The craziest thing happened last week
Tuesday.
As part of our project for Rwanda
Biomedical Centre (RBC), we have been tasked with writing a preparedness plan
for cholera and viral haemorrhagic fevers. Additionally, we are working on a
risk management communications plan for the country that will be used to
support the outbreak preparedness plan. Since nothing is in existence for
Rwanda in terms of these two projects, Carmen and I have been working in
collaboration with various people within RBC to try and gather the necessary
information needed for these projects so that we can put together the final
document.
We found ourselves in the office of the
Director of Behaviour Change Communication, Jean-Marie Gatabazi. It was really
informative to hear from him the existing communication tools and the chain of
command that seems to effectively work for RBC and Ministry of Health. As we
all know, we live in the age of technology and Rwanda is definitely not being
left out. They have a RapidSMS program in place that enables community health
workers to relay information directly to the ministry, concerning the patients
they see, the types of ailments they present with, etc. At the end of our
conversation, he asked about our internship with WHO, the collaborations we had
with MOH and RBC, the projects we were working on and our general experience of
being in Rwanda for the first time. We told him that if we met President
Kagame, it would definitely be the cherry on top of the cake because we have
been thoroughly impressed with the progress of the country and the good
leadership he has exhibited. We went on to tell him that when we had gone to
Musanze for the gorilla naming ceremony, we had hoped to see him there so we
could catch a glimpse and possibly take a picture of him from afar. However, the Prime Minister was the one who
showed up (not that it was a bad thing because the Prime Minister is also a
great person—but seeing the president would have been more amazing). He was
more intrigued that our plan b to see the president was to ask our WHO country
representative if we could accompany him to the 4th July liberation
day celebrations at the stadium where the President was bound to be present. He
was really fascinated by our attempts to see the President and just laughed the
whole time we talked.
Later that evening, Carmen’s aunt reposted
a tweet on Carmen’s facebook. Mr. Gatabazi tweeted about meeting us, and the
enthusiasm we had shown about our time in Rwanda and our desire to meet the President.
At about midnight, we got a text message from him saying, “You are lucky. His
Excellency has agreed to meet with you for some photos”. Now you can imagine
the excitement. We were laughing and giggling like 2 little kids who had just
got candy for the first time. Carmen replied to the text asking the time and
date of our possible meeting but we didn’t get a response. We went to bed
really happy. The next day was our trip to Nkamira transit camp. Our supervisor
had to told we had to leave Kigali city by 8:30am as the camp was about 3 hours
away. As we were finishing our last minute packing, we got a phone call from
Mr. Gatabazi saying the President had agreed to meet us at 11:00am that
morning!
The excitement was beyond words. At this
point, the WHO driver was already outside waiting to take us to the office. I
had to run to tell him that he would have to wait for a while. We quickly
changed from our t-shirt and jeans into appropriate formal clothes. What do you
wear to see the President? I think we spent like 15minutes rummaging through
our suitcases trying to find the nicest formal clothing we had brought along
(slim pickings here guys!). Finally, we both found something to wear and bolted
out of the house.
I called my supervisor and told him that 8:30am
departure time was to be moved because we were meeting the President. He
laughed on the phone and asked me to repeat myself and I did. He then proceeded
to ask me which President and I said the President of the Republic of Rwanda. I
told him everything would be explained when we got to the office. We got to the
office and explained to all our colleagues and they were beaming with joy.
It seems like it took forever for 11:00am
to arrive but it did. Mr. Gatabazi came to pick us up to the President’s office.
After going through all the security checkpoints we were escorted into his
office. One of his personal assistants received us. She was relatively young
and we were chatting it up and almost missed the President enter the room. He
greeted us and sat down. Now you can imagine how nervous we were—two interns
who were meeting the President because of a tweet?! How crazy is that? Multiple
thoughts were rushing through my head, “what if he asks a question and I make a
complete idiot out of myself?” were among the thoughts. I think he could sense
that we were tense so he cracked a joke that had us laughing and he eased us
into the conversation. In all, our meeting lasted about 45minutes (15minutes
over the proposed time). He was genuinely interested in our work as interns,
what we were studying in school, the projects we were working on, and our
experience exploring Rwanda. The dialogue was pretty lively. It was almost as
if I was talking to my father—he was really relaxed and was such a cool person
to talk to. Before we left, he encouraged us to become ambassadors of our
generation. He expressed the passion both him and the First Lady had for the
youth. He went on to tell us that every learning opportunity was a stepping
stone in shaping us to become the future leaders. He asked us how we were going
to use our education and expertise to help the underserved and developing
nations. Carmen and I have been thinking about that question
throughout this internship and so it was nice to hear it resonated in this conversation.
We proceeded to take some pictures
afterwards and he asked us to leave our email addresses so that his personal
assistant could relay that to the First Lady’s office.
When we returned to the office, it was as
if we were stars (hahahah). Everyone wanted to see the pictures and hear about
the conversation. They were all marvelled that the interns had managed to see
the President. Everyone shook our hands—it was a good feeling. This experience
will never be forgotten!!
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| Carmen shaking hands with H.E Paul Kagame |
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| With the President |
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| L-R: Carmen, H.E, myself, Jean-Marie Gatabazi |
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| Infront of the official seal of Rwanda |
