SHS presents Mama Ararira

Justin Seward
Times Reporter

 

Strathmore High School student Rachel Mutesi lived through the horrific events of the Rwandan Genocide, where her father was shot fatally and which left her mother’s leg wounded. She found her way to Canada a decade ago, and her story of how she reunited with her mother in 2011 is now being told with the help of the Strathmore High School Dance Class.
Mutesi will play the role of daughter when she, along with her Strathmore High School Dance Class, tells the mother and daughter story through the musical production of Mama Ararira, which is about losing each other in Rwanda and finding each other in Canada.
“I get to tell people my story, what I’ve gone through, and what my mom had gone through,” said Mutesi. “It’s easy to tell people and then you feel better afterwards because people know your story. It might change their lives too.”
Through music and dance, the story of the traumatizing events are lifted and told different way, she added.
“I do love singing and dancing,” she said. “It’s important to me to tell people through songs and dancing than telling them through someone else.”
In comparison to Rwanda, the past four years have provided mother and daughter with no fear for their lives, which the duo hopes Canadians realize and value each day.
“It’s great having my mom here with me,” she said.
“I don’t have to worry about anything. There’s education here, I don’t have to worry about what roads I’m going on here and where I’m going.”
Mutesi’s friend, Alueter Demshkwe, plays the role of the mother, who loses her daughter in the beginning and goes through trying times in refugee camps and surviving on the streets.
“It’s more emotional and psychological than physical,” said Demshkwe.
“You go through the stages of helplessness because you’re looking and you can’t find her and it’s just frustrating. When you find a hint of her, you get shot in the leg and you can’t really do anything. The process of trying to find her goes slowly and when you do find her, you’re finally relieved and you want to hold on as long as you can.”
When dance class teacher Deanne Bertsch first heard Mutesi’s story, she was left in disbelief when Mutesi told her she’d thought her mother had been dead all these years. When she heard the full story there was no doubt in her mind that the class would take on the project and portray the story through dance and music.
“I think for a lot of the development of the show we’ve been in awe,” said Bertsch.
“Most of her mom and her mom’s tenacity. She lived on the streets for three months with this bullet in her leg trying to get refugee status, living outside the refugee building in Uganda like how’d she ever survive that.”
Bertsch added that Demshkwe has shown much initiative in being the mother’s voice, in taking on the challenge of telling her story.
The musical will run from Dec. 14-16 at the high school theater at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the door for $10.