Etana Beauchamp

[Gwen Havers]

Name: Etana Malika Beauchamp

Age: 32

Occupation back home: A member of the Rwandan Parliament, re-established in 2003 after the upheaval of Tutsti/Hutu wars and genocide

Appearance:





Nationality: African (Rwandan Tutsi mother, Belgian father)

Residence: Kigali, Rwanda

Skills: writing, public speaking, diplomacy, listening, negotiation

Weaknesses/bad habits: introverted, overwhelmed, distrustful, stubborn

Frequent moods/expressions: quiet, introspective, guarded when not in “parliamentary” mode

Reason for flight: promoting tourism and seeking trade investment for her native country

Item from wreckage: pen and paper in her jacket pocket; gold cross necklace

[Gwen Havers]

***FLASHBACK***

Antwerp, Belgium
1994

Dinner at the table had been strained and silent as usual. The Beauchamp Family had only been in Belgium for a little over a month, and though none of them gave voice to it, they were still worried about the friends and family they’d left behind in Rwanda. Etana had found that the rare moments of candor between her parents always occurred after she and her sister had been sent to bed, so she would creep back downstairs and listen to her father and mother discuss their situation while putting away the dishes or continuing to sort through their boxes of belongings.

“Hallie doesn’t like her school,” her mother was saying, drying dishes while her father washed them at the sink.

“She’ll get used to it,” her father replied. “It’s a big adjustment. But she’ll make new friends, and she’ll learn to like it here.”

“She says the other children make fun of the way she talks. And she will not learn French.”

“If she will not learn French, then she will learn English. Or Dutch,” he countered. “But she will learn something. Life does not just stop.”

“Our life did stop, Jean,” she said harshly. “We had to leave everything we knew. People that we knew, that we cared about, to come here to a strange country. Where they look at us with pity, if they look at us at all.”

His shoulders slumped as he sighed and leaned on the counter. “What would you have me do, Cecile? The country was getting more dangerous by the minute. The senseless killings spreading from one village to another like wildfire. I would not have my daughters live in fear of the machete. Here, they are safe, they are free. I had to do whatever it took to protect my family.”

“But it was our home,” Cecile said weakly, knowing that his words were true.

“And someday, God willing, it will be again. But now it is a place of blood and fear, and that is not our home,” Jean replied gently.

Etana heard movement upstairs and, worried that she would be discovered in the hallway, decided to return quickly to her room. She stopped in to check on her younger sister on the way. “Hallie, are you awake?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“What is it, Mali?” she huffed.

“Mama says you had a bad day at school,” Etana began, sitting on the edge of her sister’s bed.

“I hate it there!” she declared. “The other girls say I talk funny. They laugh at my clothes. I want to go home.”

“Hallie, this is home now.”

“This is not home. Our friends are not here, the food is different, they don’t speak our language—“

“Then we must learn to speak theirs.”

“Mali, you don’t understand. This place makes me miserable and you don’t care!”

Etana sighed at her sister’s stubbornness. “Of course I care,” she stated. “And Mama and Papa care, too. That is why we’re here. Papa was just trying to keep us safe.”

“I will never be happy here,” she insisted.

“Halima, your name means ‘patient,’ and that is what you must be. All of this is new and strange, but that will change. One day you’ll wake up and all of this will be normal. And you will have to find something else to whine about,” she grinned.

“What does your name mean, Mali?”

“It means ‘great queen,’ so I outrank you and you must do as I say. Now go to sleep, little sister,” she instructed her, quickly kissing her cheek and then heading for the door.

“Etana?”

“Yes, Hallie?”

“Do you think we should pray for Grandma and Grandpa? And the people next door? And their cat? If our home is not safe…”

“I think they would like that,” she agreed. “Goodnight, Hallie.”

***END FLASHBACK***