Cyprienne: I risked my life for Joseph. God helped me and that is how he was saved.

Another day, Pascal arrived from Gatumba with one of his friends. They were bringing bananas to my neighbour.

Pascal: This woman we were delivering the bananas to lived in Musaga, on the First Avenue. We gave her the bananas and she paid us some of our money. She promised that she would have the rest when we came back. But she betrayed us and arranged for us to be killed. When we came back, some men stopped us. They took away our bicycles and tied us up with ropes.

We remained quiet. They told us to lay on the ground and to cover our faces. They were going to beat us. We told them to take our money and let us go. But they refused. They started to beat us. After a while, Cyprienne came by.

When we saw her, we called for help. She came over and asked them to release us. "Why do you want to kill them?" she asked them. We told Cypriene that we did not even understand why they wanted to kill us. "We look like them," we said. "We do not know why they want to harm us." They have been beating us for a long time. By then we were accustomed to being beaten. We were not afraid any more.

Cyprienne went on arguing with them and defending us. Eventually they let us go. She took us home and hid us in a house of a neighbour who was away and locked the door. But two of the killers were unhappy with the decision to let us go and they followed us.