Fis was part of our first drawing class. The theme we assigned was for them to draw themselves and their life at the center. Fis drew himself as a soldier with a truly scary look in his face. He identified with the aggressor. He would say, "That's me as a soldier, and the others, they don't scare me." In his second drawing, he didn't want to draw life at the center, or anything about the center. He couldn't. The figure he drew was shapeless and seemed to float in the air with a pool of blood coming from his back.

At that point, we realized that this child had really been through something. He didn not even comment on his drawing. Because his voice…he trembled.

At the second class meeting, the theme was to draw a good memory and a bad memory. For the bad one, Fis drew soldiers killing his father. AS he drew the scene, he cried for the first time. He cried so much that he did not manage to do the second drawing; that is, the good memory. He cried during the entire session. But he did manage to say, "They're killing my father, and I'm in the car, I'm watching and I didn't even scream."

And on his first drawing, when he drew himself as a soldier, he had big eyes and a mouthless face.

 

-From Sylive, A social worker in Rwanda who works with orphans. Beginning on April 7, 1994, shortly after the death of President Habyarimana in a plane crash and continuing for about three months, Rwandan Hutus killed between 800,000 and 1 million people.