"You have a strong spirit," coach
said when the soldiers had vanished
into the haze behind them.
"How are your feet?"
"I'll have to pop the blisters again."
"Do you need new shoes?
You've earned them.
Why didn't you say something?"
Jean Patrick shrugs.
It had never occurred to him that new Nikes could
be his just for the asking.
I've talked to the mayor, coach said.
An Olympic runner would be quite a feather in his cap.
"Tell me, how would you like to be one of the chosen?"
It was as if a book written in strange symbols
had become suddenly clear--
the photo before they left Kapundwe, the pointed questions
and comments in the car.
Coach was offering him a Hutu card.
He could barely take it in.
"But everyone knows I'm Tutsi."
Coach waved the words away.
"It's not so difficult to invent a male Hutu relatives somewhere
in the past.
Do you think it hasn't been done before?"
Jean Patrick had heard the stories.
"I've accepted a position at National University,"
coach continued.
"No one else in Rwanda can train you to reach your potential,
so I want you to follow me there after you graduate.
You'll come to train with me on weekends next year too.
A Hutu card would grease all the wheels."
"I'm going to the Olympics.
Isn't that enough?"
"Not so fast," coach said.
"You have to run an A standard time
on a sanctioned track with an approved timing
system between January '95 and the games.
And you have to make it past the National Olympic Committee,
the sanctioning body of Rwanda.
If they choose, they can bypass a Tutsi with an A standard time
to pick a Hutu runner with a B time."
Jean Patrick sank back against the seat.
He had assumed all he had to do was run fast
and he would get to the Olympics.
"We can never forget we're Tutsi," his mother had said.
They were climbing again.
Papyrus and umunyeganyege giving way to pine and eucalyptus.
Coach honked at a group of children
pulling a calf up the road, and they scurried out of the way.
Clouds sailed across the Bugesera,
the hills stained with shadow.
Whirlwinds of dust swirled in the valley.
A truckload of boisterous soldiers passed them.
Crowded together in the bed, they shouted and sang,
rifles raised high.
Coach smiled.
Their team must have won, he said.
For a moment, his eyes followed the men.
Then he turned to Jean Patrick.
"Someday, a Hutu card could be even more important
than the Olympics."
His smile had disappeared.
Jean Patrick watched an ocher funnel swallow
the children and their calf.
The dust had an almost human smell,
like sweat and Earth fermenting in folds of skin.
There was something else too--
a suggestion of iron and rust, like the scent of dried blood
that remained as a war wind on Jean Patrick's Nikes.
The next section I'm going to read
is about the celebration that takes place right before Jean
Patrick has been accepted into National University,
partly because his coach is there.
It's an atmosphere that is getting increasingly difficult
for Tutsi to do anything.
They have very strict quotas, both for secondary school,
which is our high school, and for university.
It's almost impossible for Tutsi to get into school.
So it's really a blessing that Jean Patrick has made it
into National University, which is the main university
in Rwanda at the time.
And in Rwanda, every time you are going on a journey,
a journey is always preceded by a celebration.
And I've partaken in these celebrations,
and they're really wonderful occasions.
Everybody crowds together in these rooms.
And you have just this feast with all kinds
of really delicious dinners.
They have real food there.
Everything is grown, and it just tastes of the soil
and really rich spices.
And they have all kinds of really different home-cooked--
everything is cooked on a little charcoal grills.
And everything is just really delicious.
So you have these celebrations.
And another thing that happens at the celebrations is urwagwa.
And urwagwa is banana beer.
And I'm not much of a drinker.
And I always stay with friends in Rwanda.
And the first time I had banana beer,
they liked to drink a lot.
And they were very good at drinking.
So I'm a cheap date.
But first time I had banana beer, we sat around--
and it's one of those things that tastes like sangria.
It tastes like punch.
So you don't realize that it's really alcoholic.
So they kept giving me-- and it's really cool the way
that it's stored traditionally.
You have these big bottles, and a lot of times
you'll see these men, and they have these five liter Jerry
cans and they're filled with urwagwa homemade.
And they make it.
They bury it in the Earth.
It's a long process.
So they have these Jerry cans.
And they pour it into these big beer bottles.
And people drink with-- you have common reed straw.
And people just pass these bottles of urwagwa around.
