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Log inA wife's tale: the general and the ghosts of Rwanda
A wife's tale: the general and the ghosts of Rwanda
by Robyn Artemis on 26th November 2007, 10:25 am
Globe and Mail
SARAH HAMPSON
November 26, 2007
'Much later, back in Canada, I was taking a vacation with my wife and children, driving down a narrow road on the way to the beach. Road workers had cut a lot of trees down on either side of the road and piled the branches up to be picked up later. The cut trees had turned brown, and the sawn ends of the trunks, white and of a fair size, were stacked facing the road. Without being able to stop myself, I described to my wife in great detail a trip I had had to make to the RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front] zone, where the route had taken me through the middle of a village. The sides of the road were littered with piles of Rwandan bodies drying in the sun, white bones jutting out. I was so sorry that my children had no choice but to listen to me. When we got to the beach, my kids swam and Beth read a book while I sat for more than two hours reliving the events reawakened in my mind."
- Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Elizabeth Dallaire has not read her husband's 2003 memoir of the Rwandan genocide, which he tried desperately to stem in the mid-nineties, when the Canadian lieutenant-general was serving as force commander for the United Nations.
"I was not ready," she explains shyly. "Eventually, maybe."
She has lived it, though, in her own way. Yet, in the harrowing story that captivated the country, the one voice missing has been hers.
She was by her husband's side during his well-known struggle with the suicidal despair that came in the wake of his return to Canada in September, 1994.
"I didn't see anything coming," she says of his breakdown from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nothing? "No, no, no," she continues softly.
"He was working very hard - 48 hours a day. When Roméo came back, he was told, like everybody else, to keep busy. 'It will go away. You'll get better.'
"It's a very macho issue. ... It was seen as a sign of weakness. I was proud of him for doing it. He was injured. It was not an injury you could see. It was up there," she says, pointing to her head. "There's no shame about that."
And what did she do?
"Well, I was there to take care of him," she says. "I had to be strong ... so I was there to do whatever I could with the help he was getting." She pauses. "And the children, too."
They were helpful?
"Oh yes, really, really good," she says. "That's why they are probably more mature on certain things."
The couple's three children, Willem, 29, Catherine, 25, and Guy, 22, are all reservists in the Canadian Forces.
Willem is currently in Sierra Leone with Les Voltigeurs de Québec, a reserve infantry regiment that originates from the oldest French-Canadian militia, formed in 1862 and headquartered in Quebec City, where the family home is.
Catherine, who lives and works in Vancouver, and Guy, a student in Quebec City, are both in the naval reserve. Catherine, a civil engineer, volunteered recently on a water and sanitation project in South Africa.
"And that's all by choice," Ms. Dallaire says lightly.
It must have been difficult for them to see a parent in such despair.
"Yes, but it happens to a lot of other people," she responds quickly. "If someone is very ill or sick with cancer, or whatever. It could be different situations.
"I can tell you that it has changed our life in our family completely," she offers, unprompted.
In what way? "In a good way, I think," she explains. "Instead of just living a normal little quiet life, we are more attuned to what's going on."
With each other?
"Yes, and with life," she says. "But also, not just looking at our own selfishness. Being more giving. That's why we are very proud of the children because of what they are doing and their involvement.
"I have always been a very positive person," she continues after a moment's silence and with some defiance. "It takes a lot to put me down. My mother was like that. She would say, 'It could always be worse.' And for us, it's nothing, if you look at what other people go through."
None of these revelations came near the start of our discussion. A quiet composure surrounds Ms. Dallaire, 63, who prepared herself for the interview in the downtown Toronto offices of Unicef Canada by arranging pamphlets on the table in front her that outline the charitable organization's holiday campaign, of which she has been named ambassador and spokeswoman.
Dressed in black with pearls and a colourful scarf at her neck, the former kindergarten teacher seems determined, at the beginning, to focus her comments on Unicef's work on education and health issues around the world, and specifically in Africa, where she recently visited Kenya as part of a field trip with local government and NGO officials.
"I have a lot of hope," she says of the Unicef initiatives she saw on the tour. "The education program in Kenya is making a difference. It's a program for girls. ... It will help in the long run [with AIDS]. Not tomorrow, but in the long run. ... With a higher level of education, they will be able to make choices."
I thought that perhaps the subject of her husband's struggle was too difficult for her to address. But when, finally, the issue of the strength required of military spouses rises up in the conversation, she divulges some of what she experienced with stoic grace. And I realize that her earlier deflection of the subject was not so much because she finds it difficult to talk about, although clearly it is. It's because she, too, is made of that stiff-upper-lip military stuff that eschews self-pity or self-aggrandizement.
One can never be a hero to oneself. The military life is not about one's accomplishments. Rather, it is about how one can serve others.
"What I lived was, I mean, nobody would ..." she begins, trailing off. "Not that I'm special," she adds. "But Marg Beardsley [wife of Major Brent Beardsley, operations manager of the UN mission with Lt.-Gen Dallaire] and myself have gone through very difficult times. ...
"I'm looking now at the wives of men in Afghanistan, and I am so proud of them," she adds.
Her husband, now 61, is much better, she responds, when asked about his wellbeing. Medically released from the Armed Forces due to PTSD in 2000, he is involved in many activities, working with, among others, Veterans Affairs Canada , Unicef and his eponymous foundation, a charitable organization engaged in Rwanda.
"The only thing is, he never stops," says his wife of 31 years. "That worries me a bit, but I can't stop him."
She offers personal information with little fanfare, and then as I indicate the interview is drawing to a close, she taps me gently on the hand and picks up one of her pamphlets.
"Can we talk about this?" she says as she proceeds to point out the items in Unicef's Gifts of Magic campaign with the patience and care of a schoolteacher who wants to inform her student of what's really important to know.
