Receive More Than I Give: My 1–Week Volunteering Experience in Kigali, Rwanda

Stella Ding
10 min readFeb 25, 2020

So here I am, typing on the keyboard with my mind searching all over to cling to last memories of my days in Rwanda, and my body fully awake at 3 AM still living in the Rwandan time.

I am now sitting in my room full of all the familiar everything and my life now back in the routine — take the Bart to work in the morning, yogurt for breakfast, work then lunch break, take the Bart home and noodles for dinner.

Nothing seemed to have changed since I left but I know I have changed.

Background

I participated in the volunteer program organized by Venture2Impact (V2I) for a week this February. The program altogether lasts 3 weeks with 3 groups of volunteers. I was in the first group.

We worked with a local non-profit organization called Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) Rwanda. HHC is an international organization founded in the UK. Their mission is to eliminate the institutional care of children like orphanages.

Instead of shoveling the children aside separately from society, HHC asks the parents and extended family to take the children back to give the children a real home. Meanwhile, HHC builds community hubs in order to support the families to raise their children.

The community hub we are teaching in (P.S. Kelly Nash)

So far, HHC Rwanda already successfully shut down quite a few orphanages around the nation, making Rwanda moving towards becoming Africa’s first free orphanage country.

Our volunteering responsibilities directly tie into HHC’s work. Our schedules for the week include HHC staff training at the office, and business & English & basic computer classes at the community hub.

The students attending the lessons vary from 10-year-old to 65-year-old, both women and men, working or without a job or owning a business. They are mostly there to receive knowledge so that they can generate income to support their families.

The Computer Class: How much I don’t know how much I have

I was leading the “beginner plus” computer classes which happen on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, among helping with other classes.

I volunteered to lead the course months before the trip so by the time I arrived, I had a curriculum and ready to go — until I realize how “beginner” my students are and what conditions we were in.

Walter and I teaching the computer class with our interpreter Ali (P.S. Matt Creaser)

Our project screen was made of a chalkboard with a white bedsheet on top of it (quite creative actually).

There were only 3 tables for about 26 people in the room.

The community hub had no wifi so we were using mobile wifi which only had 5GB of data on it. It ran out in the middle of the first-day class so everyone was out of the Internet.

At the beginning of the class, we did a round of introductions asking everyone when they used a computer last time. Shockingly, some of them used a computer at least 6 months ago if not a whole year.

All the basic concepts took way longer than I expected to explain. For example, it took me a solid 15 minutes before one of the students can finally select a block of text in Notepad because it involves both holding down and swiping the mousepad at the same time.

After Monday’s class, I went back and adjusted my whole curriculum for the week, because I realize how little opportunities they can have to learn computers and I can never forgive myself for wasting their time.

Back in San Francisco, a couple of months before I went on the trip, I was experiencing very frequent anxiety. It got so bad that I remembered one time, I called my mom and both of us are silent for almost the whole time because I literally did not know what to say.

I took a well-being class from Yale on Coursera. The professor gave out a couple of regular practices in order for us to be happier such as savoring and gratitude. Sometimes I was so miserable inside that I can’t think of anything to appreciate.

But in Rwanda, seeing how much people have to struggle to get access to something that I take for granted, and how much they are eager to learn despite their circumstances, and how they are just like us with needs, wants as well as dreams and yet just need a little bit of help, really made the practices of savoring and gratitude so much easier —

I wake up and check my phone, and I thank the hotel to have even had wifi; I walk to the community hub with my “fancy” sneaker, I thank my job for paying me well so I can afford to make my feet comfortable among all the hills; I eat lunch and can have a conversation with people in fluent English, and I thank my education which exposed me to the language since a young age.

As cliche as it sounds, even though I always know I am lucky and privileged, it is the first time I truly realize how much I don’t know how much I have.

The amazing part is, the realization did not come too late and I could still give some of what I have to those who don’t and need.

During one week of class, I saw how some of the students started from using one finger to type, to typing a full sentence with both hands, and to even sending an email to me with the new registered Gmail account, it was the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life.

Me and my group in one of the English classes (P.S. Johnny Malangone)

26 Years Post Genocide: The Power of Forgiveness

I admit I did not know this before my visit — Rwanda is actually the safest country on the African continent.

The fact itself is already shocking enough, but this fact is more shocking given how much this country has been through 26 years ago.

During the 100 days of genocide in 1994, as a one-sided slaughter by Hutu extremists targeting the Tutsi communities, more than 800,000 were killed; more than 250,000 women were raped; 75,000 survivors were orphaned.

I have definitely heard of the Rwandan Genocide and even watched the movie Rwanda Hotel before my trip. But I did not make the connections until I arrived.

Often times we heard of the Holocaust, the Great Depression, or World War, or anything terribly horrible, we think it is far away from us like it is for our grandparents’ generation and all.

Here in Rwanda, however, people are still living the effects of the genocide every day.

