The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After

Wamariya recalls how she learned from Claire “never to accept gifts” (65) and to be “indebted to no one” (65). In 1995, in the refugee camp in Burundi, Claire, convinced that “to hold on to her identity” she must “retain that light from within” (66), gets a job coaching sports. Wamariya learns to wash their clothes in the river. She frequently visits an elderly couple who tell her fantastical stories and forage on farms “with a code” (70), leaving a vine or a seed for the farmers to replace what food was taken.

Around Christmas, Claire contracts dysentery and spends days near death. Wamariya, only seven years old, is terrified that she will die, but Claire survives.

Rob, a Zairean CARE worker, professes to be in love with Claire, who at 16 years old is wary of men. Claire consents to marry him so she and Wamariya can leave the camp, which is not “the life she deserved” (74). Claire and Wamariya move to Uvira, Zaire, where Rob’s family lives. Wamariya “want[s] to go back” but does “not know where” (78). Eventually she is determined to “survive here” (79).