Sharne Street, one of Munezero's classmates, said Munezero and her sister were singled out for "cruel" and "remorseless" treatment by some in the student body. "She wore the same clothes to school a couple of days in a row, and girls would talk about her and yell slurs about her," he said. "The children talked about the way she smelled."
Meanwhile, Munezero and her siblings began to notice the illegal drug trade in the West Baltimore neighborhood in which they had been placed, and felt increasingly unsafe. "After realizing what things happen in Baltimore," she said, "I felt a lot safer in the camps."
Her younger brother, Aime Mugabonihera, a rising junior at St. Mary's College, said he recently learned that one of his childhood friends from the 200 block of S. Stricker St. had been shot dead at a nearby gas station.
In 2005, someone threw a brick through the family's window with a threatening note attached. Munezero doesn't remember the exact wording of the note, only that it included the words "die" and "bitch."
Soon after that incident, her parents bought a house near Lauraville in Northeast Baltimore. Her father, a schoolteacher in the refugee camps, now works part time at Baltimore City Community College, where he also studies accounting.
`She has transformed'
The three older siblings all temporarily forsook schooling in order to work and give the younger children a chance at college. In addition to Munezero and her brother, she has a brother and sister attending the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, and a brother at the University of Baltimore.
When selecting her own college, Munezero, who graduated fifth in her class, considered large schools such as the University of Ohio and University of Maryland, College Park, but settled on St. Mary's because it was the "opposite of Southwestern."
Deborah O'Donnell, the St. Mary's psychology professor who traveled with Munezero to Tanzania last May, said the political science major struggled in her freshman year, but quickly blossomed both academically and socially.
"She has transformed so much over her four years here," O'Donnell said of Munezero. "In her freshman year, she was very quiet, hesitant to participate, having a hard time with her language abilities."
Sharne Street, her high school classmate, said he has also noticed the transformation. "She's always happy now, always high-spirited. Now that she's happy in her environment, she's opened up."
