YOUNGSTOWN — A newly built bridge opens a world of opportunity for the nearly 2,000 residents of the Cyarera village in Rwanda.

Sara O’Kane, a Poland native and graduate of Poland Seminary High School, returned to her home in Texas after two weeks working to complete the build.

“I don’t think I fully realized how important it was until the inauguration,” said O’Kane. “I was amazed at how many people came to that celebration of the opening of the bridge.”

Upon completion, O’Kane recalled the sight of 150 to 200 villagers as they danced and sang the praises of a bridge that will help the community have better access to essential resources in nearby towns and helps to make navigating the Mwogo River less dangerous.

Alongside a team of members from the United States, Canada and Australia, O’Kane and crew spent two weeks in Rwanda completing the pre-assembly and raising of the towers in 11 days.

The crew communicated for weeks via Zoom calls before the build, going over drawings of the site and building a game plan before their arrival.

Each day started with a briefing to discuss the daily activities, along with the workday hazards that accompany those steps. O’Kane said tasks would be assigned to team members and local aides.

Even through an occasional disagreement, O’Kane said the group of practical strangers kept the goal in mind to make the quick turnaround possible.

After 11-hour days spent on site, the crew would make time to meet again to assess the day’s building and flesh out a strategy for the next morning.

With any construction project, O’Kane said it was vital for them to make adjustments, which there were plenty of throughout the project.

“On the side of the river that I was on, the grade on the hill wasn’t as steep, whereas on the other side it was a lot steeper — which we didn’t get from the photos prior to arrival,” said O’Kane.

This setback meant taking a different route to accomplish the daily tasks on both sides of the bridge.

Looking back, O’Kane also recalled the good, but challenging task of overcoming language barriers to work with the locals who primarily spoke Kinyarwandan.

“We learned some Kinyarwandan phrases. I quickly learned that me saying “Oh yeah” sounds very similar to “Oya,” which means no,” said O’Kane. “So I tried my best to not say “Oh yeah” and say “Yego” instead, which means yes.”

Mostly, she was able to convey messages on how to complete tasks simply by demonstrating — a process she said proved to be more successful at times than explaining verbally.

“The local workers were so intentional in learning the work and would watch what you were doing in order to learn the task. A lot of them could watch you do things once or twice and knew how to do it,” said O’Kane.

“Everybody was very focused on getting the bridge built and finished and so I think that helped on just being able to roll with the punches and get the job done.”

Now a few weeks removed from her trip, O’Kane is still settling back in.

“It was quite the different life we lived there for two weeks, and I got shocked into that, and so it’s been a much more gradual adjustment,” she said. Some customs from the trip proved harder to shake than others.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat rice again without thinking of this project. We ate it almost every meal, and I ended up cooking it to eat with some salmon the first week back home,” O’Kane said.

She thinks of it as a reminder of those brief but impactful two weeks.