Focus Media (Kigali)
Timothy Kisambira
12 October 2008
The heavy rains and winds that hit some parts of the country recently, have caused a lost of damage but made no victims. Yet in Kirehe, in Eastern Province, some residents thought the end of the world had come.
It was just after lunch, at around 2 pm. Yvonne Uwamariya was bathing the kids to prepare them for their afternoon nap. Suddenly, the weather changed.
"There was a lot of wind, and then all of a sudden darkness. We were scared, because it was not the usual time for darkness to fall, so we fled into the house. We thought that the world had come to an end."
After a few minutes, rain began falling amid heavy gusts of wind.
"The first winds were so heavy that they uprooted all he big trees around my house. The next thing that I saw was iron roof sheets flying in all directions. This was the time for me to remember that God existed," Yvonne remembers.
Then a man came knocking on her door, looking for shelter; he was on his way from the hospital when the rain started. When the downpour continued, and more parts of the roof were blown off, the man got scared and wanted to open the door to go outside.
"He told me that since the roof was being blown away, we should move outside and die there instead of being buried when the house would crumble," Yvonne says.
The man insisted and tried to overpower her, but she still managed to lock the door and hide the keys.
So there she found herself, with her children, locked in a house with only half of the roof remaining, and a hostile man. Then there was another knock on the door.
"I went to open and found a young boy who was covered only with a blanket; he was shivering so much and I quickly let him in. I got the boy some clothes and tried to talk to him, but he was too traumatized to reply."
Some 40 minutes later, the rain stopped. Yvonne convinced the boy to go back home. He did so, only to find everything in the house swept away by the rain.
As for Yvonne, she has not only to deal with the damage to her house. She had been preparing for the wedding of her son, and now has lost everything she painstakingly put together to make it a memorable day.
In all, nearly 200 houses worth some Frw 30m were destroyed in Kirehe. Many more were left roofless, and damage to properties is estimated to be over Frw 90m. Crops worth Frw 60m were destroyed. Almost miraculously, there were no casualties.
'Usual downpour' turns into chaos
60-year old Claver Ntwari, whose house was destroyed in the tempest, says that it was the first time in his life that he saw rains destroying people's property.
"I was in my banana plantation when the weather started to turn nasty. Yet I thought that it would be the usual downpour, so I took it lightly. But a few minutes later, the wind got heavier and my banana plants started falling one by one. It was so terrible," Claver recalls.
He rushed home, and found his household in pandemonium-iron roofing being blown away as feathers, kids screaming.
"I hurried into the house, took the kids and fled. We stood outside in the rain because we had nowhere to go until the rains stopped. When it was finally over, we were soaking wet; we went to the neighbors who accommodated us," Claver says.
Having visited the displaced families, Chantal Rosette Rugamba, the director general of the Rwandan tourism office ORTPN, says that her agency feels very concerned for the stricken residents of Kirehe, because they have always worked closely with these people and they are the first to help ORTPN to conserve Akagera National Park. Therefore, the tourism agency has immediately donated 4,000 iron sheets worth Frw 28m.
"When the mayor told us about the problems of the displaced people, he mentioned food and iron sheets; however, we decided to give iron sheets first because shelter is the most essential. When a person has somewhere to sleep, it is much easier for him to go and look for food," Rugamba says.
Protais Murayire, the mayor of Kirehe, says that apart from ORTPN's sheeting, the Red Cross has also given 151 tents.
The ministry of education has also promised to help them solve the problem of the seven schools that were washed away by the rains. With the national exams just around the corner, the authorities are trying their level best to make sure that the students can prepare, and the exams can go ahead, Murayire said.
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