Two-years ago, 10 Softchoice employees undertook a humanitarian mission to Rwanda in partnership with Developing World Connections. With laptops donated by Lenovo Canada, the team spent two weeks setting up a computer lab at the Primary School in the town of Gashora – the very first of its kind. The completion of the project was a big win for the team and, more importantly, the local community.
Fast forward two-years.
As we make our way home it is good to bear this in mind:
“Inability to compete with technological competence will compel billions of people into a survival stride of long hours and degrading work, sometimes far from their homes, driven to exhaustion, dropped to their knees to beg on behalf of spouses and children for shelter, medical care and rations.”
Rwandan President Paul Kagame World Technology Summit 16 July 2009
As Mel mentioned in her last blog, yesterday on the worksite we had tons of fun. What really stood out for me was the fact that we are now working as a cohesive unit with these 40+ men (and one woman) on the worksite. We invested in an old fashioned boom box and had it running on batteries for about 8 out of the 11 hours we were working. There was one gentleman in particular who was really enjoying the Ugandan dance CD that we were playing. They even recognized some of the songs. Once the batteries burned out we were treated to local song and dance while lugging concrete trays. It was so amazing, we hardly even noticed when it started to rain and worked right through that light storm. Nick got a video so hopefully we’ll be able to share that with you when we get home. Over the last 3 days, we have determined that our huge language barrier is no longer an issue. What an incredible connection we’ve made with this village.
Yesterday I went to Kagili (the capital city) in order to get some things we needed for the project. This proved to be an adventure. The capital city is about 45 minutes drive away but as you all know our mode of transport has been our bikes so we needed to find some other way to get to Kagili. We rode the public transportation which is basically a big van that squeezes 18 people in (including the driver) and stops at every town along the way. There is no such thing as personal space in Rwanda. When I got on the public transportation everyone was staring. I asked Lama, my guide why I was so interesting and he indicated the people have probably never seen a white woman on the bus. Softchoice Cares is all about changing perceptions!When we got to Kagali 2 hours later (it is normally a 45 minute drive when not traveling by public transportation) we started on our list. We found it difficult to change money as no exchange place will take bills that were made before 2006. You also can’t pay by credit card and no one has heard of an ATM here. After visiting 4 exchange places we found a bank that would take the US cash and let us change it to Rwandan Francs.
Kagili is a big city and one of the best ways to get around is a boatabota (a small motor bike). Of course these individuals want to get to the destination as quickly as possible so they weave in and out of traffic. I almost lost my lunch.
After visiting over 30 stores in a super busy city which has streets full of people we were able to get all our shopping done in order to complete our project. With our bags full of paint, brushes, batteries and glue we boarded the van to go home to our rural village in Gashora. I couldn’t help but feel I was kind of going back to my African home.
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