A woman whose childhood pen pal stopped writing abruptly after fleeing the Rwandan genocide has created a novel to “exorcise the pain of not knowing what happened” to her.
Victoria, the 16-year-old pen buddy of Sophie Buchaillard, was separated from her parents while fleeing the genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people in 1994.
In Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Victoria was staying in a refugee camp.
Frequent correspondence continued until Victoria informed her friend that she was moving and would be in touch as soon as possible.
“I never received a reply,” stated Sophie.
Sophie, who was 16 years old and living in Paris at the time, wrote to Victoria’s professors at the camp and was put in touch with a Rwandan organization that reunites families, but to no avail.
She initially felt she had upset her buddy, but as the months progressed into years, she realized the precariousness of her friend’s condition.
Sophie, who now resides in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, said, “As a child, it occurred to me that something dreadful may have occurred; she may have died or been murdered, or any manner of horrific things may have occurred.”
“It wasn’t until I began conducting research after the fact that I realized the full scope of life in the camp.”
“Weird regularity”
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In the 1990s, it was increasingly normal for youngsters to have pen pals from far locations, and Sophie and Victoria’s unexpected friendship began when Sophie’s school introduced them.
It was an opportunity for Victoria, who desired to become a translator, to correspond in French.
“When we began writing, I would have been in my parents’ apartment in Paris, while she would have been in the Goma refugee camp. Our experiences could not have been any more dissimilar “explained Sophie.
She recalled Before the genocide, Victoria and her family had lived in a house with a garden in the Kigali district, where her father worked in the local administration.
Sophie stated that despite Victoria’s horrifying circumstances, her letters had a “strange normality” and discussed “typical sixteen-year-old stuff.”
Sophie remarked,
“She was more concerned with her previous life and the life she would return to; she viewed her time in the refugee camp as a blip, an exception to the pattern.”
She stated that her companion always emanated a sense of composure.
“Later in life, I realized that what I mistook for serenity was likely trauma. It would have been challenging for her to comprehend anything at the time.”
Sophie expressed anxiety for her buddy once the letters ceased, but she never lost up faith that she was safe.
“I had always hoped that she would return to her normal life… and that it would be preferable for her not to continue writing,” she explained.
A few years after receiving her final letter from Victoria, Sophie enrolled in college. She later resided in Spain and the United States before arriving in the United Kingdom as a student in 2001, marrying, and living in south Wales.
She never forgot Victoria, and would often compose poems and short stories about her.
She stated,
“I believe that writing’s powerful cathartic properties and ability to facilitate access to the subconscious make it a potent means of self-expression.”
Sophie, in her forties, decided to quit her position at Cardiff University and pursue a master’s degree in creative writing in order to become a writer.
She resumed writing, and Victoria appeared once more on her page.
Before writing her master’s portfolio, which became the beginning of her novel “This Is Not Who We Are,” she spent seven months researching Rwanda.
“Exorcise the sorrow”
Two ladies, Iris from Paris and Victoria from Rwanda, are the protagonists of the novel.
Twenty years after their improbable pen buddy connection abruptly ends, Iris works as a writer in London and attempts to locate her pen pal.
“Part of it was trying to articulate my life as a migrant in the United Kingdom at the time of Brexit, and finding out what happens when the place where you reside tells you very clearly that you’re not welcome,” Sophie explained.
It also involved attempting to resolve the unresolved questions she had concerning Victoria.
“Part of the exercise was a way for me to possibly discover what happened to Victoria,” she explained.
That was a method to exorcise the sorrow of not knowing what had occurred.
Sophie donated ten copies of her book to the Kigali Genocide Monument in Rwanda as soon as it was released in the hope that someone would read it and recognize the story.
“Being an optimist by nature, I live in the hope that the book will affect someone who knows what happened to her.”
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