To boldly go where the need is the greatest

Rwanda is one of the poorest country in the world, even though it is also one of the more stable, clean, safe and fast growing.  Until 2019, we had been installing solar panels in the Gikomero sector about 20 kilometres along a steep, unpaved road in the mountains to the north east of Kigali city.  This year, we are working in the Rubona sector about 20 kilometres south of Rwamagana city. The village households that we serve are mostly classified as the poorest by the government.  

Rwamagana itself is about 50 kilometres east of Kigali.  To travel to Ribona, we drive for an hour along the main highway to the east.  Then we get off the paved highway at either Bicumbi or Rwamagana, and drive for another hour along a bumpy, unpaved, muddy road to reach the site in Ribona.  

The houses are spread over an area roughly 20 square kilometres in area.  For 2 weeks, our students criss-cross across the area, installing solar panels and wiring in those 200 houses.  Surely they have been having a lot of exercise, sweating a lot under the sun and inside stuffy, smelly houses.  They whined a little, but none really complained.  They  know why we are here. They knew what they were getting into, before coming here.  It is their choice too.  

Why do we choose this site, which is so far away, so difficult to reach and so uncomfortable to work in?  On the operational level, the site is recommended by our partner African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda, and mutually agreed between us.  But the ultimate reason is that these are the people whose need is one of the greatest.  Same question can be asked of other sites and countries with similarly challenging projects.  And the answer would likely to be similar.  

Certainly we could have chosen a site easier to get to, and more comfortable to work in.   Perhaps we could choose a site closer to the capital, along a paved road.  Perhaps we could choose a country with better infrastructure support, better accommodation and better roads.  But such a place would also likely to have a lesser need.  We would likely be less challenged, make a much smaller impact (if at all) and our students would most likely learn less.  Then what is the point to go there?

The impact that the service makes, the responses from the community and our parters, and the change produced in our students and ourselves, have validated the choice of the project and the site.