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

In 2006, 18-year-old Wamariya and her older sister Claire prepare to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show with Holocaust survivor, writer, and activist Elie Wiesel. Wamariya, a junior in high school, is one of 50 winners of an essay contest. A Rwandan refugee, Wamariya lives with her foster family, the Thomases, during the week. On weekends, she lives in Claire’s public housing apartment with Claire and her three children.

In the studio, Wamariya and Claire are stunned when Oprah announces that their parents, whom they haven’t seen since leaving Rwanda in 1994, are there. With them are Claire and Wamariya’s younger sister and a sister and brother they have never met. Their older brother Pudi has died. Later, Wamariya thinks how her “joy and pain” are “consumed by the masses” (7).

A limousine takes the family back to Claire’s apartment, where they awkwardly attempt to reacquaint themselves. Though Wamariya has frequently imagined reuniting with her family, they struggle to connect. Wamariya feels that the “gap” between her and her younger siblings, who “replaced” her and Claire, is “a billion miles wide” (7).

For the next couple of days, her family and the Thomases visit tourist attractions in Chicago.