Building Bridges - Part One
Updated: Nov 29, 2020
Part One: Welcome to Rwanda
“We should probably stand back,” said Catherine as the dump truck pulled up to the work shed. Mud splattered against the truck’s sides as its tires dug in for traction. A cloud of black smoke coughed and sputtered from the exhaust pipe, stinging my nostrils with petroleum. In the front seat, the driver gave a thumbs-up to the Rwandan construction workers standing beside me. Yellow lights flashed and warning sirens sounded. Creaking and groaning, a massive jack extended the load high into the air, as the bed of the truck tilted to almost ninety degrees. At first, pebbles and fragmented chips snuck through the cracks, and then the whole load came thundering down. Slabs of rock toppled out the back of the truck and rolled into a dusty pile. Kicking up more dust, the truck rumbled away over the hills.
Down at the foundation trenches, Rwandan construction workers laid down their hoes and shovels, hiked up to the drop-off site, and began lifting the rocks onto each other’s heads and shoulders immediately. I recognized Jamvier from his frayed sweater and wool beanie that covered his forehead. He was the strongest construction worker at the site, hoisting jagged boulders the size of mini-fridges onto his bare shoulder blades without breaking a sweat. Sometimes he carried the enormous rocks on his head without using his hands, strolling nonchalantly from the drop-off site to the bridge site and back again without complaint.
Since the road was too narrow and bumpy for the delivery truck to pull up to the worksite, it dropped its load roughly two hundred meters away near the equipment shed.
There was no easy solution to widen the road or transport the rocks. “I’ll call Bridges to Prosperity and ask Etienne if we can have more wheelbarrows, but honestly, it looks like we’re just going to have to suck it up and carry these rocks by hand,” said Connor, our team leader. Growing up on the shores of Miami, Connor brought his cool-headed surfer mentality to leading the team. Slipping on my work gloves, I chose a suitable rock and got to work.
As members of Duke Engineers for International Development, our task was to build a bridge in the northern province of Rwanda, connecting the Rwamahwa and Cyohoha communities. During the rainy season, the Nyabugogo river floods on a weekly basis, often destroying the unstable log bridge the villagers used to cross. Over the decades, many elderly and children drowned in the fast current after falling accidentally. Every Sunday of my freshman year, I met with the rest of the travel team in Hudson Computer Lab 226 to design our bridge on AutoCAD. The ten of us pored over the surveys and pictures sent by Etienne, our Bridges to Prosperity contact in Rwanda. Clustering around the computers, we crunched numbers on sheets of graph paper, scrawled diagrams on the whiteboards, scrutinized angles and lengths to the nearest millimeter, and ultimately decided to build a three-tier suspended footbridge. We calculated the amounts of raw materials needed to build our design, consolidated our statistics, diagrams, and spreadsheets into a PowerPoint presentation, and sent our plans to professional civil engineers at Bridges to Prosperity for approval. Even though we wouldn’t set foot in Rwanda for another six months, we wanted to learn as much as possible about its history and politics; so, we watched the documentary “Coexist.” Focusing on post-Genocide politics and society, the documentary details Rwanda’s development and progress after 1 million were slaughtered in 100 days. Even after two decades, with killers and survivors forced to live as neighbors, the scars of the Genocide are far from healing.
Even as I boarded my flight, I didn’t know what to expect. I had packed five different anti-mosquito sprays with varying percentages of DEET, sun-protective outerwear, packages of beef jerky, a ridiculous quantity of Nyquil, eight packs of full-body shower wipes, and a Kinyarwanda-English dictionary, which I planned to begin reading one hour into the flight. I had spoken to my friend Lily about traveling to Africa, and she told me, “No matter how well-prepared you are, you won’t be prepared.”
Located in the Northern Province, Rulindo District, Base Sector, and Rwamahwa Cell, the mountain village of Kiruli is rural and isolated, with dusty motorcycle paths winding around the tea fields that connect it to the surrounding villages of Nyirangarama and Machine. While small bars and bakeries have sprung up recently, only ten years ago Kiruli was without electricity - the little village had come a long way. When the team entered Kiruli for the first time, men dropped their wrenches and stopped fixing their bicycles. Women held their babies close and watched from a distance. The elderly, sensing the disturbance, emerged from the bakeries and bars to see what all the commotion was about. Children swarmed our van, grabbing and climbing on the back bumper, smooshing their faces against the glass windows. When they saw us, they screamed at the top of their lungs “Abazungu!” – white man.
While I unpacked my luggage from the trunk, villagers crowded around, staring directly at me like I was a six-eyed alien. A young man approached me from within the crowd and introduced himself as Abraham. Unlike the other villagers, he didn’t stare at me in bewilderment. Impressively, he spoke high-level English, and he used his hands actively to point out the high school, basketball courts, and soccer field just over the hill from our house. Smiling with confidence, he shook my hand and said, “Welcome to Rwanda!”
Well, at least we had Abraham.
To be continued next week!
About the Piece
Dedicated to the people of Base, Rwanda. In loving memory of the beautiful times we had. I can’t wait to see you again soon.
Comments