Heritier “Fred” Itangishaka and Everine Nzaninka don’t know exactly what happened to their parents.

Brother and sister by adoption, each was about 8 years old when their birth parents were killed in 2006, a tragic result of civil strife that has plagued what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo for more than a century. Soon thereafter, they found themselves in an orphanage in Uvira, the city where they grew up. For Itangishaka and Nzaninka, who had separate birth parents, it was as if their mothers and fathers vanished from their lives.

“They told us that our parents died, but we didn’t see them,” Nzaninka said. “For a kid, it was a confusing time.”

Fast-forward a decade, through dark and uncertain periods rife with fear, loneliness and separation, including nine months living on their own as refugees in Kenya. Now, less than two years after they came to the United States, both teens are planning hopeful futures in the medical field following their graduation from Westbrook High School with high honors.

They credit their survival and recent success to their adoptive mother, Damari Nabarebera, a former primary school teacher who plucked Itangishaka and Nzaninka from the orphanage. Nabarebera had been nursing a vacancy in her heart since 1994, when her husband, a businessman, and four of their seven children were killed while the family was visiting neighboring Rwanda.

“She wanted to help children who lost so much,” Nzaninka explained.

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Nabarebera took in Itangishaka and Nzaninka, along with two younger children who also lost their parents to violence against the Tutsi ethnic group. By 2008 she had adopted all four. In 2011, faced with the opportunity to emigrate to the United States, Nabarebera left her adopted children behind with family members and came to Maine.

“It was hard to deal with all that painful stuff, but you learn to cope,” Itangishaka said.

As violence raged around them and some of their neighbors were killed, the children eventually fled to the relative safety of a refugee camp in Kenya, where they waited for an opportunity to join Nabarebera in Maine. Finally, in September 2014, the family was reunited in Westbrook.

“We were excited to see her but kind of nervous, too,” Nzaninka said.

Itangishaka and Nzaninka had to adapt to a lot pretty quickly because everything is different here, from the American lifestyle to Maine’s evergreen landscape. But they’ve settled in and made friends and now work part-time jobs at local fast-food restaurants.

And they’ve excelled at Westbrook High, where each received an honor’s medal for having a high grade point average. Itangishaka received a president’s scholarship to attend the University of Southern Maine and Nzaninka has a four-year tuition scholarship to attend Saint Joseph’s College in Standish. Both plan to study science and work toward careers in medicine.

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They are grateful for the opportunities they have in the United States and hope to build successful lives here, they said, but they also would like to help people in their home country.

“I would go back and build a hospital and an orphanage,” Nzaninka said. “I want to help all people.”

– By Kelley Bouchard

 


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