Jean Claude

Jean Claude Tuyishimire is an adopted son of Constance. He was six years old when he met Constance at the central market in Kigali where he worked as a baggage boy. While Claude carried Constance’s purchases to the car, Constance asked him his story. Claude’s mother died when he was an infant, perhaps from childbirth, malnourishment or an infectious disease, all of which are wide spread causes of death in Rwanda. His father was killed in the genocide, and Claude was living in a Red Cross refugee camp as he made his own living at the market. Constance took him home that day. A week later he started school in Masoro village. Claude, now a scholarship student at the prestigious National University of Rwanda, would tell you proudly that he has never been number two in his class since he started school, always the best in his class. When given a book, he said “I have a problem. When I’m having books I cannot stop reading.” And he kept reading happily, the conversation hanging in mid-air.