Reflection after Africa Service-Learning l Rwanda
- RedtravelHood
- Jun 21, 2019
- 16 min read
Updated: Aug 27, 2019
The is the first house that we completed indoor wiring.
Little did I know at that moment there will be more houses coming in the next two years :P
From left: Dr. Stephen Chan (one of the professors I respect the most in my life), Olive (my bff in Rwanda), Steve, House owner, Saga, Son of the house, Mama of the house, German; with John and William kneeling in front.
We installed one big and two small LED light bulbs, built a small charging station using car battery (so it can be detached and rechargeable), and gave radios and phone charging cables. That trip, 117 houses and 4-5 solar stations were completed among four teams.
There's one particular conversation I will remember for life.
That time after every indoor wiring, we were instructed to carry out a survey about electrical usage with the house owner. Steve helped as my translator for the survey in this first-in-my-history house. After asking to the Mama 20+ questions including daily expenses on electricity, torch usage, battery expenses, nearest phone charging station..etc., we were thanking the Mama for her time and allowing us (random strangers) to go in and out of her house out of sudden for installation.
Mama held my hand tight and looked into my eyes.
Mama told Steve,
"Please help me translate to this girl. Although we couldn't communicate, but I know she loves me very much. May God bless you."
I never know words, especially on the first day of work, can be so powerful. They have been my strength for the following two weeks, then the following two years and they will still be my motto for the rest of my life.
Below are original words from reflection written by the two-years-ago-me right after the trip:
Hope you have a few minutes to spend for what is going on the other side of the world. Categorize into three dimensions: Social, Personal, Academic.
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A. Social Dimension
Rwanda, a land of thousand hills.
The geographical conditions have made Kigali different from most of the countries. Instead of building houses on flat surface, most flat lands are used for agricultural, which may be linked to the shortage of water. However, this does not apply to the village in Gikomero that we visited. Houses, are not built facing the road, houses are scattered around the mountain, and one of the things that I regret most is I forgot to ask why.
From the assessment to households I have visited, I realized that the farming they work are most of the time only sufficient for self-consuming. Furthermore, most household have no monthly income at all. Besides, they stop practicing barter system, “You plant what you want to eat.” This is really shocking and hard for me to understand as firstly it challenges my imagination of an agriculture-based society being trading crops. Sometimes I think probably they do, as the existence of unique self-help group culture in Rwanda. Secondly, I couldn’t imagine how can a family survive with no income when they are only an hour driving distance from the capital city and they still need to pay for disposable batteries, phone charging and most importantly, water.
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What leaves me in real silence is the living environment. I don’t know, I thought I am ready to meet any challenge. Growing up in a city, water costs almost nothing, electricity is a must, houses are meant to be secure, even full meals are cheaper than an hour of physical work. But here, only “wealthy” deserves house made by more than just mud and mostly have no furniture at all even if they have three or five rooms. While I’m picky for what to eat today, food are not choices that they can make and red beans, sweet potatoes, rice, corns, tomatoes and beans are their
one and only option, Still, only if they work hard. If I were them, I probably would not use the water for whole family to have a clean water bath. So, after waking up from dusty floor (when some don’t even own a bed) and the smell of excreta, after a morning of hard physical work and harvesting crops, after walking three or four hours for water, after cooking, after feeding the inka (cow) and ighene (goat), here comes another day of not having shower. Even during the shortage of water in guest house, I still make sure myself take a shower within three piles of water every night. Empathy is always easier to be said than to be done, especially when we cannot even ask ourselves to go through what they have been experienced.
From social perspective, I somehow felt that the village is a miniature of the society of Rwanda. They represent the hopefulness of the Rwandans. Rwanda is truly a country which is worthy of the title “developing”, and it grows at a very high pace. This is extremely shocking for a nation that has just gone through genocide two decades ago but has the ability to unite the people and focus them onto the same vision. I would say I never see any country that can do this. The government has done an incredible job and the people love their president, Kagame. Although Rwanda claim to be a democratic country, but it is more likely a half autocratic government for me.
Things are different, but things are also similar. For example, the structure.
Self-help groups mentioned before is a unique culture where community gather together to contribute ideas and help each other, especially in financial field (which is not surprising as human nature is same everywhere else). The other thing is the Umuganda, which from a book I read before claimed that this is a tactic which subconsciously influence the people that they are government’s “property” and they belong to government. That is also the reason why I want to attend and distinguish it myself. It is true that polices are there to supervise people but through talking to locals, they told me they really love serving for their own country and police is not a threatening existence. Local people told me hierarchy is commonly seen in Rwanda. For instance, during the installation, we see some house are wired but some are not planned to be wired. People told us if you have good relationship with the leader of self-help group then you can get the privilege, it’s the leader who decide. I see that things are the same around the world, despite the development level.
