Today something incredible happened in Gihara, but to describe it I have to explain umuganda. To be honest, I’m surprised umuganda hasn’t come up earlier. My Kinyarwanda-English dictionary defines umuganda as simply “community work,” but Umuganda (capital U) is a practice that exemplifies Rwandan development rhetoric in action like nothing else I’ve seen. On the last Saturday of every month, shops and local businesses close down all over the country and everyone turns out en masse for community service. People do whatever needs to be done, from clearing roads and sweeping out gutters to weeding gardens and repainting buildings. Their compensation? The knowledge that they’re making their country more beautiful. It isn’t bottom-up development in the purest sense, but it is a policy that seems to have fostered a national culture of volunteerism that I find inspiring.
Though no one in Gihara really expects me to, I do my best to participate in umuganda. It’s sort of like working out or doing chores. I always feel better when I’ve done it, but I don’t really look forward to it and it never seems to get easier. People always think it’s hilarious that the muzungu wants to join in. It doesn’t help that I’m not particularly adept at doing “basic” tasks like cutting weeds with a machete. Last umuganda I got a blister on my hand from wielding a hoe with too much enthusiasm, effectively confirming everyone’s suspicions that I’m too delicate to do any real work. So you can imagine my consternation when I went out walking this morning on a day that was decidedly not the last Saturday of the month and got asked by every other person I met, for the first time, “Where are you going? Aren’t you doing umuganda?” After the tenth or eleventh person to question me I had to go back to the town center to investigate.
As it turned out, today was declared an extra day of umuganda for a special community project: the planting of dozens of trees all over the sector. All of my neighbors came out with hoes and shovels and ministry people distributed saplings from the back of a pickup truck. Then they went from one end of Gihara to the other together, alternately digging holes and planting. Soon I was swept up in the crowd. Someone handed me a sapling and a shovel. I’ve never volunteered to plant trees before in my life, but I think I’m going to start as soon as I get back to the States. It was exhilarating and surprisingly addictive, especially in a place as starved for shade as Gihara.
When all the trees were planted we convened at my school for a big celebration that included live music and traditional dancing and, of course, a lot of speeches by local officials. It was a hot, sticky, breezeless day and I was tired and covered in dirt but nonetheless, I was happy to be there. They say people join Peace Corps to change the world, but it felt good just to do my part alongside everyone else. I think that’s what bottom-up development probably feels like: everyone gets to plant a tree.
This makes me so incredibly happy to hear about!!! I love planting trees (or shrubs, or anything really), and we should absolutely do it when you're back :)
ReplyDeleteGood morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Rwanda? I understand perfectly that you think that your e-mail is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Rwanda in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely