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One day in May, the Interahamwe attacked her house and opened fire, convinced she was hiding Tutsi. Which Sula denied completely. They insisted and tried to force through. This is when Sula used her reputation of healer to convince the militia that she was able to call upon them the Nyabingi, who are spirits endowed of evil power. She went in a bedroom, made some noise moving casseroles, shook a calabash full of stones, and started shouting incantation. “If you want my death, go in the house and my fetishes will eat you up!”. When she came out, they had all fled. From that day, no militia dared enter her house, even those who had just threatened her. Sula kept watch over her house, sitting in front of the door, fearing that in her absence they will kill the people she was hiding. She got hold of gasoline in case the militia wasn’t afraid of the spirits anymore and dared to come back, she could then set the house on fire and let everybody die. In 1994, “Mama Domitille” gave asylum to all these people because her family transmitted this generosity and solidarity to her. In the decades that preceded the genocide, several events, notably invasion attempts by exiled Tutsi, caused organized retaliations by the authorities against the Tutsi that stayed in Rwanda, as well as several exile waves. Thousands of Tutsi feared for their lives and Sula’s parents hid many of them. “Things have always been this way since I was born”, explains Sula. She remembers that her parents hid people under her bed, or in the fermentation well used for Sorghum beer. Once married, she also saw her parents-in-law do the same. All of her life, Sula saw her entourage help her fellow man. She just follows the same path.
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