The good thing about this program is that I know more about the world and it makes me think from the other way round when I meet challenge next time. For example, I will think about is it because of difference of social norms, and be more aware of if something is socially accepted. One of thing I regret most is that because I pay more attention in wiring for the houses, I didn’t do the assessment whole- heartedly. Besides, we missed the survey for the last three house due to shortage of time. We can only love more when we know more. I should have learned to pay more attention when people is talking to me, if not my regret will happen again next time.
After talking them, I realized what they need the most is water and livestock. I hope I can help them by sharing with them more knowledge about agricultural, like how to grow crops efficiently and what is the best crops for the soil. I have to study more about knowledge in this field. I wish to share with them what crops to grow to have a relatively balanced diet as I see a lot of children at age fourteen or fiveteen are at the height of nine and it breaks my heart and makes me realized the uneven allocation of resources. Then I hope I can donate them bicycle so they can get water, run errand or even sell their crops easily. When I see the lake from the village, I suddenly recalled last time I joined a trip organized by the civil engineering department about water management which makes me come out with an idea of collaborating with other department!
Before the trip I always think that if people are happy then I better not disturb them. It is my life motto for the past twenty years. However, coming to Hong Kong, joining this trip, I realized people’s need are so much more than just being happy. Through conversations, I understand that in general people are not satisfied with their current life situations but they believe things are coming. The first thing to be done before all happiness should be that life necessities have to be fulfilled. When our teammates from nursing team told us that “The villagers were so happy and kept on turning on, turning off the switch! They kept on saying thank you to us!” Although I were not there when the villagers express their happiness, I was truly heart-touched and at the moment I felt like every bit of our hard work worth already. I hope the younger generation will now have more chance to revise their studies at home and thus will spend less (unnecessary) time on repetitive daily chores like charging phone batteries for hours which might affect their schooling time. The adults may get more information about Rwanda outside the village through the radio and can tell more stories to their children. The children might be benefited through the radio too.
For me, it is not deniable that education matters the most in one’s life. Connection (with others, with the world) is also one of the most important things is this century is what I learned from this project. Therefore, next time when I want to help more people, I have a direction to work hard.
It is true that dangers may come when one gets exposure to more things. For instance, teenagers may get negative influence through the radio like drugs (less likely since broadcast station will control the quality), but since they have electricity, people have more time at night instead of maintaining purity. After radio, television may come. After charging phone become easier, smartphones may come. I am once afraid people will start to have a heart of comparison. There and then I learned that coins have to side, there is always negative effect for everything, even drinking water can choke people to death so why don’t people stop drinking water. I started to understand that life is about making choice. Besides, comparison may bring positive effects too! For example, people may have the desire to improve their life after the program. One other thing that I sincerely hope is that since a lot of children are following us throughout the two weeks, I hope at least one will get inspire. My imagination is that one of them will think that “Oh this people come here to help us, I wish I can study hard and be able to help others in the future.” I should have talk to the children more and that is one of the moments which I wish I could speak native language.
It is sad but I cannot deny that I have to be in higher social position to be able to help more people. When I tried to think if I can have the opportunity to come back to help, I realized I need more money to bring materials into the country and benefits more people, I need relationships to get me into this country, I need to be more powerful so that I can have the capital to talk to higher level of local authority, I need to more powerful so I can decide who can be benefited. Before this, my life motto is just being happy and help whenever I can. But now, I have to work harder in order to achieve what I want to achieve. Life is not only about my existence.
B. Personal Dimension
The value what strikes me the most is “Even if you do tons of good things, one bad can destroy you.” This is one thing that every human knows but I never truly felt it strongly. I always live my life with the thought that happy go lucky and my life goal is me myself to be happy every day. To achieve this, I do not really pay attention on people’s emotion, or what makes others happy. I always tell myself not to be self-centered but what I am doing is always the opposite. Through the debriefing that night, I start to have a sense of what is my responsibility in the world. I know I can be happy being responsible too (which feels way more achieving), it is just my selfishness stops me from being that. The thought “it is easier being ‘happy’ than have the courage to admit how my behavior affects myself and people around me. The bigger I grow, the more responsibility I bear” struck me.
