The Girl Who Smiled Beads Sparknotes

The 1994 Rwandan Genocide brought sorrow to many families by tearing them apart. The idea of reuniting with lost family members sounded unimaginable, going back to life before the war seemed impossible. In Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil’s The Girl Who Smiled Beads, the chaotic but melancholy manner in which the author explained the details of Clemantine’s life after their reunion allows Wamariya to demonstrate the importance of family relationships, ultimately centering the attention on how although the idea of an event may seem great at one point, the reality may come to disappoint. Throughout the book, the author mentioned the struggles of living on their own without the support of the rest of their family, and described their lives

Clemantine mentioned several times before that she “fantasized about [reuniting with her family again] so many times,” provoking her to “write [her] name in dust

The author kept the same disorganized writing but shifted to a more somber tone to illustrate the uncomfortable environment between family members, specifically Clemantine and her mom. “[Her mom’s] dark skin didn’t match [Clemantine’s]” and “her hair was short and tight against her head”-- almost every detail of Clemantine’s mom turned out to be different than she had remembered (145). The small details Clemantine noticed about her mom’s appearance represents how much she struggled during the times in the war, and because she didn’t have Clemantine or Claire with her by her side, it resulted in the disconnection of their relationship. Claire had 8 total family members living in her apartment, and “she was the only one with a job” (144). Claire supporting her family in every way she could shows how much she cared for them, but also reveals how different life was from what everyone had expected. The author described their family’s daily life all in one large paragraph, demonstrating the chaotic environment they all lived