Chapter One

It was time for Gassilde to go home. She had spent the day turning soil with her mother and sisters, soil that would soon be producing enough vegetables for her, her parents and her seven siblings. The wheat and beans that were growing on the other side of the field would be ready for harvest soon too. Yes, her father and brothers tended cows for milk and goats for milk and meat (to kill a cow would only happen on very special occasions), but these things were luxuries. Most of the family's food would be by the work of the women.

Every member of the family had a job to do. The women worked in the fields to grow vegetables and the men looked after goats and cows. The men also kept guard for Tutsi thieves that might try to steal from a Hutu family. Gassilde knew there were Tutsi farms in the area but her and her siblings were forbidden by their father to go near them. But Gassilde was glad not to go near the Tutsi farms. She had heard the stories of how they would cut up Hutu children with their machetes. Gassilde was glad that she was not one of them and she was more than happy to stay within the safety of her own family farm.

Gassilde smiled, looking out over the vast fields of freshly turned soil. At nine years of age, she could work the farm almost as quickly as her sisters. The Burundian countryside looked beautiful with its lush farmlands surrounded by the bluish mountains in the distance. Here in the Eastern Burundi—in the Ngara region, it was a warm spring day, and the faint breeze felt good as it cooled the sweat on Gassilde's face and the f