I first met Kavuye two years ago when I was training with the Advance Force Rangers of eastern Congo. I’d met one of them on another trip, and he had shown me a small graveyard, explaining that one in eight of his men had been shot, and that they barely earn $150 a month. They are also hideously outnumbered by rebels who rape and pillage their way around the Virunga National Park, which straddles Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. There are thought to be about 40,000 rebels, but there are barely 700 park rangers.
I’d noticed Kavuye because I used to march right behind him in drills, and he had these huge scars that wrapped around the back of his neck and the bottom of his skull. They looked like centuries-old tree bark, and yet Kavuye also had one of the warmest smiles I’d ever seen. One day I asked him how he got the scars.
“I was working as a ranger. I was appointed as chief of the team. At a given moment, the local people I was chasing tried to corrupt me, but I refused. Then they gave money to Rwandan soldiers to ambush me, to kill me. So the Rwandan soldiers ambushed me. They shot at me, across my chest, so I laid down. There were too many of them. I advised my rangers to run away. I tried to watch and see how many were shooting at us. There was almost a company of them. We were six against many of them, 25 soldiers of the Rwandan government. They surrounded and caught me. They took me far away where they usually kill people, animals, and elephants. They beat me too much and obliged me to pass through thorns many times. I was seriously wounded.”
He showed me black lumps under his skin all over his legs, his knees, and his hands. “What are they?”
“Everywhere I have these thorns stuck in me. Then they decided to kill me, after tying my arms. I didn’t agree and decided to fight with them and run away. Unfortunately I was already tired and weakened and I fell. They shot me twice as I was lying down.”
He laid on the ground and showed me how they shot him, a cold and casual execution from just a few feet away, as he must have laid there looking up at them. One bullet broke his clavicle, the other broke part of his skull.
“Did they think you were dead?”
“Yes, this is true, even I thought I was dead. I fainted and lost my mind. They took off all my clothes and then covered me with herbs and thorns. To recover my mind I spent two days like that. I realized I was lying in blood. I tried to move, but much of my body was unable to move. During that period I was too thirsty. I even drank my own urine.”
“Could you walk?”
“I was hardly walking. To do 30 miles I was spending a whole day. It was very difficult. I had nothing to eat. I even ate mud from the ground. I had no hope, so much so I went to a herd of elephants so they could kill me. But they passed without killing me. I even went where lions were so they could kill me, but in vain. I went where buffalo were, but no one would kill me. So I decided then to look for people who might help me.”
“You were disappointed the elephants, lions, and buffalo didn’t kill you?”
“That’s it. Then I took the direction of the mountains, hoping I would meet people. Fortunately I got to an Interhamwe camp. They asked me if I was a Rwandan soldier, because they were fighting against them. I said no, so they took me to their doctor. By now my wounds had many insects in them.”
“Jesus Christ,” I thought when he told me he had run into the Interhamwe, “this is the most incredible story I have ever heard.” The Interhamwe are the Hutus responsible for the Rwandan genocide that killed roughly 800,000 Tutsis. They had fled to Congo after Rwandan Tutsi rebels chased them out. But Kavuye just kept talking.
“This journey took 15 days. The Interhamwe doctor poured a product in my wound and it killed the insects. It took three months of treatment before I was cured.”
“You spent three months in the Interhamwe camp?”
“Yes. So that doctor was very pleased to see the improvement in my health and asked me to come back to thank him and give him money. My sister was married somewhere close, so I sent for her to talk to my father.”
“Did your family think you were dead?”
“Yes, no one realized I was still alive. I went back home and sold my house for $450. I paid some expenses and took $250 to the doctor who cured me. Then I began working with the rangers with the hope they would help me recover that money, but in vain.
“While I was working my father died. Then during the same period Mai Mai [Congolese rebels] took control of a nearby camp for one week. They came to my house and asked where I was. My wife gave an answer they weren’t happy with, so they killed her.”
I never saw Kavuye complain. I never saw him angry or short-tempered. I never even saw him get tired. I don’t think I ever saw him without his incredible smile. After meeting him and hearing his story, I promised myself that I’d never feel hard done by again.
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