SARAH HAMPSON
November 26, 2007
'Much later, back in Canada, I was taking a vacation with my wife and children, driving down a narrow road on the way to the beach. Road workers had cut a lot of trees down on either side of the road and piled the branches up to be picked up later. The cut trees had turned brown, and the sawn ends of the trunks, white and of a fair size, were stacked facing the road. Without being able to stop myself, I described to my wife in great detail a trip I had had to make to the RPF [Rwandan Patriotic Front] zone, where the route had taken me through the middle of a village. The sides of the road were littered with piles of Rwandan bodies drying in the sun, white bones jutting out. I was so sorry that my children had no choice but to listen to me. When we got to the beach, my kids swam and Beth read a book while I sat for more than two hours reliving the events reawakened in my mind."
- Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Elizabeth Dallaire has not read her husband's 2003 memoir of the Rwandan genocide, which he tried desperately to stem in the mid-nineties, when the Canadian lieutenant-general was serving as force commander for the United Nations.
"I was not ready," she explains shyly. "Eventually, maybe."
She has lived it, though, in her own way. Yet, in the harrowing story that captivated the country, the one voice missing has been hers.
She was by her husband's side during his well-known struggle with the suicidal despair that came in the wake of his return to Canada in September, 1994.
"I didn't see anything coming," she says of his breakdown from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Nothing? "No, no, no," she continues softly.
"He was working very hard - 48 hours a day. When Roméo came back, he was told, like everybody else, to keep busy. 'It will go away. You'll get better.'
"It's a very macho issue. ... It was seen as a sign of weakness. I was proud of him for doing it. He was injured. It was not an injury you could see. It was up there," she says, pointing to her head. "There's no shame about that."
And what did she do?
"Well, I was there to take care of him," she says. "I had to be strong ... so I was there to do whatever I could with the help he was getting." She pauses. "And the children, too."
They were helpful?
"Oh yes, really, really good," she says. "That's why they are probably more mature on certain things."
The couple's three children, Willem, 29, Catherine, 25, and Guy, 22, are all reservists in the Canadian Forces.
Willem is currently in Sierra Leone with Les Voltigeurs de Québec, a reserve infantry regiment that originates from the oldest French-Canadian militia, formed in 1862 and headquartered in Quebec City, where the family home is.
Catherine, who lives and works in Vancouver, and Guy, a student in Quebec City, are both in the naval reserve. Catherine, a civil engineer, volunteered recently on a water and sanitation project in South Africa.
"And that's all by choice," Ms. Dallaire says lightly.
It must have been difficult for them to see a parent in such despair.
"Yes, but it happens to a lot of other people," she responds quickly. "If someone is very ill or sick with cancer, or whatever. It could be different situations.
"I can tell you that it has changed our life in our family completely," she offers, unprompted.
In what way? "In a good way, I think," she explains. "Instead of just living a normal little quiet life, we are more attuned to what's going on."
With each other?
"Yes, and with life," she says. "But also, not just looking at our own selfishness. Being more giving. That's why we are very proud of the children because of what they are doing and their involvement.
"I have always been a very positive person," she continues after a moment's silence and with some defiance. "It takes a lot to put me down. My mother was like that. She would say, 'It could always be worse.' And for us, it's nothing, if you look at what other people go through."
None of these revelations came near the start of our discussion. A quiet composure surrounds Ms. Dallaire, 63, who prepared herself for the interview in the downtown Toronto offices of Unicef Canada by arranging pamphlets on the table in front her that outline the charitable organization's holiday campaign, of which she has been named ambassador and spokeswoman.
Dressed in black with pearls and a colourful scarf at her neck, the former kindergarten teacher seems determined, at the beginning, to focus her comments on Unicef's work on education and health issues around the world, and specifically in Africa, where she recently visited Kenya as part of a field trip with local government and NGO officials.
"I have a lot of hope," she says of the Unicef initiatives she saw on the tour. "The education program in Kenya is making a difference. It's a program for girls. ... It will help in the long run [with AIDS]. Not tomorrow, but in the long run. ... With a higher level of education, they will be able to make choices."
I thought that perhaps the subject of her husband's struggle was too difficult for her to address. But when, finally, the issue of the strength required of military spouses rises up in the conversation, she divulges some of what she experienced with stoic grace. And I realize that her earlier deflection of the subject was not so much because she finds it difficult to talk about, although clearly it is. It's because she, too, is made of that stiff-upper-lip military stuff that eschews self-pity or self-aggrandizement.
One can never be a hero to oneself. The military life is not about one's accomplishments. Rather, it is about how one can serve others.
"What I lived was, I mean, nobody would ..." she begins, trailing off. "Not that I'm special," she adds. "But Marg Beardsley [wife of Major Brent Beardsley, operations manager of the UN mission with Lt.-Gen Dallaire] and myself have gone through very difficult times. ...
"I'm looking now at the wives of men in Afghanistan, and I am so proud of them," she adds.
Her husband, now 61, is much better, she responds, when asked about his wellbeing. Medically released from the Armed Forces due to PTSD in 2000, he is involved in many activities, working with, among others, Veterans Affairs Canada , Unicef and his eponymous foundation, a charitable organization engaged in Rwanda.
"The only thing is, he never stops," says his wife of 31 years. "That worries me a bit, but I can't stop him."
She offers personal information with little fanfare, and then as I indicate the interview is drawing to a close, she taps me gently on the hand and picks up one of her pamphlets.
"Can we talk about this?" she says as she proceeds to point out the items in Unicef's Gifts of Magic campaign with the patience and care of a schoolteacher who wants to inform her student of what's really important to know.
