Survivor of Rwanda horror is fearless, upbeat

SALT LAKE CITY — For a man who once walked 140 miles filled with death and starvation to escape the Rwandan genocide, John Bizimana is surprisingly cheerful.

He laughs easily, jokes flirtatiously and says "like" and "you know" as much as any recent college graduate. Only, there's something more beneath his textbook American twang — an almost imperceptible accent and a look in his eyes that belies a history most would find unthinkable.

Today, as the autobiography of his journey, "Escape from Rwanda," is unveiled as part of KSL's Book Festival at the University of Utah, Bizimana can say dreams do come true, things do work out.

In 1994, he, his two younger siblings and his widowed mother barely survived a harrowing march out of Rwanda, past bloody corpses and abandoned babies still clinging to their dead mothers. For a while, he cried over that journey and the realities of his new life as a refugee. The anger and feelings of rebellion came later. Now, he just feels grateful.

"I'm glad I had those experiences," says Bizimana, a 24-year-old who somehow, without any wrinkles or gray hair or scars on his face, looks older. Yet, dressed in a simple black T-shirt, loafers and jeans, with two cell phones on the table in front of him and his mouth turned in a jovial grin, he has the freshness of youth.

It's hard for him to verbalize the trauma he witnessed and the sacrifices his family made — just read the book, he says with a smile. Because when he talks about the dangers around him then or the dead bodies they saw floating down the river, it ends up sounding marginalized. In reality, Bizimana's family spent nights with their mattresses propped against the walls of their house to shield them from stray bullets. Eventually, they were evicted from their home at gunpoint and forced to live in a stadium with thousands of people and no food.

After they made the trek out of Rwanda to safety, their troubles seemed to compound as the family became refugees in Zaire, then Tanzania, then Zimbabwe. Bizimana, whose family had been wealthy before his father died in a car accident, was not used to his new life of poverty and limitations. He often wrestled with feelings of inferiority to the people around him and entrapment by his circumstances — the despair of thinking his wishes to move to America might never happen.

And yet, throughout that time, Bizimana says he learned to appreciate life more. Everyone has problems — not just him, he says. And as brutal as people can be, they can also be kind and generous. Many strangers helped Bizimana's family along the way with simple acts that touched Bizimana and helped him to have hope for the future, and cope with his past.