People From Burundi

"When I began to teach children, I saw surrounding me that even those children who have parents need to go to school. If I begin to help only orphans go to school, then tomorrow it’s another social conflict. Then I changed; I said, “No, it’s not the correct way."

"There were rumblings of trouble for months and years of tension between Hutus and Tutsis that made little sense to me. But on a terrible day in October 1993, after the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda died in a plane crash and chaos erupted, I was with my seven children, and in an atmosphere of fear and killing and panic I sought safety. Many people were fleeing the killers and the army. I took refuge in the Archbishop of Ruyigi's quarters. However, the rebels got into the compound, and I hid the children in cupboards in the sanctuary of the church. The hordes of invaders killed over 70 people there. They demanded that I tell them where my children were, but when I refused they hesitated, not willing to kill me because they saw me as a Tutsi. They tied me to a chair and stripped me naked. My best friend was beheaded and they threw her head on my lap.."

"Everyone said, “She is crazy.” I found enough energy and love to share and to ignore or work to change the too many stupid things in the way to what was needed and what was right. But I want to stress that in all these years it was not just Maggie who built. I have friends, like Aline and Catherine, who also became crazy and who have worked with me."

"When you suffer so much, when you watch your brothers killing your other brothers -- Because I am Christian. When you see a mom dying and you are not able to save her, then you think, “And I am Christian!” I said, “God created us, gave us, with our baptism, with our communion, strength with that."

"I said, “Tomorrow, another war will begin, because the people are not together. I’ll build a cinema, and then they can talk together; they can watch movies together."

"I said, “That’s how to give opportunities to dream to those people who suffered so much from the war.” And I put in a swimming pool."

"The solution will come with Africans themselves."