I remembered the first week we got there, it was much more excitement than really display empathy. From trying to finish work on time, afraid of not doing a good job will down my grade, to a different state of mind. I am glad that during the first house we wired, I was given the chance (which I think is a privilege now) to do the survey for the household. The mama told Steven, our friends from University of Rwanda, that “Although she couldn’t communicate with me, but I know she loves me very much.” This truly gives me and have become my motivation for the whole program. The following week, especially after splitting into sub-teams, in every house, my teammates always laughed at my perfectionist issue but that time I was trying to think that “If this is my house, how will I want to wire it up?” I was never an OCD before. Even till now, every time I think of this, it still melts my heart, this is the first time I really think for others and from their perspective. And this feeling is really great. I never know that practicing true empathy can be so achieving.
I do learn a lot from my teammate, William too and I wish I can learn more from him. He taught me what does empathy communication means. For example, he taught me to think of “Do I need the answer for this question? Or I can already guess the answer?” every time before I ask. He shared with me about how to be a more contented person. I esteem him for the courage of admitting wrong and always know how to speak organizedly. I truly enjoyed the time being with him and wanted to learn more. I am also truly, very grateful for the twelve teammates I have. Through this short two weeks, I learned people are totally different from their appearance. Some maybe quiet are just not tend to express their opinion frequently in public. I see everyone has their own (totally different) unique personality and most of them taking care of each other in different ways. This reminds me of being more humble and not always talking so much, ‘showing off’ I have opinions and I have a lot of thinking. Once during a conversation, Steven told me “No no, you’re stubborn, you’re not humble (as Rwandan).” I am amazed how observative he is just in a fortnight and I reflects on how my weaknesses are obvious to others. I learned from John that our work has a really big impact on others and thus there is never a moment we should and putting others on risk. Then German taught me to be patience and see how ugly I am when I lose patience. He never shows his sadness and this makes me want to learn that skill but also reflects on how easily I can hurt people’s feeling and I shouldn’t be unaware of that. I also always take Arthur as a big brother as he always gives responses which take care of everyone’s feeling but if he didn’t tell me I wouldn’t know he once suffered from mental illness. I realized how much I am unaware of things going around and I definitely have to pay more attention. I want to improve my organizing skill in speaking too.
Before I joined the program, I would definitely tend to show off to people that I am going to Africa. But after, I will tell people, I’ve been to Rwanda.
I realized Africa is definitely not as what I imagine it to be. I know I shouldn’t have to bias on its stereotype but I just couldn’t control my mind to interpret Africa in my own way. Before I came, I thought I will feel weird seeing a lot of dark-skin people and it turns out I totally feel nothing! I thought Rwanda will be lots of prairie and it turns out to be so similar to my hometown. I realized how much social media has affects me and I now have the sense of distinguish and not to believe everything I see. Besides, people opinion does not tell the whole story too. Before this, I am a person who really loves to travel but now I hope I can do something more meaningful while traveling.
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My biggest disappointment on myself is that throughout the whole program, I didn’t manage to do more for the community, especially this is a once-in-a-lifetime program. Most of the time I was thinking, I just have to finish the preparation for tomorrow but I never contribute to do more than that. I didn’t step out of my comfort zone, every day I’m thinking “I’m too tired, let’s just finish what is assigned.” I see this as a running away of what can actually be done more. I am too selfish that I only want to finish my own stuff, I want to finish my diary, I want to have me shower done, I want to sleep more. Then I started to reflect, what is the thing I would want to treasure when I’m eighty. The answer will be friendship. Not only during this program, throughout my whole academic year, I was too focus on my studies-related stuff. I really have to pay more attention in people.
One other thing is that I felt like my personal belief is strengthen. During the second visit to CLA church, I prayed for my heart to be calm and I felt like my prayer is being answered that night. How I see Rwanda is that it is really a Christ following country, most of the people are Christian and the demonstrate their belief in daily life. What they taught me is to remember but forgive. Things happening around me are so tiny when compare to a country going through genocide but people can forgive and help each other becoming better.
Overall, I have, and I want to become a humble, a more sensitive to surrounding person and one who is grateful of everything I have.
