The Girl Who Smiled Beads: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

In the refugee camp in Burundi, Claire teaches Clemantine to never accept gifts. Claire doesn’t want to be indebted to anyone, so she trades with the nearby poor Burundians for their food. She sings an English song she knows called “Home Again,” hoping to impress the camp managers. One of them finally hears and gives her a job organizing games for the camp orphans. Claire realizes that to maintain her identity, she needs to hold onto it from within. She also realizes she needs money.

To do laundry, Clemantine walks two hours to the river. She soaks the clothes with crushed pine needles and then pounds them on rocks. Sometimes she swims in the river. The heat in the valley looks like waves. She wants to pretend it is the ocean, but no one wants to play with her. She dries the clothes on the hot rocks, hoping to burn out the lice. At night, she listens to the adults talk. Their raunchy stories make her feel unprotected. In her dreams, she collects odds and ends around the camp and makes a rickety ladder up to heaven to visit her parents.

Clemantine becomes close with an elderly couple in the camp. She calls them Mucyechuru and Musaza—Grandmother and Grandfather. To avoid going to the fearful latrine, she lingers by their tent and asks them for stories. Musaza tells her a story about an unbreakable pot full of enough soup to feed the world. Clemantine adores them because no one—not even Claire—treats her gently. They bring Clemantine foraging in the woods. As they search for mushrooms and green tomatoes, they teach Clemantine to respect the plants; they teach her to eat grasshoppers, but only the ones that fly straight into her hand. They steal from nearby farms, but they always leave a vine or a seed to make up for what they’ve taken.

Around Christmas, Claire gets dysentery. Clemantine has seen what happens to other refugees who get dysentery: they get a fever, their bowels explode, and they scream. Most who come down with it die, and their bodies are placed by the latrine. When Claire gets sick, Mucyechuru makes her drink a concoction made with charcoal. For three days, Claire writhes with fever. Clemantine prays she won’t die. At last, her fever breaks.

After Claire’s illness, Clemantine fears the latrine even more. She stays by Mucyechuru and Musaza’s tent. They tell her a story about a beautiful girl who was pushed into a hole by her evil stepmother. They tell her that you can lift up the ocean when the sun goes down and see what’s under it; and, at moonlight, you can hike in the landscape of the past, where you can ride majestic animals.

After Clemantine and Claire have been at the camp a few months, a Zairean camp worker named Rob tells Claire he’s in love with her. Rob is 25 and very put together, but Claire tells him she’s too young at 16 to have a baby. Rob follows Claire around, begging her to marry him and move to Zaire where his family lives. Claire and Clemantine have learned the skills to survive the camp, but nothing will get better unless the war ends. Rob tempts Claire with citizenship papers and the promise that she can go back to school. Claire finally accepts Rob’s proposal, and they get married at the camp.

After the wedding, Rob takes Claire to Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, to get marriage papers. Afterwards, the plan is for Claire to go to Uvira to meet Rob’s family, at which point Rob will come back to the camp for Clemantine. Clemantine waits for three days, terrified that no one will come for her. Eventually, Rob returns. Clemantine doesn’t say goodbye to Mucyechuru and Musaza, but she leaves them all her possessions. Rob takes her to his truck, where he has a new dress and some candy for her. She falls asleep on the ride and wakes up panicking. She knows she should feel relieved, but she only feels lost.

That evening, Clemantine and Rob arrive at the house of some of Rob’s friends in Bujumbura. A huge family sits in the courtyard. A beautiful woman Claire’s age hugs Clemantine. A bunch of other children crowd her, and someone hands her a cup of tea. Clemantine is unused to kindness and to simple pleasures. She is used to thinking only about survival. The next day, the young woman Claire’s age takes Clemantine to the market. The woman buys Clemantine a pretty yellow dress.

Clemantine and Rob stay with his friends for two days and then take a bus to Uvira on the shore of Lake Tanganyika. Clemantine falls asleep and wakes to see palm trees and cacti. At the border, an officer checks their papers. When they get to the lake, Clemantine plans to lift it up at sunset and visit the universe underneath. Clemantine and Rob ride up the hill on a motorcycle to a red-brick house. Inside, Claire is there, looking unfamiliar in a bright dress. The house smells like good food. Clemantine cries on the couch. That night, she sleeps with Mwasiti and Dina—Rob’s cousins. Claire sleeps down the hall with Rob.

Clemantine tries to act like a “regular child,” confident, playful, and carefree. She moves slowly, used to killing time in a detached way in the refugee camp. Mwasiti and Dina laugh affectionately at her slowness and treat her like a wounded bird. Every morning, Rob’s aunt, Mama Dina, wakes early to pray for the war to end. Unlike Clemantine’s mother, she speaks casually to God.

