My happy place is Grey Lynn Park. Where I grew up in Rwanda, we didn't have parks like that. Having such a place to meet means we have peace here, we have order, we have freedom.
Nothing amazes me more than seeing a couple of friends walking down the park
and holding hands, or a family having a picnic, or children running around the playground while their parents have coffee. All those things to me signify one thing: there is peace here. Because with no peace you really can't enjoy all that.
That's what many nations lack - those little moments of family time when you know there is no machete behind you, there is no gun sounding a few metres away. You can sit and relax and talk about life and laugh.
I left Rwanda when I was 20. That was in 1994, when the war got worse and everything went mad. The killings that started - they didn't spare anyone. So many young people were forced to go on patrols and kill. It was not like they were there for blood lust, some of them did it because they had to protect their families.
I have mixed parentage - my father was Hutu, my mother was Tutsi - and on both sides I lost a big number of people. Two of my brothers were killed because of their mixed blood. I was lucky, I wasn't in the neighbourhood that night. I was evacuated to Zaire by the Red Cross. When I was nearly 25 I came to New Zealand.
