“I’ve seen enough to know that you can be a human with a mountain of resources and you can be a human with nothing, and you can be a monster either way.”
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After is a memoir about Clemantine and her sister Claire and their survival of the Rwandan genocide, their journey as refugees through Africa and their eventual settlement in the USA. It is a story not just about war itself, but what happens once it’s over and how you bring all those pieces of yourself back together.
Clemantine was six years old when she fled Rwanda; Claire was fifteen. The journey the girls faced was not just the physical one, but the emotional one too. They grew up fast, experienced things that in their later lives in the USA are only taught in a history book; dehumanised and disconnected. How do you find your place in a world where you’ve seen things others never will? How do you connect? Clemantine and Claire’s relationship with each other and their family is somewhat difficult at times. Families fracture and families heal, even if they don’t look the same as they did before.
“Two people in pain are magnets, repelling each other. We cannot or will not reach across the space to connect.”
The journey that Clemantine takes from child to young woman is one that I found particularly moving. I honestly would forget early on that some of the things that were happening around her were through the eyes of a child, and that she actually experienced what she was describing as a child. There’s a lot of pain to be sifted through and versions of yourself to be reconciled when you’ve been through traumatic events.
Clemantine’s discussion around the word “genocide” is the thing that will stay with me long after I’ve finished reading The Girl Who Smiled Beads and it is also that subject matter that will get me to re-read in the future. The points Clemantine makes, made me see the Rwandan Genocide, and how we deal with genocide and how we talk about it in a whole different way.
“The word genocide is clinical, overly general, bloodless, and dehumanizing.”
What struck me the most as I was reading was how much I could only empathise with, but never fully understand. That says a lot about the privilege that I have. I thought I had an understanding of war and its aftermath before I read this book, but I can safely say that my understanding of its repercussions is something I need to explore more.
This is a truly powerful book and one that has left me reflective for days. I’m quite certain that my review does little to give this book justice and I plan to re-visit The Girl Who Smiled Beads one day so I can digest it some more.