Photos of those who decreased during the Genocide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial (P.S. Johnny Malangone)

One time when we are having an English class, we played a game where people line up based on their birthdays. Oddly, out of a line of 20 people, there were 6 of them said they were born on Jan 1st.

At first, I thought, wow, the Rwandans really tried to give birth to their child on the New Year’s Eve, maybe it is a tradition for good luck.

Then I realized, that is because so many of them are not sure when their actual birthdays are.

It is not a rare occurrence that you just talk to someone in Rwanda, and they tell you they lost their parents and siblings during the genocide, or they fled to another neighboring country then came back to clean up the dead bodies in front of their house.

They can be a bus driver, can be a student in the class, can be a hotel owner.

It is really hard to imagine in my world. It is horrible and painful, but that is not the entire story.

The other part of the story is about healing. Instead of taking revenge, the country chose to forgive. As hard as it sounded, the communities accepted back the perpetrators after their confessions at local village courts.

Now, the Rwandans together can speak calmly about that experience, forgive, move on, and build a great community together again.

In Rwanda, I see a community that is stronger than everywhere else I have been.

The country has this community service day which happens on the last Saturday of the month. On this day, a person will hold a giant speaker going from places to places calling everyone to pick up trash. The result is a super clean city full of trees and plants and colorful houses.

Beautiful Kigali with abundant greenness and no trash

Some communities set up this community fund system which everyone contributes to on a monthly basis. In the case when a community member has a medical emergency or funeral or needs a loan to start a business, they can take the money directly from the fund.

The children I have seen in Rwanda are extremely independent and free. One morning, some members of my volunteer group just went on a morning run. All of a sudden, some kids just started running with them wearing flip-flops and all, completely not thinking of they could be kidnapped.

It is also never unusual to see a 10-year-old sister holding her little brother walking around with no adult supervising whatsoever, or a group of children just doing some fun gymnastics on the grass after school enjoying themselves.

All of these are to say, despite all the horrible things they have gone through which still impact their lives today, in the end, the Rwandans have built a country where everyone feels safe and supported. People still love their communities, take care of their communities, are proud to be being part of the communities.

That is truly a beautiful thing to see.

Strangers to Strangers: Kindness Needs No Reason

The most touching part of the experience is all the kindness I have received or witnessed throughout the volunteer trip.

Despite the language barriers, you could feel the warmness from the Rwandans in all the tiny little things.

When we meet in class, the students look us in the eyes, hold my hands and swipe through my palms to say hello and thank you.

When a member in my volunteer group get sweaty due to the heat in the classroom, a student sitting a couple of people away would somehow magically found a rug on them and passed it all the way through to him.

When we are overwhelmed and confused when going to the local market for some souvenir shopping, our taxi drivers or the interpreters we work with will volunteer to go in with us to help us navigate, translate, and haggle.

The kindness is not just from the Rwandans, but also those from my volunteering group.

Despite we are complete strangers before the trip, I feel extremely fortunate to have met some of these great people.

P.S. Roshan Davis

Not only do we laugh together and have fun together, but we experience together and support one another.

For my class for example, to prep for the class, I get at least help from 3–4 people every single time, whether it is carrying tables and chairs, or setting up the mobile wifi and the projector, or helping charge the laptops ahead of time, etc.

And when things do not go as planned, such as the Internet went down in my class, or the discussion went sideways, others in the volunteer group always jump in to help immediately without asked.

One time a group of volunteers went to the market, and another member who stayed in the hotel that night needed a custom made scarf upon a colleague’s request. He sent a message in the group chat and the custom made scarf was brought back to him when the group came back.

Sometimes living in San Francisco seeing all the talented people working hard for the next great job and the next promotion, I am lost in keeping up my life and forget — what truly makes us happy — is giving, is to be kind to others, and relationships we build.

P.S. Roshan Davis

Final Thought: I Am Rich In Choices

People say, in volunteering, we often participate thinking we are the ones to give, only to realize we receive more than we give at the end of the day.

Before I go to Rwanda, I just think of Africa as a continent and people there are Africans who are less fortunate and materially poor.

But now, when I think of Africa, I think of all these people I met in Rwanda with names to their faces, and how hard they work, and how much they are also trying to live a good life just like we all are, and how they can say “I am rich” and “I am beautiful” in one of the English lessons despite their circumstances.

That is when I realize, people are only truly poor when they have given up to be better. And the true richness lies in the freedom to choose to be the better version of ourselves and to choose to live a better life.

I can choose to stay at work till 10 PM every day, feel miserable about my immigration situation, and lock myself up in my room not meeting anyone.

Or I can also choose to take a class to teach myself a new skill, spend more time with those who matter to me, and give my time back to the community.

I am rich as long as I can choose, to be better.

Thank you, Kigali! Thank you, Rwanda! I will be back.

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Stella Ding

Product Design @ Slack. Ex-Salesforce. Ex-YC Participants. .