From Rwanda to Qatar: The Room That Made Me Feel at Home in GU-Q
By Tony Cirhulwire (GU-Q’29)
This story is part of the Desert Hoya Blog, written by GU-Q students about their experiences and life as members of the Georgetown community in Qatar.
When I left Rwanda for Qatar, I recall it with so much excitement, but also a kind of fear I didn’t want to acknowledge. How will I do for the first time away from my family? A new place, new people, new life, leaving everything behind. I kept wondering, How will I make friends? Will I just blend into the background?
Two months before flying out, I had written a letter to myself, one I wasn’t supposed to open until six months later. In it, I wrote a goal that sounded brave, maybe even ridiculously unattainable at the time:
“You will talk to people from over 50 nationalities.”
I had no idea how that would happen. I only knew one person coming to Qatar, a fellow Hoya from Rwanda, which would not help me achieve my goal. And even with him around, the world felt suddenly huge. Everything around us was new.
New campus, new cultures, new expectations, new fears!
And then I found the place that changed everything: the Student Lounge. Or actually… it found me.
At first, the lounge felt loud. Think of it from the perspective of a new student. Walking into a room and finding people laughing at inside jokes I wasn’t part of yet, piano melodies drifting from the music room, billiard balls colliding with each other, and shouts during table tennis matches: this is kind of chaos that feels alive.
One day, after a long class, I stepped inside. “What makes this place so special?” I wondered. I wasn’t expecting anything dramatic. I just wanted to visit somewhere that didn’t feel like my room in the dorms.
But that tiny step changed my whole first-year experience.
Someone welcomed me. Someone asked where I was from. Someone pulled me into a game. Someone laughed at my terrible billiard shots. And suddenly, the room that once felt intimidating became my favorite place on campus.
When GU-Q deadlines made me question my life choices as an inexperienced first-year student, how did the lounge step in for support? For half an hour after class, it gave me something I didn’t know I needed: breathing room.
It has become my haven.
Not quiet, never quiet, but safe.
Where stress fades for a moment. Where laughter drowns out worry. Where everyone, no matter their background, somehow fits in.
Piano. Movies. Video games. And where conversations start with a simple “Hey, Tony, let’s try this!”
These moments make the impossible feel reachable. Every day, before I left, I’d think:
That’s one more nationality. Then another. And another.
Without realizing it, I have been living out the goal I had written in that letter.
Four months later…
Recently, when I finally opened the letter, I smiled at the version of me who wrote it: scared, hopeful, unsure if he’d ever find his people.
I laughed because the lounge didn’t help me reach the goal; it made it feel natural.
I didn’t force myself to meet “50 nationalities.” I am pursuing it while having a great time, losing at the billiard table, sharing snacks, talking about home, and figuring out who I am in this new place.
Friendship wasn’t something I chased.
It was something that happened while I was simply going about my life in the Student Lounge. It was built slowly through small interactions and tiny moments that seem insignificant until you look back and realize: This is where I found my people.
As a first-year student, the lounge was beyond just a room; it was the first place where GU-Q began to feel like home, with its layers of accents, stories, and traditions from around the world. What is diversity at GUQ? I always wondered, but now understand. It’s something you live, daily, in the most ordinary and joyful ways.
So yes, my “50 nationalities” goal sounded impossible at first.
But GU-Q has a way of turning impossible things into stories you will tell for the rest of your life.
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