The Weight of the Red Dust

The plane finally finished its long journey over Africa, descending toward the runway as the Kigali Airport sign came into view. Dante, a 26-year-old nursing student from Belgium, exhaled a breath he felt like he’d been holding since he left Brussels. Beside him, 22-year-old Raven, his classmate and friend, looked just as eager.

They stepped out of the airport and into the bright, warm Rwandan air. Before the reality of the weeks ahead could fully sink in, they paused to take a selfie in front of the Kigali sign. They were excited, ready to start this adventure, having no idea yet how much it would change them.

The next day, they took a taxi to their home away from home for the next five weeks: Butare. Raven and Dante shared a room in a student house. They unpacked and took in the surroundings, getting to know their new home, their new space, and the city around them.

Monday arrived faster than Dante expected. He arrived at the hospital grounds, bracing himself for his first day in the Emergency ward. The supervisor met him at the entrance, welcoming him before launching into a tour of the department.

Dante walked alongside the supervisor in a daze. It was an instant culture shock. He passed rows of patients lying in beds that seemed disregarded. There was no privacy, just large, open rooms packed with people. He saw patients lying in the hallways and others sitting directly on the ground. The lack of cleanliness was staggering. Every sight and sound of that first hour, that first day, left Dante in a state of shock.

The supervisor eventually dropped him off in the “critical zone” with his mentor for the day. But nothing in Rwanda operated the way it did in Belgium. Dante struggled through the hours, just waiting for the clock to run out so he could finally go home.

His mentor was treating an unconscious patient, but he did it without a hint of care. He didn’t speak to her, he didn’t seem concerned with her comfort at all. Dante watched, his stomach turning, until he finally spoke up and asked to help position the patient more comfortably in her bed.

The mentor refused, indifferent to the woman’s dignity.

That was the moment that shocked Dante the most. It wasn’t the lack of supplies or the crowded wards. It was the inhumanity of it all.

After their shifts, Dante and Raven met up to walk back to their house. They needed to decompress. They had looked forward to this internship for so long, but now that it was here, it was hitting them much harder, and in a very different way, than they had ever imagined.

“I understand they don’t have as much as we do, Raven,” Dante said, his voice heavy as they walked. “But humanity is free.”

The first two weeks hit Dante like a blur of long and draining days. He was struggling to get through each day. After every shift, Dante and Raven would head to a local restaurant to eat and decompress. Over their meals, they shared stories of the chaos, the medical cases, and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that clung to them.

Raven, who was doing her internship in the pediatric ward, shared heartbreaking stories about the children, the babies and toddlers, facing conditions that shattered her. They both reached a point where they felt like they had made a terrible mistake by coming to Rwanda.

“We can’t give up yet,” Dante said one evening, his voice firm despite his exhaustion. “We chose this. We chose this adventure, and that’s what it is, an adventure. I’m not a quitter, and I know you aren’t either. It’s hard, but we have to continue. There is going to be a lesson in this internship one way or another.”

They both continued, fighting to get through each day, fighting to stay, and refusing to be quitters.