Stories from Rwanda: Final Thoughts
February 5th, 2010 at 10:55 am
On our last day in Rwanda, we spent the afternoon at Lake Muhazi, reflecting on our experiences and making plans for how we would bring what we learned back to our chapters and FACE AIDS as an organization. We went around the circle and each shared our personal highlight of the trip, a challenge we faced, and a lingering question. We’ve each written these down to now share with you.
Final Thoughts: Our Highlights, Challenges, and Lingering Questions
Austin Keeley, Stanford University
Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was our time at the PIH hospital in Rwinkwavu. After having read so much about the work that PIH does and the vast health problems in Rwanda, I was blown away to actually witness first-hand how PIH was working to provide a preferential health option for the poor. To meet the men and women who turned theory into practice was an inspiring moment for me.
Challenge: My biggest challenge during the trip was my own perceived lack of purpose. A question I’ve faced a lot during my time with FACE AIDS is, “Well, are you ever going to go to Africa?” My response was always that I would love to go, but only if I had a defined role in which I could actively give of myself to others. Foreign public service can all too often a self-gratifying experience in which you feel good about having gone, but did not necessarily do any good. During our time in Rwanda I felt torn. On the one hand the educational and emotional growth I was experiencing was truly gut-wrenching and inspiring, but on the other hand, I often felt like a burden to our hosts and felt incapable of doing anything to alleviate the suffering I saw. The only way I could reconcile these emotions was to swear that I would re-double my efforts back home so that what I learned- intellectually and emotionally- would be translated into tangible results.
Question: After this trip I want to know how FACE AIDS can better engage and mobilize students in Rwanda. The amount of passion and enthusiasm that we saw at the Youth Forum and around the country was inspiring. It seems to me that secondary school students and recent graduates have a huge potential to work and fight AIDS in their local communities. Education spread by grass roots means could be a huge force in the country’s fight against HIV/AIDS.
Lila Kalaf, Stanford University
Highlight: If I had to pick one highlight of the trip, which is nearly impossible, it would be the youth forum. There is nothing more special than hearing the experiences of students our age, half way across the world, and hearing all the similarities.
Challenge: I struggle with learning how to integrate my limited knowledge and experience with the genocide and tumultuous Rwandan history into our programs in Rwanda.
Question: I want to further explore how we can better articulate and shape our purpose in Rwanda, and how that translates into our actions back home.
Steven Ma, Oregon State University
Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was learning about PIH’s presence in Rwanda - along with GHC, FACE AIDS, social workers, and a cooperative government as ingredients for social change. This gave me hope despite the challenges we face and the socioeconomic disparities I witnessed in the country.
Challenge: My greatest challenge was the language barrier and lack of experience as obstacles to fully understanding the significance of what I was experiencing. Without language, I felt that I mostly had to rely on instinct and intuition to give meaning to the various new situations in a drastically different environment - which is quite inaccurate!
Question: The underlying question I could not find an answer to throughout the entire trip was: what exactly is our responsibility in dealing with global poverty? I was greatly affected by the images of poverty on this trip, but also happy to see the differences PIH, FACE AIDS and other global health/social justice organizations have made. As a result, I feel that this issue of poverty and its subsequent effects on health warrant more study and I look forward to not only learning more about but also contributing to global health in the near future.
Amanda Dalessio, University of Texas Austin
Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was meeting the pin makers of Rwandarera! It gave so much more meaning to pin selling. The time we spent with the Rwandarera community was so inspiring. Walking through the field of cassava was also an incredible experience. Marie and the community were so welcoming to us, people they had never met before. It was incredible. Turning around and looking behind me and seeing all 10 of us and the whole pin making association smiling and laughing is a memory that I will hold in my heart forever.
Challenge: A challenge I faced on the trip I believe will not affect me until I get back home to UT Austin (and with my FACE AIDS chapter): It will be difficult to convey the exact feelings I felt 3 weeks earlier. I want to translate every thought and feeling I had to my fellow chapter members in a way that makes them understand and see the whole picture. I believe that our blogs and pictures will help our fellow chapter members be apart of the wonderful adventure we all took part in this Christmas season.
Question: I will never understand why genocides occur. How can people kill innocent human beings? I will never in my life forget the things I saw this trip. I also believe that being made aware of something so significant changes your life, and forces you to be aware of how easy “the good” can change into “evil”. Living with that thought will also be challenging and take part in decisions I make in my everyday life.
Kathrina Chen, University of Connecticut
Highlight: The highlight of the trip for me was participating in the AIDS Walk with the Rwandan FACE AIDS members. By being involved in the walk I felt more a part of the movement both in the USA and Rwanda.
