Conquering Mountains in Kigali By Rachel Garner
This is the third piece written by Rachel for her local newspaper The Brentwood Gazette!
What does it
feel like knowing you’re going to be living and working with
complete strangers for ten weeks? Honestly petrifying. I have to tell
you for the entire week before my ICS placement I was racked with dread,
uncertainty and at points convinced I wouldn’t be able to do it. A mammoth
sized task lay before me – to immerse myself into an entirely new culture, with
entirely new people for ten weeks and come out the other side unscathed.
It felt as if
there was a ticking time bomb to judgement day.
Are they going to accept me? Will they like me? Am I really strong
enough and mature enough to handle this? These thoughts were just the first of
many challenges I would face during my time in Kigali. Challenges that felt
like immovable mountains; too huge to face on your own. And then I realised
something crucial – I don’t have to tackle these on my own. We
are all part of one team! Team Kigali 2014 – international development
volunteers, planners extrordinaires and mountain conquerors! Together
we could achieve anything, and we proved that many times.
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| Some of the team on Mount Kigali with our lovely little guides! |
Last Saturday
we took a team trip to Mount Kigali. The plan was 45 minutes of climbing,
finished off with a celebratory coffee and breath taking views. But in true
“Team Kigali” fashion the plan went straight out of the window! We actually spent about 2.5 hours climbing
through densely packed forest, and we NEVER found that coffee shop. (Rwandan
coffee is rather special).
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| Beautiful flower en-route up the mountain. |
From an
outsiders’ perspective this was a pretty rubbish day; lots of strenuous effort
with no tangible reward. Yet this was one of my favourite days of the entire
trip. We demonstrated how strong we were as a team; relying on each other to
make it up steep hills right to the very top. We spent the day laughing, taking
pictures, telling stories and revelling in each other’s company. When we
reached the top we were proud – we’d achieved something to be genuinely proud
of.
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| Some of the fantastic views we were lucky to see!! |
It’s a good
metaphor for our entire time in Kigali; trial after trial, not quite achieving
what we set out to achieve but realising we’d actually achieved something else -
something much more worthwhile. I never expected it to be easy, but I did have
a glossy magazine view of volunteering. Take part in a few projects; snap some
pics, tadah world saved! From an outsiders’ perspective what we have done is
exert copious amounts of energy to no obvious avail.
But all these
tests made us stronger, better, and more mature people. They demonstrated our
personal strengths and weaknesses; allowed us to adapt as a team, to
accommodate each other. Personally, I have been able to improve my flexibility,
patience, understanding, forgiveness and the ability to think on my feet. And
that’s just for starters. Together we have blossomed and moulded each
other; we have become a family; learning
one from the other. We may not have had a glossy magazine experience of
volunteering, but we’ve had something far more powerful – we have experienced
life.
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| Beth, Vicky and Rachel midway through climbing Mount Kigali |
There is
something strangely liberating about spending your summer with strangers. You
are free to loosen the chains of modern day society and live as who you are,
with no pre-conceptions and no existing judgements. You are able to
conquer mountains head on with a new zest and vigour. You are free to truly
live!
