until Hutu ended up hated
you know it started all the way from 1950’s killing Tutsi until it was a nonstop killing for about 3 months in 1994 otherwise it started back then since 1950’s killing Tutsis until 1994 and the goal was to eliminate the race Tutsi they were always saying that we will only keep shoot Tutsis in the medium so we can tell people how they look they used to look like so that was the goal of from the government that was in power.
KELLY
In 1994, Lydia was six years old, and around 800,000 of her people were killed in the Rwandan genocide. It happened right before her eyes. Hutu nationalists rose up throughout the country and murdered Tutsis in outrage, due to the political conflict that had been growing for almost fifty years. The genocide lasted more than two months before Tutsi military regained control. During these eternal two months, Lydia watched her own mother die.
LYDIA
in that day and I have people coming to our house so then we’re neighbors saying they’re coming to search for If we were hiding anything if we’re supporting the army
KA oh right
LN appear for supporting them then after they came to our house they left then after they they came back to take home mother I think was in the afternoon when they came home to take home mother we were sitting in the living room near my mother my two younger siblings four years old a baby and my little sister who is two years old we were praying somehow there was to do my mother was praying we were all sitting traumatized in the living room and my older sister and my older brother when they saw people coming they run to our neighbors house because at that moment they heard that they were looking for like grown-up kids because it was right at the beginning they’re also looking for boys so they ran to somehow or another they ran so when they came home to take mother there are many people come in you know machetes different stuff I remember one of our neighbor we used to play with their kids and everything and they asked my mother to leave I remember she left the house her Bible and I remember holding her Bible on her chest and we had to follow her cause the younger kids were crying and so I’m the oldest there and they were like we want mommy so we had to follow then they were telling us to go back but we kept following so right in front of our house that’s where they are father was laying down because they had shot him and they took her mother as well they shot her in front of us SS to go back in the house so likely they didn’t kill of us but you know that’s how yeah that’s how
KA Oh I’m so sorry
LN They were killed
KA i’m‘so sorry that is incredibly traumatic I’m so sorry. So you’re in the middle and her older siblings where were they
LN Hiding at my neighbors house
KA ok. You’re there with only two siblings
LN. That would be three of them
KA oh ok so what did you do
LN We had our she was like a babysitter and I always prefer that she was on the Hutu side if she stayed with us so and also we had our our my mother sister she’s her auntie before the genocide she came to our house to live there because she was really sick and by the time they came to kill her she was in the washroom and she couldn’t stand up for some reason she couldn’t move maybe that was God protecting her but she stayed there for the whole time when I came in she couldn’t move and so when right after the parents were killed we stay with our siblings and our babysitter and are at aunt who is sick and yeah a few days after you know the orphanage I talked at the beginning the director stayed by himself he used to be a friend of our father A good friend and I’m not too sure I heard of that I’m not too sure he committed with my older brother who was 8 years old what I remember is that that he was taking one by one to the orphanage yes
Orphanage as Refuge
KELLY
Lydia and her siblings were taken to Gisemba orphanage which was founded by Peter and Dancilla Gisimba in the 1980s as a safe haven, welcoming all children no matter their family background.
In 1994, their sons were running the orphanage, now located in a dangerous part of Kigali. When the Rwandan Genocide began, thousands flocked to the orphanage—not to be saved, but to avoid dying alone. People hid in the basement and on the roof, but the orphanage became a target, and even babies were not spared from the violence.
Carl Wilkins, an American missionary, chose to stay in Kigali despite the U.S. Embassy's evacuation. Hearing of the orphanage, he went to bring food and water. When Hutu militias arrived to continue their slaughter, Wilkins’ presence alone—miraculously —halted the attack. He reached out to the UN and Rwandan authorities, ultimately securing transport for the orphans to safety.
Among those saved was Lydia.
LYDIA
LN yeah we went to the orphanage you know I was 6 years old went there the entire war we were there we had to move to enada places you in the orphanage you know trying to protect us because many time they wanted to come to kill us if you heard my speech in Dallas I shared about that a little but how there was one time they were about to kill us completely in the orphanage there were at least 400 people hiding there and imagine the time huge orphanage it was small but because the orphanage director we say behasdeha and we have to remind people he’s a Hutu guy he’s a Hutu guy who chose to be enough saving people and every time they try to
come he was like “kill me first kill me first before you kill anybody here” So from that orphanage different people played a roll to save us including Mister Carl Wilkens for sure then during the genocide we had to in a place called SOS it was like another orphanage that was placed in Rwanda and that place they have an amazing story today. They wanted to come kill everybody there they asked them to separate Hutus and Tutsis and all the kids everybody and they killed everybody
LN So one of the official Rwanda was run by Gisemba he’s still alive it was the orphanage that was started by his Father and when he passed away he inherited the orphanage and and he took care of it he had some of the kids he was taking care of and when the genocide started he received other people and at the orphanage
KELLY
The orphanage kept Lydia safe, but life would never be the same for her and her siblings.
FAITH AND COMMUNITY
LYDIA
Are you able to see your siblings at all?
LN yeah that..do you mean during the genocide
KA in the orphanage were you able once you get placed there are you able to be contact with your siblings
LN more my life even know we live there during the genocide and after the genocide but somehow orphanage felt like home or is it a think Gisemba like it’s so imparted bank so he is his value because who he is accepting everybody his life as well. Setting so anything even during the war yeah we would see each other because we had a we were young kids in there are some out grownup people trying to take care of everybody during that moment see everybody there but you’re not connected as a family so it’s like you’re there but I remember my older sister was required to check on my younger siblings when she was 10 years old automatically she took that one of the mother so she had to go to Howdy or things like that but we were not connected as a family we had to be adapted to the new environment act like other kids who have no families
KA wow do you remember how that felt
LN Gisemba orphanage at the time to go home at the time of the war it was traumatizing even though the location of the orphanage was the same like close to many killing centers so it’s not the orphanage it’s like right in the middle and it’s surrounded with in a killing station are centers it’s like I’m not even sure how we survive and all the time they were trying to tell me in because they knew that he was hiding really Tutsis said those three month it’s like you know I think was like maybe almost 3 months because we had to move to an orphanage when they were trying to save this but all the time but they were bringing people to the orphanage because we had this nurse at the orphanage to take care of them and you see blood you see at some point people were killed in front of us so it was you know in somehow you become numb it’s like maybe you’re sleeping you’re gonna wake up because you’re a kid you don’t understand what’s going on so it was a very right after the genocide maybe positive memories that I can remember Gisemba orphanage you know during different activities for kids many volunteers from around the world coming to help kids heal from trauma activities and we felt like home you know the moment I was sent there I believe was from 1994 to 1996 I think I always tell
people that’s the only place that I felt like home after my losing my parents cause maybe it was living with people sharing the same pain you and it feels like you know what everybody can understand you can see you as their own. It was the most loving place I was able to
live in after losing my parents.
KELLY
Thank you for listening to the first part of Lydia’s story. On the next episode of Qavah, we will continue to hear about the far reaching affects of genocide on her family and her country.
Outro
Lydia requested the we play this song, which is a prayer for Rwanda. We join her in praying for healing.
(Muririmbire Uwiteka)
