How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child

by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

I remember thinking: How dare the sun rise, as if it were any other day, after such a gruesome night.

Kids appeared to think of school as a chore, a bore. I thought of the boys back in Congo who were forced to serve as child soldiers, and the girls who were married off, never given a chance to finish high school. School is a privilege.

“Beauty is in your head, not on your body,” Dad would say. He never ceased to tell me about the importance of education. He said to stay focused on my schooling, not to get caught up in nonsense. If I skipped a meal, he lectured me, telling me I shouldn’t listen to outsiders and their skewed views on beauty. If I worried about my hair, he said, “You are beautiful with short hair, without any alterations to the way you were made.” My dad is probably the reason that I am a feminist.

The images of Africa on American TV were all the same: There were the ads for charity groups showing a white lady holding a starving black child, flies landing all over the kid. Indeed, Africans might be poor, but we know how to swat flies.

But in America, my skin color did define me, at least in other people’s eyes. I was black. I was black first, and then I was Sandra.