Survival

Throughout The Girl Who Smiled Beads, the author explores the complex nature of survival by recounting her life in Africa during the Rwandan genocide, and her experiences in America in the years following. After fleeing her childhood home in Kigali, Rwanda when she was just six years old, Clemantine quickly learned that to "survive as a refugee," she needed to be able to read "what other people wanted" her to do (5). Separated from her parents and her home, Clemantine and her sister's new reality was defined by violence, loss, and fear. To stay alive they had to keep moving, remain hidden, and trust no one. In Chapter 3, the author writes: "Staying alive was so much work," a work that required hanging "on to your name," trying "to stay a person," and refusing "to become invisible" (43). Clemantine and her sister knew that to lose themselves entirely meant...