URI MWIZA MAMA
by Jean Bizimana
Interviewed by Daniela López Amézquita
Jean Bizimana was two years old when he became an orphan. For 100 days in 1994, a genocide in Rwanda claimed over 800,000 lives, including Bizimana’s parents. Like thousands of other children, he was raised in an orphanage. In 2019, Bizimana, having not been raised by a mother himself, set out to ask Rwandan women what it means to be a mother. Specifically, he was interested in what it means to be a single mother since in Rwandan culture they have long been looked down upon as outcasts and pariahs. Despite the fact that there are now more women in positions of power in the government than men, single mothers continue to face more hardships from business closures and government regulations during this period of the pandemic.
For his project, Uri Mwiza Mama, Bizimana interviewed and photographed these women in their daily life, asking the question: what does it mean to be a single mother in Rwanda today?
Ernestine Uwamahoro, a single mother, at home after bathing her six month old baby. She says that she has to take care of herself so that she can be attractive again. She is 23 years old and a university student. Ernestine's parents were divorced when she was a young, and she now lives with her mother. For her, being a mother is accepting the responsibility of taking care of a little one.
“My name is Ernestine Uwamahoro and I am 23 years old. I am in the second year of college in Gishyari, Rwamagana and I am studying civil engineering. I am living with my mother and my father is no longer living with us. My parents got in a fight and they decided to divorce. I had a boyfriend and we started our relationship during the first year of my college studies. I found out I was pregnant with his baby in the beginning of the second year. For me, being a mother is accepting the responsibilities of taking care of my child."
Ernestine Uwimahoro washes her son's clothes while her little sister sits nearby. Ernestine lives with her four sisters and mother.
Ishimwe Devote (Devo Queen) with her firstborn, Bena. Devo Queen is a Rwandan music artist and a single mother who was raised by a single mother after her father’s death. For her, “Being an unmarried mother is deciding to take care of your child”.
Afissa Usanase is a single mother of a five-month-old baby. She is 19 years old. She said that having a child has changed a lot of her behaviors, such as drinking, smoking, and partying.
“My name is Uwanse Inèse and I am a single mother of 25 years old. I didn’t have a chance of having a mother because of the history we have been through that causes my family to be separated. I am the firstborn in a family of three kids and the only one that my mother had but my father has other two aside. I have become a single mother during my last year of my college studies. The meaning of being a mother is change and transformation. In another person who is stronger than the previous one. Because there is a lot to endure, there are new choices you have to make of knowing the most important in many of your needs.”
Erenestine Uwamahoro dresses her son after giving him a bath. She met her boyfriend, who is the father of her son, at University. She does not think that he will be her husband because they don’t have a lot of things in common.
Afissa Usanase breastfeeding her 5-month-old son. She dropped out of school due to her family's economic situation.
“My name is Thérèse Tuyisenge and I am 21 years old. I am a single mother. I am a high school student in senior six and I am taking math, economics, and computer. I’m living with my parents, my siblings and I have a six year old son. I was in love with a guy while I was still in primary school. I went to high school and in my first year of high school we had sex and I got pregnant. A mother is a little god to a child, a mother is a hero of the child and a mother is a teacher of the child.”
Ernestine Uwamahoro washes her son's clothes while her little sister sits nearby. Ernestine lives with her four sisters and mother.
Afissa Usanase after breastfeeding her 5-month-old son. She dropped out of school due to her family's economic situation.
interview
What is your project about and what inspired you to start it?
My project is about finding out the real meaning of being a mom which I set out to do by asking single mothers about their experiences and photographing them in their daily life. I thought it would help me to understand my experience of growing up in an orphanage and what I missed by not having a chance to live with my parents. I entered the orphanage when I was two years old.
After the orphanage closed nine years ago, I was adopted as a young adult. I had lived in the orphanage for 18 years, so leaving was very hard for me. I grew up with the other kids there. They were part of the life I knew, we cared about each other and we loved each other and we were a family, so leaving them and starting a new life with a new family was very hard. But, I was lucky to be adopted at age 20.
I learned a lot from the family that adopted me. I saw the affection between a mother and her children. I was surprised, because in the orphanage I was told to follow certain rules. In the family, they taught their children how to care, protect, and love each other. And for us growing up, in the orphanage, we kids would protect each other, but there wasn’t the same kind of affection from the adults. So that was my main motivation for doing this project about motherhood.
And what interested you most about motherhood and not fatherhood?
I think the way a child loves a mother is not the same as the way a child loves a father. I felt this way with the family that adopted me. I was adopted because of the mother. She did her best to show me that she loves me, and she wanted to give me what I missed during my time in the orphanage. It’s not that we were treated badly in the orphanage. In some ways, life with the family was not as good as life in the orphanage. For example, in the orphanage, we had electricity, we wore shoes and good clothes, we slept on mattresses. And when I lived with the family, we didn’t have clean drinking water. I had to fetch water, walk a kilometer to collect firewood, work in the potato fields and on farms.
I had to learn how to adapt, and the mother helped me to do this. She showed me affection, which I didn't get in the orphanage. She cares about me. She cares about my feelings, if I'm happy or sad, or if I was feeling confused about the life that I was learning to live in. That is the reason I developed a strong relationship with her and started to think of her as my real mother. I thought, if I had had the chance to live with my biological mother, this is how she may have treated me and given me affection.
What was it like to learn that at 20 years old and to have this new experience as an adult?
