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Jonathan Garcia

English 101

30 October 2019

The Killing Ache

Immaculee tolerated discomfort to stay alive. She, along with five others, had to remain

hidden for a lengthy stretch of time while tolerating an unscratchable itch in silence. That itch

that tested the group’s wits possibly brought the ladies closer to getting caught by killers of the

Hutus.

In 1994, Immaculee, along with five other women, were caught in the middle of a genozide.

Her people, the Tutsis, were being slaughtered. Simply put it, they had little options for survival.

What Immaculee had, along with her companions, was a three feet by four feet bathroom to hide

in. There was barely enough room for them all. With little wiggle room, the Tutsi women had

just enough space for themselves.

There was no room to sit down. Sweat and heat built up by virtue of so many people in such a

small space. Their tight positioning made their bones ache and the air could make one feel faint

like it did to Immaculee. Just to acquire a little comfort, Immaculee along with the five other

women had to take turns stretching. They even went as far as to use a makeshift form of sign

language to communicate when it was time to stretch.

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Along with their options, sleep was short supply. Do to being in such awkward positions,

sleep became difficult and a luxury. Immaculee simply dozed off just to be awoken by an ache.

Without sleep, the deprivation would simply take its toll. Their sanity and will to fight would

begin to chip away by these little discomforts.

Fear, under certain circumstances, can be a form of discomfort. In the case of Immaculee, fear

was simply another form of discomfort that couldn’t be vocalized or rectified until the killing

ceased. Silently she endured fear of her family. She remained quiet when the Hutus where

outside the house, chanting death to her as well as her people.

Over time, dark thoughts began to manifest. These thoughts were not a result of one thing but

many things. Being trapped and unable to do anything while a constant threat loomed would

make anyone question their chances of survival. Discomfort only feeds into it, making it more

mentally and physically taxing. Ultimately these thoughts made hiding feel futile. Immaculee, at

the time where the killers were so close to them, thought that they would surely find her.

Immaculee couldn’t even eat, despite the hunger. To her it was simply a matter of time.

The Hutus, who had been suspicious of the house, were planning a thorough search of the

house. When Immaculee heard the news, her will perished. The accumulation of all the agony

and anxiety had taken a mental toll on her and the five women. Although she was ready to give

into her suffering, if not for a moment of spontaneous thinking, it might have been over for them.

They had one more fight left in them.

Discomfort, although being the least of their problems, could have gotten the six women

killed. Over time it had fed into their fears and anxieties and chipped away their will to continue

to fight. Aching lead to sleep deprivation, their hunger was evident, and the constant threat gave
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them unhealthy thoughts. It was this reason that the Hutus dressed in demonic suits, to inflict fear

into anyone who saw. Imaculee did see and it was what almost broke them in the end. What was

a discomfort evolved to intolerable living conditions. Only because these six courageous women

kept through it that they survived a genozide. Ultimately, discomfort almost killed them.