Impression in the Grass
“I didn’t ever want to go back to that place,” Antoinette’s brother tells Koko on the drive out to the airport and back. His father sent him in his place. He was there when they found her body, so he can show us the spot, now 10 days old. ”It’s only because you asked that I’m going. I’ll take you there, but I’m not comfortable talking about it.”
We have to take a long detour, avoiding a back road short cut that inexplicably creeped-out both Koko and me, only to find out a few minutes later the LRA was spotted on that road just two days ago.
We drive through an abandoned school yard – no class since the attacks. The road gets too narrow, so we get out of the car and follow Antoinette’s brother through a maze of Bamokandi’s back footpaths, gardens, and mud-and-thatch compounds.
Antoinette’s brother slows down at a T in the path. “She was shot there, at my aunt’s house, and ran this way…”
Koko and I follow him twenty feet up the path, where she must have collapsed and dragged herself to the bushes.
He points to a small opening, chest high grass against in the dense brambles. Her outline is as clear as if it was marked in chalk. Antoinette’s impression in the grass, exactly as she laid when she died. A round spot for her head, her arms, legs outstretched. I can see her laying there, embracing her baby boy.
“They piled sand to cover up the blood,” Her brother notes. A small pile of sand lies exactly where she would have bled to death from the gunshot wound between her legs.
I look back at her brother, who is struggling to stay calm and detached. He seems somewhere else. I ask him, “Are you okay?”
He avoids my eyes, looking back at the path. “I’d like to go now, please.”
Shannon – be safe. I am on my way to Rwanda tomorrow. You have accomplished so much since we first met by email in 2005. I tried to send you an email the other day but that address no longer works. Be well – stay safe and as we say in Rwanda: “kora ibyiza buri munsi” – in Kinyarwanda, “do good every day”
Always, Vicky