Umuganda: Rwandan Community Holiday with a Couple of Mzungus by Evan Mattson
On Saturday, October 26th, Ian and I found ourselves walking down the road from the Monastery. In typical Rwandan fashion, we had been told just minutes before walking down that we would spend the next three hours helping the surrounding community in digging a ditch for the national holiday, Umuganda. From 8:00 a.m. until noon on the last Saturday of every month, communities across Rwanda come together for Umuganda. Umuganda, translated from Kinyarwanda to English, is “coming together in common purpose to achieve an outcome.” During Umuganda, transportation is limited, and most people are absent from the streets working on a community project.
The monthly community service program was introduced after the 1994 Genocide against the Tusti’s as one of the government’s Home-Grown Solutions to rebuild the country.[1] According to the Rwanda Governance Board Impact Assessment of Umuganda 2007-2016, about 90% of Rwandans take part in the day, and it has an estimated valuation of 127 million dollars. Some of the successful projects at a larger scale have been building of schools, medical centers, and hydroelectric plants. Around 61.9 percent of the total costs of building classrooms for students in Rwanda were covered through Umuganda. However smaller, but equally as important projects are the construction of houses for vulnerable people, and the project we were working on in Mbazi: digging a very long ditch and filling in potholes on the road.
The ditch was recently filled with soil and because of the runoff from the massive rainstorms that take place during the rainy season in Rwanda. The roads were also full of deep potholes, causing problems for motorcycles, bicycles, and cars. As someone who had ridden in a car and on a motor taxi, I was amazed that we didn’t get stuck every time when driving to school. So, for the next few hours, around 100 community members, men, women, and children gathered to dig a ditch. We used draw hoes and a few rusty, withered-down spade shovels. Some also balanced old concrete bags on their head full of bricks, bringing them to fill potholes and build up the roads so water would run off to the ditches.
Umuganda was an experience I will never forget, because being seen as “Umuzungu,” a rich, white man in rural Rwanda is quite the spectacle for the locals. Ian and I often turned around to photographs and videos being taken of us, or with us. Rwandans of all ages turn to see Ian and I, the mzungus, often shouting it so others would come and see. I remember being asked several times if I had ever used a hoe or shovel, which I will admit I was rusty, but yes, I grew up digging the ditch around our home every summer from the hefty dump of sand from the snowplows.
One of the brothers said to me that if there was a sport in digging, Rwandans would be first. I agreed quite eagerly, as I took a break from profusely sweating while the locals continued to dig away. I was so terrible compared to the Rwandans, that eventually I was replaced by another local. I of course blamed the tool I was using, and then we laughed about my lackluster performance. I probably came off as exactly what was expected of an Umuzungu trying to dig a ditch.
I really enjoyed the experience of seeing many people from the community, talking and working together. Umuganda doesn’t only promote important values of community and stewardship, but it puts them into action – something that is not always easy. Umuganda has also become centered more around cleaning up the environment. Rwanda is known for being the cleanest country in Africa, banning plastic bags and closing streets for cars on the first and third Sundays of every month. I found myself thinking about what we could do in Minnesota as our unique, individual communities. I know public works cannot keep up with everything, and sometimes you just need a few hours to knock something out. I am thinking about installing a neighbor’s fence around their house, putting up a new porch, filling in those dang potholes with asphalt, cleaning the town after the 4th of July, painting someone’s house or downtown business, and so on. I could see some communities finding this to be successful at the precinct level with strong community leaders organizing the event.
Umuganda was a wonderful experience – action-oriented community thinking, sprinkled with a couple of mzungus for this time in October. I look forward to the future ones I partake in, as it helps me learn more about Rwandan culture and gives me ideas of what to work on when I get back in Minnesota.
[1] Umuganda is not a new concept in Rwanda. The origins are in the pre-colonial era (before the 1890s) as Rwandan families would come together in to help other families in need. However, the colonizers of Germany and Belgium used Umuganda for forced labor at plantations, and before the genocide, it turned into an opportunity for spreading propaganda that ultimately led to the mass mobilization of the genocide.