In Rwanda lives a man whose story stunned the world when it went viral in 2023. By then Callixte Nzamwita was 71 years old, and he had spent 55 years living virtually isolated from the world inside his small home. It all began when he was just 16: gripped by an extreme fear of women, he decided to shut himself away — and he built a wooden fence around his home himself, to keep women from coming near him. Since then, his home has been his whole world: the place where he sleeps, eats and carries out his daily activities.
His fear has been linked to gynophobia, a specific phobia of women, though it is important to say that no medical diagnosis has ever been publicly confirmed. What is certain is how completely the fear has shaped his life: for more than half a century, he has avoided direct contact with women altogether, keeping his distance even as the years passed. He has never married, and by his own account he is content with the life he has chosen, asking nothing more of the world than to be left in peace behind his fence.
And yet his survival depends on the very people he fears. The women of his community are the ones who keep him alive, bringing him food, water and other essentials. Because he will not meet them face to face, they drop the supplies over the fence and step away — and only once they have moved off does he come out to collect them. One neighbour explained the quiet arrangement simply: although he is afraid of them, he accepts their help as long as they keep their distance.
It is a life of striking contradiction, but also of quiet kindness. For over fifty years, his neighbours have never stopped making sure he has what he needs, asking nothing in return — not even a meeting, not even a word of thanks delivered in person. He stays behind his fence, they leave food over it, and the arrangement holds: a man who fears women, kept alive by women’s generosity, day after day, year after year.