A rose from East Africa l Rwanda

The rose was a gift from Saga.

This is Saga.

This is a story of me meeting Saga.

He indeed has a real name, but I called him Saga too. So let's keep him as Saga.

Team 1 from left: William, Saga, me, Steve, German, John

I first met Saga and his cousin Steve during our first workshop collaboration between PolyU and Rwanda University's Mechanical Engineering students.

Dear Saga and Steve,

Hope you guys forgive me if I remember anything wrongly haha. A sweet two years have passed after all.

We were lucky, being assigned two university students at the same age and as funny (idiot) as everyone on the team. Every piece of memory is as shining bright as it just happened yesterday. I still remember, and probably won't forget, that summer.

We had same lunch (SAME) everyday, at the same place.

-Fried potato cubes,

-kidney beans,

-long green beans,

-beef cubes

and any other combinations of these four. Sometimes adding onion pieces makes it a new dish.

It was like the only hope during those two weeks of hard work. But I miss it, miss it so much. It tasted so good.

After lunch, we would just nap on that piece of dried grassland. Sometimes we did push-up, for no reason. Some other times Saga wrapped us with the mat (second left photo), yep that's me and William in the mat.

It was more than thirty degree Celsius, but Rwanda has been kind, cool and windy throughout those two weeks. For safety reason, we were not allowed to leave the AEE guest house at all. The only day we can "visit Rwanda" is the go-to-church Sunday with some shopping in the afternoon.

Surprisingly, the church I visited in Kigali, Rwanda literally has the same vibe to my home church HMCC in Hong Kong. The excitement when I sang my most favourite Christian song thousand miles away from home WOAHHH <3

Saga joined us that afternoon.

Over the years, I still smile when memories of those wiring days and the endless yellow jokes came across my mind.

I still remember

the night Saga sent us 'gift' across the gate of guesthouse;

the afternoon Saga and Steve took turn to translate the user manual to local language (because none wanted to do the boring job== c'mon it's useful);

the mock and friendship between me and Olive despite we don't speak each other's language;

the corn with ashes and mud;

the bumpiness and sand in the van;

the day we had a race among Saga, Kayla, William and me the loser;

the day they sent us off.

An end is a new start, I believe.

---

(Idiot) Javert and Ben