Kakwenza Rukirabashaija tries to keep his scars covered around his children. Even in the height of summer he never takes off his long-sleeved shirt and trousers. He is worried that evidence of the extensive, brutal torture he endured before fleeing Uganda, etched permanently into his body, would terrify them. The damage is so bad that he washes in the dark to avoid seeing them himself.
“The scars are not painful, but they trigger trauma whenever I am in the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. So I decided to turn off the light when I shower to avoid seeing them,” says the satirical writer, who was this month given the Václav Havel award for creative dissent.
