She and her sister had left their family
and believed that the entire family had been killed.
So Clementine, before you left Africa,
did you ever find your parents?
No, actually.
So when was the last time you saw them?
The conflict just took over extremely,
and then next thing you know, we had to flee.
You had to take refuge at six years old.
I still didn't understand what death was.
You were desperate to find your parents.
800,000 people were killed in 100 days.
I felt like my whole world had ended.
These women held onto one thing.
We'd try Red Cross, we'd try UNICEF.
We tried everywhere, my sister and I, we moved everywhere.
Well, I have a letter from your parents.
I have a letter from your parents.
Clementine and Claire, come on up here.
That's a moment that will be with me forever.
It's an amazing story.
How did all these happen?
Every time we heard an explosion,
Pudi said, “that's thunder.
Haven't you heard thunder when it's not raining?”
We heard a knock on the door.
My grandmother gestured for us to be silent.
“Shh.”
She brought my sister Claire
and I close to her, and held us tight.
And then, in a quiet calming voice, she said...
“A long, long, long time ago, not too far away from here,
there was a woman who could not bear any children.
One day she went to fetch water down the valley.
And when she began to return home,
it just began to pour down.
The thunder screamed.
The woman went under the tree, held her stomach,
and she began to cry.
She cried.
She cried louder than a thunder.
The thunder stopped immediately.
The thunder came down, sat right next to her,
and said, “What was the matter?”
This woman looked so, so sad, and said,
“You see, all I wish for is for a child.”
And the thunder said, “I'll give you a child.”
Suddenly it stopped raining.
This woman was so happy, she jumped up and down
and said, “Yes, I will do anything.”
And few days later she was expecting a child.
Few months later, she bore this beautiful daughter.”
A deafening explosion hit nearby.
“Don't worry, it's just the thunder.”
Grandma continued.
“She was as beautiful as all the girls in the land.
However, there was something very,
very special about her, her smile.
So the mother grew a little bit selfish, little bit scared.
So every day she locked up,
scared that her neighbors might find the secret
about how special this girl was.
And the girl grew up to hear only the world
from the other side of the gate.
But then one day the mother forgot to lock the doors.
And guess what the girl did?
She snuck out.
Oh, when she stepped outside, it was beautiful.
She had never seen that many hills.
She'd never seen that many mountains.
She saw children playing.
She saw men old, young.
She was so happy, she saw all the colors
that she had not seen inside.
People had never seen her before,
so people stopped and said, “who are you?
What's your name?”
She sang out her name.
And then after singing, she smiled this bright smile.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, beads appeared everywhere.
Thousands of beads,
red, green, yellow, blue, everywhere.
People were so distracted
that they started piling beads
everywhere they could put that.
They did not even see her leave.
So from one hill to another, she smiled.
And that's the only way
you could know where she went.
Grandma finished her story, brought us to the door
at the back of the house and opened it.
Then she motioned for us to run,
or really to belly crawl out
past the beaming sunflowers,
through the sweet potato field.
Once we reached the tall trees, we ran for real.
Off the farm, out of the ordered rows,
and deep into a thick banana grove.
Where we saw other people,
most of them young, some of them bloody with wounds.
Sometimes I heard laughter, and then screaming,
and crying, and a noise that I had never heard.
I saw people who were not breathing.
I thought they were asleep.
I still didn't understand what death was,
or what killing in itself.
When we would stop to rest for a little bit,
or search for food, I would close my eyes,
hoping when I opened them I will be awake.
I was six years old.
I pretended to be stronger than my brother, and faster.
While the whole world around me
was completely silent.
And while many around me were being murdered.
What I truly remember is all the noise
that I couldn't make sense of.
It's just noise to me.
But to other people, of course, there's that word.
They called it genocide.
Claire and I had to leave
everything behind that we knew.
And we fled to a country called Burundi.
And for the first time I did not have shoes,
I did not have clothes.
And for the first time I worried about food
because we did not have food.
I spent all day, every day,
sitting in the shade near the gate,
watching with ambition, if not hope.
I wanted my parents to walk in.
Claire was terrified to ask about our parents.
So many people were murdered,
how could you ask if your family was alive?
We were sitting on our luggage in this market.
It was just insane.
And among that chaos, I felt so lost
because no one was able to stop and look at me.
And that day, I think I remember
that's when I was ashamed
to just being a young girl, trapped.
And my sister had gone off again
to find a place that we could sleep.
And this woman came and brought bananas and water.
I looked up to her and I said, asante,
thank you in Swahili.
And then I just burst into tears because she saw me!
She raised me.
I started telling people, I'm Clemantine,
I'm Clemantine, I'm Clemantine.
I don't want to be lost.
I'm Clemantine.
Everywhere we went, I smiled.
I smiled.
I introduced myself to everyone.
I made sure that they knew my name
so that if mom, my dad,
if one of our family member find them,
then they could say, yes, I know that girl.
In fact, I found myself spreading beads in other ways.
I started writing my name on everything.
Literally on everything.
Everywhere we went, I would find a place
and scratch my name in it.
I loved writing on trucks in refugee camps.
Those giant trucks that bring food and then leave.
They're the only trucks that can leave.
So I write my name on it so that if it goes back
to wherever my parents were, they'll find me.
My nanny used to tell me this story.
And I thought that I was that girl who can smile beads
and all the gems, diamonds, rubies,
whatever gems you could possibly think of.
And I held this story so close into my heart,
thinking that from each country we went to,
if I could only smile harder
then I'll leave the trails of beads, and mom will find us.
So when was the last time you saw them?
Well it was 1994, when I had no idea
what was going on.
'Cause we searched, we tried Red Cross,
we tried UNICEF, we tried everywhere.
My sister and I we moved everywhere,
every day walking around us,
like searching, and searching, and searching.
Well, I have a letter from your parents.
I have a letter from your parents
Clemantine and Claire come on up here.
Hi.
I’m Oprah.
Nice to see you, Claire.
This is from your family in Rwanda.
Your father, and your mother,
and your sisters, and your brother.
And I wanted you to read it.
Okay.
But you don't have to read it right now
in front of all these people.
You don't have to read it right now
in front of these people because
your family is here.
We have flown your family here.
The stories that I surround myself with
are so important, so important.
They inspired me over and over again,
and have given me courage to be here today.
The stories that my nanny told me became this blanket,
became this world that I could enter in
and become more than just a refugee.
We're stories, you know.
We are storytellers by everything we create
What we are is what we create.
What we create is who we are.
And so I believe the art of storytelling
is an everyday relationship.
It's our connection point as a human.
All of us are connectors.
All of are dot connectors, whichever part.
And when I mean dot connector, I actually mean
like a heart beat connecting to another heartbeat.
It's time for us to uplift, to connect, and to inspire.
It's time for us to see each other.