C. Academic Dimension
Here is another bit of shock to my ignorance. I always have an African stereotype that they only have less optimal education standard and opportunities but our cooperation with University of Rwanda proves me wrong. To my surprise, now I know that university students are same anywhere else. We share the same thoughts, we discussing issues on a partner manner, we exchange our music taste and most of the time I felt like I know less than they do. (especially in the music part!) To my surprise again, I learned that some of the elite students even get the chance to top universities like Harvard, Stanford etc. which I never even heard any of my friends stand an opportunity to get the offer.
However, I noticed students who cooperate with us, their appearances look relatively wealthier too.
However, the villagers told me, “My son is seventeen and my daughter is fourteen. They don’t want to go to school.”
This story sounds similar to what we may heard from other countries, so not only Rwanda.
During the family visits, I can see that almost all family are using non-smart phones and mostly from the brand Techno (which I have never heard of) and Nokia. By comparing, almost all of my teammates are using iPhone. I remember when we visited the Kigali Tower, one of the shop owners told us that he does not sell iPhone as iPhone can worth the whole cabinet of phones. I wonder how do the kids see us every time we took out our mobile phone.
Seeing digital divide from me who have internet access every single hour in my past twenty years, the children would not have the chance to google everything they don’t understand and this deprive a major part of their learning journey. The family might not even know what is going on in Kigali which is only an hour driving distance from their village. The people will be outdated of current “hot” topics and this may affect the children confidence when they go out. What I want to mention here is the connection to the world. However, what matters to them more is that they would not be able to get more agricultural information to improve their farming, they could not sell their crops to a wider network and must through the middleman who earns the most usually. The younger generation could not get extra information other than from the textbook but teachers in school and parents (mostly farmer) are their only source. This may limit their livelihood in the future but a society functions best when everyone plays a different role.
I see digital divide leaves them benefits too. The community youths in our team, they can point out where is the house as long as we provide them names whereas I grew up in a generation where I don’t even know the name of the grandma living next to me. The bonding among people becomes stronger. This can be seen when they have the unique culture of self-help group to exchange ideas. Saga and Steven (students from University of Rwanda) told me they used to show their middle finger to random “abazungu” (white people) because “That’s what we see in their movie” is what they said. Children are thus less likely be exposed to negative influence.
How ironic I even Wikipedia the phrase “appropriate technology”. For me, I have the confidence that I can work for anything even if I don’t know because I can learn from YouTube, Wikipedia will tell me what I don’t know, if I have doubt I will google it. Nevertheless, this will prohibit the villagers being employed because some may not know the technology has become real convenience now. It is also harder for the headhunters to find whom they need too. This has lowered the country’s employment rate too. As the country is promoting on science and technology, if one is not used to internet and electronic gadgets, this technology stuff may “frightened” them so it is harder for them to get support from the government too.
I have strong faith on our installation is being appropriate. First of all, we are using solar energy which is clean and sustainable. Besides, it doesn’t bring harm to the village. It may trigger the interest of people in the electrical field too if seeing it in their house every day. I believe our work is appropriate too because our team put a lot of effort in maintaining the aesthetic of the house, trying to hide those wires. Furthermore, our installation requires less professional skill to maintain and the system is designed to be as insulated as possible and the possibility of accidents occur can be reduced and the system can go longer. The materials we used are relatively cheaper so maintenance should be easier.
Few things that might not be appropriate will be the place where the car battery is located. Although the consideration is taken varies according to houses, after I get a little burnt by the acid, I think some car batteries that are put on chair display some risk. The thing that we couldn’t communicate with the people makes me worry that if we miss some precautious that we must tell them. A year is a long time, and in between the locals may want to fix it themselves if something goes wrong, I should have left them a set of sample connection to act as a control.
Major in engineering field I never really thought of this question. If I give the people money, perhaps they can survive for a week. But if I provide them tools to earn the money, they may survive for years. The tool is engineering. Thinking a country’s development from social, economic and education perspective, everything needs infrastructure. Engineering thinks of how to produce that infrastructure and how to make it better and more convenient for daily life. Only if the basic needs are fulfilled, then aid from outside of the country will come in. So far I rarely see any foreign investment in Kigali yet. Business brings opportunities, opportunities helps employment, employment boosts market and market contributes back to business.
As a student major in engineering, I think safety is the most important role played by the human. Human is in charge of making the decision for the all the mechatronics and thus human has to think of the safety of everyone beforehand. Human also played a role of enlightening others to contribute into engineering field and inspire new ideas. Human is also in charge of quality check and ought to think how to benefit more people. Everything is a process of thinking and searching.
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I believe in words worth spreading.
Thanks for support and reading till the end.
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