Rob’s mother, Mama Nepele, is gentler than Mama Dina. She holds Clemantine’s hand whenever she speaks to her. After Clemantine stops crying every day, Mama Nepele enrolls her in school. The school is a strict Christian academy that uses French and Swahili, neither of which Clemantine is fluent in. The teacher whips Clemantine’s hands whenever she mispronounces a word. She cries to Mama Nepele to let her quit, but Mama Nepele refuses. Rob buys her cool sneakers, and Claire gets her a cute outfit, but she still doesn’t want to go.

For breakfast, Clemantine eats bread and chai tea with the family. She doesn’t like the chai but tries to drink it. After school, she plays outside with other kids. The neighborhood women take her under their wing, combing and braiding her growing wild hair, giving her clothes, and painting her nails. She feels special in this place where everyone is unique. The town eats fish all week, and everyone brags about how much they have.

On the weekends, everyone celebrates. Unlike Rwandans who dress to conceal themselves, Zairean people dress extravagantly in a mix of African and European styles. Rwanda is Catholic, but Zaire is a vibrant mix of cultures and religions. Claire takes to the fancy clothes and starts a business selling purses. On Friday, everyone lines up in town to get their hair done. On Saturday and Sunday, the streets are filled with music and dancing.

After a while, Clemantine starts to forget the refugee camp and forget Rwanda. Every night, the family eats dinner together around a shared pot. Because Clemantine eats slowly, Mama Nepele always puts aside a plate for her so that she doesn’t miss out on seconds. This makes Clemantine feel protected and loved. Clemantine slowly learns more Swahili and becomes friends with Mwasiti and Dina. She starts to feel that maybe this is her real life, and her life in Rwanda was only a dream.

Claire feels trapped in Uvira. She wants to go to school, but she can’t because she’s pregnant. She tells Clemantine they will go home soon, but Clemantine doesn’t believe her; she can barely remember Rwanda. All her baby teeth have been replaced with new ones. Rob buys a plot of land up the hill to build a house for Claire, Clemantine, and the baby. The townspeople start calling Claire “sister” in Swahili; this frightens Clemantine because her grandmother had once warned her that a person disappears when they lose their language. Shortly after she turns eight, Clemantine is given a Mickey Mouse backpack. She loves it and fills it with the marbles she’s collected for Pudi.

In March, Claire gives birth to Mariette in a hospital like a “regular person.” The town showers her with gifts. Mama Nepele teaches Clemantine and other young girls how to take care of the new baby. Clemantine loves Mariette and doesn’t want anyone else to touch her. Claire also loves Mariette, but she doesn’t love her own life.

Often, Clemantine swims in the lake with the other kids. They tease her. Although she doesn’t know how to tease back, she recognizes it as affection. Two cousins, Mado and Patrick, arrive from the south because their parents can’t feed them anymore. Sometimes, the electricity shuts off and the neighborhood kids play games in the dark. Once, Clemantine’s impresses her school crush, Serge, by winning a game; Serge says he wants Clemantine on his team next time. Clemantine learns a lovely word in Swahili—nishauri—that means collaboration and peace.

A few months later, the spell breaks. People crowd into Uvira begging for food. Fighting is breaking out in the north. Mama Dina cooks extra food and prays more than ever. Soon, however, they run out of food. Schools shuts down, and the electricity and water is shut off. For the second time, Clemantine’s life shrinks. Police and soldiers are everywhere, and at night there’s the sound of gunfire.

Without asking Clemantine, Claire decides to leave. She gathers some things to sell, and she, Rob, Clemantine, and the baby take a boat to Kazimia to stay with Rob’s extended family. At the border, they pay 20 dollars and show their papers. Kazimia is very beautiful, and Rob’s family is nice, but Clemantine can’t open herself up a second time. She feels she made a mistake in Uvira by believing she belonged there.

Claire, who dislikes her role as mother and wife, is gone all day. Clemantine focuses all her attention on Mariette. She becomes obsessed with keeping Mariette clean so that she won’t get sick. Sometimes, Rob’s cousin helps out by looking after Mariette. Clemantine resents the girl’s confidence and wants Mariette to herself. She misses Pudi and can barely remember what he looks like. She doesn’t expect affection from Claire; even before they became refugees, they didn’t get along. Clemantine once lost Claire’s watch, and Claire never forgave her. When Mama Nepele joins them, Clemantine is happy.

Then, Kazimia starts to shut down. To flee, Clemantine and her family cross Lake Tanganyika in a boat with 50 people. The boat is so overloaded that it starts to collect water. People toss their family photographs and china overboard to lighten the load. Everyone is terrified, but no one screams. Clemantine prays. She doesn’t want to die in the water where she’ll leave no trail, and she can’t bear to think that Mariette might die. Clemantine tries to make herself as light as air as the water in the boat creeps up to her waist.