Umuganda

You can judge a society by how they treat those in need. Today was the first umuganda I have experienced in Rwanda. Umuganda is a community service day that happens once a month across Rwanda. This is a day where your community comes together to help complete a project that’s needed in the village (rebuilding someone’s house, fixing a road, helping at a school). These are normally projects that need extra man power. My village built an entire house in only 3 Umuganda days.

This morning we woke up and walked to our Kinyarwanda teachers house. He took us to the site for this week since

none of us understood the Kinyarwanda message given by megaphone around the village. We showed up to a ditch we had jumped over yesterday on the way to the Peace Corps Hub. Today we will build a bridge here.

Being the only Umuzungus (white foreigners) we were immediately stared at (welcome to my life for the next 2 years). We waited until others showed us what to do. Since we are also a group of all girls, they laughed when we told them we wanted to help, but eventually gave us the tools. Through-out the 3 hours of Umuganda, I would say we didn’t help that much, but we got to meet many people from our village who are happy to listen to our very limited Kinyarwanda skills. I found that today, was not just about making a bridge, it was a time for the entire community to catch up with each other. Most Rwandans in Rwamagana work very long hours and sometimes only get Sunday off. On Umuganda, everything is closed that morning, and everyone gets to see the Chief of the Village and to talk with their friends and neighbors. By the end of the 3 hours, there was 2-3 people working on this bridge, everyone else was socializing.

Imagine living in a society that values their community so much that each month they take time out of their lives to do something to make it better. Although there were not the 1,000 Rwandans that live in our village at Umuganda today, but there were over 100 people there eager to help in any way that they could. It was an amazing display of collectivism and caring through-out the community. The bridge was complete when we left and we met some new friends along the way. I can wait to participate in this community every month.