Community-based research in technical communication is well suited to supporting empowerment and developing contextualized understandings, but this research is messy. Presenting fieldwork examples from an interdisciplinary technical communication/medical anthropology study in Rwanda, this article conveys challenges that the authors encountered during fieldwork and their efforts to turn the messy constraints of community-based research into openings. Explicitly considering values and validity provided a strategy for our efforts to democratically share power, maximize rigor, and navigate uncertainty.