KIGALI ABANDONED AND DISFIGURED

How destitute Kigali is now,

  the once over-populated city.

Empty is Kigali,

  the once hundreds-of-thousands-souls city,

the pearl over other cities in the Great Lakes.

  Ikiraro cy'Inyambo they have made.

Dark and ghostly it looms lonely at night

  torn by bullets on buildings.

No more thunderous commotion at dawn

  when at Kibungo zenith the sun appears or

when the sun sets on Zaire-Nile Crest.

  Curfew Inyenzi the cock/roaches have imposed

Into exile people have fled --

  Crossed the Rusizi, drowned in the Akanyaru --

from Inyambo and their long horns.

  Kigali has been invaded

by its long-lost tall, long-nosed sons

  who speak to it in an adulterated tongue.

The old dance they have forgotten

  to dance the Watusi dance

Umubamirizo w'intore it was

  inappropriately called theirs.

The day they moved into the city

  the Ace of Base was their Abakaraza.

The Roads to Kigali have become arteries

  with no blood circulating to the heart:La Gare de Kigali reeks with silence,

 its toilets are dry,

  dry flies sprawled on the cemented floor,

 its hustling young boys have disappeared.

Kigali of singer Masabo-Nyangezi is no more

  ever-growing capital of Le Paya des Mille Collines;

Mount Jari is quieter.

  No  ore lewd officials young women showing

lush green valleys around the Nyabarongo

  now swollen with bloated corpses.

At this I weep,

  all drenched in tears.

My family and in-laws I cannot see.

  Trapped in/out-side their country they have become.

My mother was reduced to silence,

  when the cock/roaches out of her home they chased her.

"There are no devils left in Hell.

  They are all in Rwanda."

What a lamentable thing

  for the missionaries to blame

human transgressions upon lack of confessions,

  prayers, and offrandes to God.

God has not allowed it.

  Satan did not play his part.

No decree, no threat, no wrath from Above.

  Before Monsignor Hirth and 1900,

in the name of Karinga the dynastic drum

  skulls and genitals paraded before his majesty the Mwami.

Ryangombe rya Babinga ba Nyundo (the Hammer),

  and Nyirakajumba, Kagoro, Muzana, Mugasa, his Ibicwezi

had all been fed from Ruhogo (the bull) before April 6, 1994.

  The hand of Binego bya Kajumba,

the gate guardian, the blood bather,

  it is not.

Pierre Damien Mvuyekure