Umunyarwandakazi: A Rwandan Woman.

Ariane Cyusa has been homeless & lost everything multiple times in life. Living an existence so complicated that at times she treated it all like a story. Good stories have the same elements as life... a main character, good guys, bad guys, twisty moments when they switch & now the bad guy's the good guy, and there’s always a wise one. The wise one can be an elderly person or the smallest child, but they’re the ones that see the whole story for what it is. That’s the character that Ariane personifies. The Wise One. The wise one in stories can sometimes be cut off from the rest of the group. So, just as life imitates art, Ariane's biggest fear is that her mental health will always be skewed & wrong; that the things she cares about and dreams about are impossible. It is from this place of fear that Ariane wrote the first chapter in Umunyarwandakazi. Umunyarwandakazi is a little bit prose, a little bit poetry, and a deeply spiritual experience. Ariane writes work to describe the simplicity of her soul and mission, and so much more. Reading stories and assorted poems from Ariane's life is a pure joy allowing the reader to see the REAL Ariane and live with her vicariously during her longing and triumphs in this, her first, real life collection.