amanzi, our sub-chief came to take away our children.” So begins a trail of misfortune that befalls the inhabitants of a small hillside village in Rwanda shortly before the second world war. The children are wanted to pick flowers for the colonists (the ). The people hide their children but the sub-chiefs, with their sunglasses, watches and shoes, lash the fathers and force them to work in the mines. The farmers neglect their own crops in order to grow beans to feed the miners; their cattle are confiscated. Misery follows misfortune until finally arrives the greatest catastrophe of
