They lived in a crowded room with hundreds of other refugees, sleeping on the floor with very little to eat.  Daily they witnessed other prisoners being tortured and killed, sometimes with guns, sometimes by having cars driven back and forth over their bodies until they stopped moving.  Every day Domy prayed that she and her children would be saved. 

At that same time, Rodolphe was imprisoned at a separate location and was a victim of severe beatings and torture.  He narrowly escaped death on many occasions.  Once he was locked in the back of a semi-trailer in one hundred degree heat with a sea of other men for several hours.  People all around him succumbed to the extreme temperatures, but Rodolphe made it out alive.  Another time the soldiers brought him to the riverbank along with other men to be executed.  Rodolphe watched many others being shot and pushed into the river, but just as it was his turn a commanding officer called in the order to stop.

The Hakiza family were all eventually released from prison with the help of the Red   Cross, and classified as refugees, but they still would not be together.  Domy and her children resettled in the US, but Rodolphe would spend another year and a half in Africa separated from his family.  This separated family and the possibility of reuniting them was the need that sparked the original idea for the TOLBERT REFUGEE ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION.

Domy had applied for Rodolphe to join her as soon as she got to America, and Rodolphe had managed (financial assistance from members of Community Christian Church) to smuggle himself out of Congo and into Cameroon.  When the paperwork finally went through for Rodolphe’s American Visa there was still one problem – how to pay for the airplane ticket.  The application process for Rodolphe’s refugee travel loan was held up.     

To Rick Guzman, who had gotten to know Domy and her kids, “It seemed crazy that a family that had been separated so long and had been through so much, would have to put off being reunited just because of money.”  That’s when Rick started calling friends and family to see who would be willing to help pay for Rodolphe’s airplane ticket.  Several people were willing to help, but a few of them asked Rick if their donation would be tax deductible.   “No,” Rick told them.  “But it should be.”  And in that moment, the seeds for TRAF were planted.

In March 2002 Rodolphe Hakiza was finally reunited with his family after a total of three years of separation.  It was snowing that day.  If you ask Rodolphe, he’ll tell you that Rick Guzman was the first American remembers meeting, and that he knew right away that he had a friend.

The Hakiza family was TRAF’s very first reunification.