So that's how we were drinking.
And so I had a few drinks, and then I stood up,
and then I fell down.
And it never really changed.
I love urwagwa but I'm very sensitive to it.
So there's a few people that you will meet.
Mukabera is the neighbor of Jean Patrick's family.
Jean Patrick's father in the first chapter
of the novel, Jean Patrick's father
is killed in a car accident.
So he lives with his uncle Emanuel.
Emanuel is a fisherman, and he fishes on Lake Kivu,
which is in Cyangugu.
So you'll meet Uncle Emanuel.
You'll meet his wife and Aunt Esther.
And then you'll also meet Mukabera's daughter, Olivette.
And Uwimana is the headmaster at Gihundwe,
where Jean Patrick has just graduated
from secondary school.
And Uwimana was Jean Patrick's father's best friend.
We also meet his brothers Zachary and his younger
sisters.
There was no room in the house to walk around without stepping
on a hand or foot.
Barely room to sit on the floor with a bowl of igisafuria
and eat without jostling an elbow.
Mama and Aunt Esther had been in the cook house
all morning, preparing Jean Patrick's favorite dish.
And the pots of peanutty stew disappeared as soon
as they reached the table.
"Jean Patrick, I've saved the best for you.
Look, two chicken legs," Mama said, putting a steaming bowl
in front of him.
He sat in the place of honor at the head of the table.
Drops of oil glistened on the stew's surface.
Plump, green bananas floated like islands
in the reddish sea of sauce.
Jean Patrick inhaled the earthy scent.
Every cousin and neighbor had come to see Jean Patrick off.
Even some of the sisters from Ntura Church
sat at the table laughing and joking,
sucking the last drop of marrow from chicken bones.
In his blue Sunday suit, Zachary, his brother
looked like a prince in their midst.
If fate were right or fair, he would
have been starting secondary school next week.
He wanted to study for the priesthood
but had not been awarded a scholarship.
And uncle had no money to send him.
The twins, too, were finishing primary school,
but they were not near the top of their class,
so there was neither money nor hope for them.
Jean Patrick took a fried sweet potato
and dipped it in fresh milk.
The cream floated to his lips, and his eyes
closed with pleasure.
"Mama," he announced, "every day at school
I will think of this taste, and I will be happy."
"Jean Patrick, listen to me," Mukabera
called from across the room, raising her bottle of urwagwa
toward him.
"When you get back from that school of yours,
you come back and marry my beautiful daughter, eh?"
Olivette tossed back her head in laughter.
And it seemed to Jean Patrick as if she had just
now stepped from the shadowy background and into day.
He saw her white, straight teeth and lively eyes,
her ocher skin polished by the afternoon light that
streamed through the window.
Like his sister, Jacqueline, her hair
fell straight and shining around her ears.
When he next came home, he would have to take her for a walk.
"Oya.
No, Mukabera.
Jean Patrick will not have time for girls," Uwimana said.
Angelique rolled her eyes.
Umukunzi wanjye "My sweetheart, there is always time for love."
Dipping into a fresh pot of igisafuria Uwimana
said, "hear me, Jean Patrick is going
to be a famous man in this country."
With his fingers, he picked out a bit of chicken
and popped it into his mouth.
After oration from Mama, Uncle, and Uwimana,
Uncle Emanuel proposed a toast.
Everyone whistled and raised a bottle.
"Speech, Jean Patrick.
Give us a speech."
He took in the celebration.
There was so much he wanted to say.
But when he opened his mouth to begin his speech,
only a long sigh came from his throat.
That's another thing when you go to an occasion.
I've been to different kinds of occasions, one of which
was a wedding.
I have an adopted son, and he got married,
and everyone gives speeches.
Whenever they have an occasion, you just
have speech after speech.
And Kinyarwanda is a language of poets.
It was a language of poets before it
was a written language.
And so even though I don't understand it well enough
to know what they're saying, I just love to close my eyes
and listen to the speeches.
So I'm going to skip forward a little bit.
The other thing that happens is when people are going away,
there's always a big procession to see them off.
Even when I would go to the airport,
we'd have three or four cars packed with people
to take me to the airport.
It was a really wonderful experience.
So this is when they're going to the bus stop.
And of course, they don't have cars, so they have to walk.