It was very challenging. When I lived with the family, if I did something wrong and they punished me, I thought it was because I was not their kid. There was a time when I wanted to run away. And at that time, I had graduated from high school and I was waiting to go to university. The reason why I was adopted was because the orphanage was closing and I didn’t have anywhere to go. I had two options – the orphanage would pay for my living expenses for three months while I looked for work or I could look for a family that could adopt me. I chose that option. It was very challenging. There was a time when the youngest child told our mom to bring me back to where she got me. After three months living together, she became my best friend. She convinced me to not run away. She was six years old. When I was very sad and wanted to run away, I thought that I would miss her.
How did you meet the mothers you photographed?
My journey started during a photo workshop called the Foundry Workshop. It’s an international photo workshop that takes place in Rwanda that is organized by VII Photo Agency. They have a program and a partnership with PhotoWings. I had the unique experience of learning photography at a very young age with Through the Eyes of Children, a nonprofit that came to the Imbabazi Orphanage where I grew up. Through the Eyes of Children taught a small group of us photography from 2000 to 2011. So when I participated in the Foundry Workshop,, my mentors asked me what kind of project I wanted to work on. I decided to focus on motherhood because that was the first thing that came to my mind.
I did it in three days. I reached out to friends and friends of friends. My mentor suggested I continue to work on it. I want to continue photographing and interviewing other types of mothers – young mothers and women who want to be mothers, for example. The last part of this project will be about women who didn't have a chance of having kids because of health issues.
Why did you start with single mothers? I'm asking this question because I am also doing a project about single mothers. I am the daughter of a single mother, so it's a topic that I’m very interested in.
The reason why I started with single mothers is because it’s very much looked down on in our culture. In our tradition, single mothers used to be killed because the family would not get a dowry, because if you have a baby before marriage, you can't get married. So, in our culture, being a single mother is a curse.
Getting women to speak about their experience is the hardest part. Getting someone who is going to say that I'm a single mother, I became a single mother because of whatever reason, it's like being a hero. It’s very touching when a woman shares her story with me because it is not an easy thing to do. Thinking of single motherhood as a curse is rooted in Rwandan culture, because those traditional beliefs have been there for centuries. With this project, I want to change the mindset of the culture.
Do you think as a documentary photographer it's important for you to share your own experience?
With this kind of documentary photography that I'm doing, it's important because I want to show their personal life. I want to look deep in their soul. And they can't allow me to do that if I didn't open mine, so, I have to share with them my story so that they can trust me. It's going deeper into their lives. The connection between the mother and her child, that is what interested me. I put myself in the experience of that child, seeing myself being carried by the mother, things like that. And that's how I took my photos. I don't know if I achieved the goal, but that's what was in my mind.
What do you think photography has given you, not only as a tool, but as a way to express yourself?
I think photography helped me to become aware of who I am. As an orphan, I used to think that I did not matter because of the different situations that I grew up in, but photography showed me that I do matter. And also, it led me to the family that adopted me. I met that family through one of the Through the Eyes of Children photo workshops at the orphanage. I started learning photography with Through the Eyes of Children when I was just eight years old and participated in annual workshops with them. When I was 12, we went out in the community taking pictures,, and that is when I met the family that finally adopted me. So, photography gave me a mother and a family.
Through the Eyes of Children was instrumental as well throughout the years of my life, supporting me through my education, from primary school to university. Now I am working with them to help run a photography program for vulnerable children, traveling around the world, teaching them and helping them to get out of their comfort zone and share their stories with the world through photography. So it is thanks to the amazing work of Through the Eyes of the Children that I now have a family.
What do you think Rwanda’s government or society is doing to empower and help single mothers?
I think Rwanda is doing its best to value women – the majority of the government is made up of women. So in politics, there are more women than men. Even if the culture still doesn't give value to women, I think with development, it's coming. It’s more about fighting the culture, not the government, because the government is doing its best. One of my sisters at the orphanage is the vice mayor of one of rundown district. I think it's more something in culture, because the culture and those traditional beliefs have been there for centuries.
With the work that you’ve done, what do you think it means to be a mother?
Being a mother is being God, it’s giving life to someone. It’s being a teacher and being a role model. In one word, it’s being love. Because losing a mother is losing humanity.
As a photographer, other than the project that you are working on about mothers, what else do you think needs to be explored in Rwanda?
How Rwanda is developing after the genocide, how its populations have reconciled and how they are living together in peace. Since 2018, I’ve been working on an ongoing project about the perpetrators and survivors of the Rwandan genocide and the next generation and the journey of Rwandans in reconciliation.
I decided to work on this photo project because I lost my parents and my family members in the genocide. I want to know why it happened and how someone could be driven to kill another person. But there is no light answer. I am also working on a photo project called Behind the Orphanage Fence which I started in January this year. I want to explore the lives of my brothers and sisters from the orphanage and what it’s like for them to have their own families. I called it Behind the Orphanage Fence because we weren’t allowed to go outside the community but now we are a part of the community.
Artist BIO
Jean Bizimana is a Rwandan photographer who first starting making photographs with Through The Eyes of the Children, an organization that teaches photography to children in vulnerable communities. He became part of the organization at a very young age when he was still living at an orphanage in Rwanda, the place where he grew up. Following his training with Through the Eyes of Children, Bizimana attended other professional photography workshops.
Bizimana’s photos helped pay for his education and for the education of some of the kids he grew up with in the orphanage. In addition, the income from the photos supported the orphanages in purchasing food and clothing for the kids.
After graduating from University, Jean Bizimana chose to focus his career on photojournalism, in order to be able to highlight some of the social issues in Rwanda. He has also taught photography to underprivileged kids in various refugee camps and foster care systems in countries such as Haiti, the United States, and Nepal.
For Bizimana, photography has taught him that in life there will always be disagreements and differences between people. However, these disagreements and differences should not be an excuse for continued hatred or conflicts among people.