Immaculée Ilibagiza

If you don't know who she is, look her up.
I just heard her speak and she has an amazing story to tell.

Immaculée is from Rwanda and survived the genocide. She spent 91 days in a bathroom with seven other Tutsi women being protected and hidden there by a Hutu pastor who was her dad's friend. The bathroom was 3x4 feet. The women were not allowed to speak to each other at all. They ate once every few days. They could only flush the toilet when someone in the adjacent bathroom ran the flush. They were totally cut off from the world and had no idea about the genocide occurring around them. Soon, Immaculée convinced the pastor to place a radio outside the bathroom and they discovered the horrors via good old BBC radio. Then one day hundreds of Hutus stormed the house they were hiding in and from a small hole she saw them brandishing spears...so close to death but they remained undiscovered.

When they were finally out, at a skeletal 65 pounds, she learnt she had lost her family, her neighbors, friends and classmates...everyone she ever knew.

It sounds like a story you read about in a book...and indeed she has written 'Live to Tell' -- a NY Times bestseller. It is something else, on the other hand to actually see, meet and hear a person tell you that kind of story in person. You think it will be hard, weepy and really sad. And it is very sad. But her story and she is all strength, belief in a higher power and radiant smiles. This is a woman who has gone through the unthinkable and yet she is giggling about meeting Brad Pitt. Life really does go on if you just have the will to let it.

Immaculée is beautiful and striking. More so, because she has made peace with her life of desperation and anger. She has turned 91 days of torture into a lifetime of faith and hope and living every second of life to its fullest. She knows she is lucky and that someone up there had a plan for her. And yes, she has even forgiven the Hutus. The same Hutus who ordered every fellow tribesman to kill every Tutsi they could possibly find...even the children because "even the child of a snake is a snake".