Every day is different

14 January 2008

When Doris Niyonsaba was just 11, a brutal war took her without warning from her parents, her country and her education.

Five years later she arrived in New Zealand as a refugee, knowing virtually no English. Today, aged 25, she has a Bachelor of Business Studies degree, with a major in accounting, from Massey University.

‘The only English I knew when I arrived was "hi"', laughs Doris, over cups of tea at RMS Refugee Resettlement in Wellington, where she works as accountant.

‘On the second day at the Mangere Refugee Reception Centre the ESOL Home Tutors' coordinator arranged for me to have a tutor, Alyssa- that was the key to my learning English.'

Civil war erupts
Doris spent her early childhood in Kiraundo, a small northern town in Burundi. Her parents were nurses and she attended boarding school with her older sister Liliane, who is also now a nurse.

In 1993, president Melchior Ndadaye, the first person from the Hutu "tribe" to be elected president since the country gained independence from Belgium in 1962, was assassinated in a coup organised by rival Tutsis military officers. Civil war erupted as Hutus sought revenge against Tutsis and Tutsi military killed thousands of Hutus in an attempt to maintain power.

Escape to Tanzania
At Doris's school, frightened pupils, cut off from contact with their families, listened to radio reports about escalating violence. ‘We knew it was very bad and heard reports about soldiers going to schools and killing students,' says Doris. ‘We had to escape and a group of us ran all night until we reached Tanzania.'

Doris and Liliane, who was then 13, initially lived in a refugee camp then managed to contact some relatives in Tanzania. ‘We lived with them,' says Doris. ‘But we didn't know where our parents or brother and sister were. We were not allowed to go to Tanzanian schools so our schooling just stopped, although we tried to study from books.

Starting life in a far-away country
Eventually some cousins, who had been accepted as refugees in New Zealand, applied for Doris and Liliane to join them as family members. In 1998, aged 16 and 18, they arrived at the Mangere Refugee Reception Centre in Auckland.

‘We moved into a house on the North Shore and had a lot of support from the RMS Refugee Resettlement volunteer and from Alyssa,' says Doris.

‘Alyssa could speak some French and so could I but there was an awful lot of sign language at first.' Doris returned to her studies, enrolling at Birkenhead College. ‘Alyssa helped me so much right through the fourth to seventh years at college,' she says.

‘I remember us working through Hamlet together and the poem "If". She helped me to get my first job - in a supermarket. The vegetables didn't have barcodes and I didn't recognise them. So I drew them all and memorised them - within a week I was an expert.

A vital connection
‘By the time I went to university, I just needed occasional help, but Alyssa had become a friend so we continued to meet socially.' Alyssa also played a role in another vital development - helping find Doris's family. ‘The Red Cross offered to try to trace them through their messaging system which circulates through refugee camps,' says Doris. ‘We had to fill in a lot of forms and Alyssa was very involved, along with Philip Clark from the Red Cross in Auckland.'

Reunited at last
Doris and Liliane's parents had fled to another Tanzanian refugee camp. Her eldest brother and youngest sister had escaped separately and ended up in a camp in Cameroon. ‘My parents also didn't know where any of us were,' says Doris. ‘But the message from the Red Cross eventually reached them. I will never forget the day Philip knocked on our door with a letter from our mother.'

In 2000 Doris's parents also came to New Zealand as refugees and now work as carers in Auckland. Her youngest sister Larissa joined them in 2001. Her brother is in France. ‘My parents also had ESOL Home Tutors,' says Doris. ‘Alyssa moved to America in 2004 but we remain in close contact. I went to America for her wedding. Now she has a baby and I'm trying to persuade her to visit.'

Doris got her first accounting job two years ago. Last year she moved to Wellington - and is passionate about both her job and her life here - spending her spare time cycling. ‘People have an image of accountancy as being dry and repetitive - but not this job,' she says. ‘Every day is different.' A final ceasefire agreement was signed in Burundi in 2006 but has failed and violence continues. ‘It is still home and one day I want to visit,' says Doris. ‘But for now it isn't safe.'

Patricia Thompson