Cockroaches by Scholastique Mukasonga; my thoughts

 

Spoiler free review

Cockroaches is a memoir by Scholastique Mukasonga that chronicles her experience being a Tutsi leading up to the Rwandan genocide and the stories of those who did not survive. The book is relatively short; it only took me two days to read it, but despite its brevity, it packs so much pain and heartbreak that it's honestly hard to even talk about. With its linear, chronological structure, the novel explores themes of ethnic cleansing, rape, displacement, survival, and more. I would recommend caution when reading this book because, while there are moments that are funny or happy, it becomes extremely descriptive of the atrocities her surviving family member witnessed and spares no details. 

Overall, it is a fantastic book with heartbreaking testimonies. If you want to learn more about African History and the genocides that occurred in East Africa, I would definitely read this book because, unlike a textbook, it doesn't just cover policies and significant events. Still, it would be better if you could get a personal account of someone who lived through those times, which would give you a much broader perspective on the victims' lived experiences.  

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I genuinely have no words to describe my thoughts on this book because some of the events described were so horrifying. At the beginning of the book, we see everything from the author's point of view, so nothing is very descriptive; rather, everything is implied. When she is forcibly relocated from Rwanda to Bugasera, we see her mention how she was to be careful on her way to school because if one of the military men caught you, then they would do "things" with you. While she does not outright say it, it's heavily implied that girls would be gang raped by men on their way to school. Additonally she talks about many young men being taken away and being found later floting in the river with blood all around them, later in the book she clarifies how the government would round up young men from eighteen to twenty years old and kill them that way they woudn't become a threat later on, she also mentions how this would happen to boys as young as three years old.

Around the ages of twelve or thirteen, the author actually moved from Bugasera to a school that was mainly populated by Hutus. This is a significant accomplishment because she is finally given a chance to further her education and maybe survive the impending genocide. Still, despite being at this school, she faces a lot of discrimination from her Hutu peers; she goes into depth about how they would ignore her, bully her, and overall try to make her life a living hell. Eventually, the impending genocide does catch up to her because during her college years, some of her Hutu peers attempt to kill her. Luckily, she was able to escape by hiding among some of her brothers' peers. After hiding and fleeing to Burundi with her brother, she became a social worker. She helped women gain greater access to healthcare. During her time as a social worker in Burundi, she met her French Husband, whom she married, and thus gave her French citizenship. 

During the time of her marrying her husband and moving to france the only significant development is that she is finally able to go see her family without the worry about being jailed since she was an exile but this meeting is tainted with the reminder that this was the last time she saw her parents because a few years later on April 7th 1994 the Rwandan genocide occured. During this genocide, millions were killed, including all but her brother, who escaped to Brundi with her and her two nieces, who survived the massacre. Almost 10 years after the genocide, she decides to revisit Bugera to see what's left. While she is revisiting old childhood spots, she tells the stories of the community members who also lived there and were murdered, many by their own Hutu neighbors. Her parents were among those murdered by their neighbors. Still, when the author confronts their neighbor, he denies everything and refuses to tell any information he may know. Is this out of guilt or shame? Possibly, but I believe it's just to avoid being punished. 

Also, during her time visiting Bugera, she includes first-hand accounts of how her sisters and brothers were murdered, which her nieces told her. While I would rather not go into detail here, I was able to draw comparisons to how the European colonizers and the American military handled the murder of Native Americans here. Much of it was unnecessary violence that wasn't just to kill but also to humiliate the murdered and prove superiority towards them.