Challenge: My challenges from this trip are trying to understand what could have caused the extreme hate that fueled the genocide. I am not only unable to understand why so many people were killed, but I also struggle to understand why they were killed in the gruesome ways.
Question: How will I share the knowledge learned in Rwanda with my chapter and school? How can UConn contribute to programs in Rwanda that need assistance and how will I make the students at my school aware of this need?
John Thomas, Stanford University
Highlight: My highlight was meeting with all of the people that FACE AIDS works with - from the pinmaker Marie, to John and Francois, the FACE AIDS Program Assistans, to Alice the PIH head social worker, all the way up to the Country Director for PIH, Peter Drobac. Hearing everyone’s stories and what makes them passionate about the work they do was truly inspiring.
Challenge: Trying to understand the work of FACE AIDS to fight for health and social justice in the unique context of Rwanda and its history is a consistent challenge.
Question: How best can students, who often are limited in their skills and experience but not in enthusiasm and optimism, make a meaningful difference?
Anne Stake, Stanford University
Highlight: There were so many highlights of the trip that it’s hard to describe only one. Throughout the trip the interactions that we had with the Rwandan people were always the most exciting for me. For instance, the march at the conference with the students was incredible. The meal at the home-stays was also a highlight.
Challenge: Both genocide memorials were incredibly difficult for me to process and experience. I’m not sure whether or not I will ever understand or fully grasp the reason or the implications of the events that took place. I am struggling with how to harness my outrage and confusion in the wake of both experiences and focus on what I can at this moment or in the future.
Question: Personally: I have re-discovered my commitment to working in global health, or at least in development, and I have to find out how I can best contribute and to what field. For FACEAIDS: How can we actually connect the US/Africa programs? Is there anything that FACEAIDS can do to expand the school fees program or to help students like those we met at the conference to go to school? If the pin-sales are the limiting factor on the US side, would another product like necklaces be easier for chapters to sell?
Julie Veroff, FACE AIDS Executive Director
Highlight: The whole trip was the highlight of my time thus far with FACE AIDS, since it united everything I love and admire most about this organization: FACE AIDS chapter members around the world - dedicated, thoughtful, ambitious young leaders who reject the notion that one’s community is limited by geographic borders and fight every day for global health equity and social justice; FACE AIDS’ Rwanda programs – locally-driven initiatives that are beautiful in their simplicity and staggering in their impact; and support to Partners In Health and comprehensive health care – the real, demonstrated, short- and long-term change that comes from giving a preferential option for the poor. This trip drove home for me the message that young people can, have, and must continue to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, particularly through movement-building and direct action.
Challenge: When we were touring the genocide memorial at the church in Nyarabuye, a girls’ choir was singing hymns in the background. How do we continue to have faith – in a higher power, in the human spirit, in the notion of goodness, in anything – in the wake of such violence and injustice? And also, how could be afford to not continue to have faith?
Question: What is FACE AIDS’ core competency, both in Rwanda and in general? How do we continue to strengthen and grow the programs we’ve developed with an eye towards cohesion throughout the model and genuine community-building across campuses and international borders?
Braden Lake, Stanford University
Highlight: Touring the Partners in Health and seeing the tremendous potential of care that is granted, without exclusion, to everyone who comes for service was incredibly inspiring.
Challenge: I was challenged by wanting to give back as much as I was receiving during this trip. I knew I was incredibly lucky to partake in such a trip and was getting so much out of it personally, and I just wanted some way of ensuring that those I was visiting were benefitting as well in some way.
Question: Conceptualizing the genocide, and figuring out how I can integrate it into my world view for the future, is something that I am still struggling with.
Romy Saloner, FACE AIDS Managing Director
Highlight: For me, the most moving part of the trip was having dinner at Marie’s house. Marie is a member of Rwandarera, one of our partner HIV associations. She welcomed us all into her house and prepared an amazing dinner for us. It was such a special meal, sitting in a room full of people who have been part of FACE AIDS in different ways-Pinmakers, US Chapter Leaders and Members, National Directors and US and Rwanda Staff. I felt like FACE AIDS really came together for me at that moment, and I was honored and proud to be part of such an amazing organization and community.
Challenge: I love working for FACE AIDS and value every day that I get to spend with the organization. However, the trip reminded me of the importance of field work and my desire to spend time addressing HIV issues in East Africa. I hope to return soon and I need to make that a priority and focus on creating a plan.
Question: After having the opportunity to engage more closely with the FACE AIDS programs in Rwanda, I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what we do, but also many more questions about the future of our organization. The trip prompted me to think more about how our programs in Rwanda can and should relate to our programs in America, and what that means for the future.


















