Umuganda

Unable last week to join a billion other people in goggling at the wedding of an English couple (Prince William and his missus) we have never met, we decided instead that it was a good opportunity to experience umuganda. This is a form of community service initiated as a nation building exercise in 2006, which is supposed to be compulsory for all Rwandans between the ages of 18 and 60, and takes place between 8 and 11 o'clock on the last Saturday of each month. It normally involves activities like weeding, hoeing or cutting but can also entail road building, house construction for the needy or tree planting. Our friend Theophile arranged to meet us near the genocide memorial in downtown Kibungo. Where are your tools he asked as we arrived fashionably late at the work site, a large field next to the memorial?

The umuganda field and participants

The group's task was to cut the grass by hand. Unfortunately I'm not in the habit of carrying long, sharp implements around with me and probably subconsciously believed there would be some spare tools kicking about just as there are at tree planting back in Oz. However, people out-numbered machetes by a wide margin and there was a large number of folk milling around with nothing to do. Two women sat under a tree and checked their appearance. Some older men rested against an embankment and asked what we were doing there. Who could blame the umuganders for not bring their own machetes which might easily disappear into the mix never to be seen again! All this looked promising for my dicky back but I wasn't going to get away with it that easily and was soon offered a machete by someone wanting a break. My action was now under scrutiny. It is de rigueur to put your hand behind your back while carrying out the wide-arc swinging movement. Rule one is to make sure that there is no one standing close by especially when gross amateurs are around. It occurred to me that a few lovely Rwandan cows would make a better job of the field than us but was told by the umuganda coordinator, who turned up in his motor scooter, that it would be disrespectful to the dead in the fenced off graveyard.

Jacket spoiled this guy's action

Rwandan political jurisdictions are divided into provinces, districts, sectors, cells and the umudugudu (or 'village'). The coordinator visits each nearby village on umuganda day to see how things are getting on but the umudugudu leader is responsible for the register of attendance and to make sure that everyone is turning up. Work stopped shortly after 9.30 for a lecture from the leader about what he considered was a poor turnout and asked if this meant that Rwandans didn't love their country. The rebuke was met with total silence from the crowd and was then followed by speeches from other community leaders about ways of correcting recent bad behaviour. For example in the umudugudu during genocide memorial week a stepmother had locked her 8-year-old stepson in the house for four days without food or water. Other stories included a bar that was selling banana beer 24 hours a day when it was only allowed to sell it from 2 to 10 pm. This behaviour had to stop. We actually passed the culprit bar returning from a walk in the valley the next day and wondered how hard it would be for the police to come round and close the place if there was such a problem.

Some umuganders resting

One cool guy with a grass stalk in his mouth was made to stand up and recant because during memorial week he didn't want to go to a ceremony in town but preferred to stay put. One of the leaders accused him of not respecting authority to which he responded that he was being persecuted. The umudugudu leader then recounted an episode where a thief had broken into a house to discover that the owner was inside. There was a fight in which the house owner was able to subdue the thief and call the police.

Umudugudu leader addressing the crowd

As a result of all these incidents the umudugudu council had decided to institute a system of night guards to supervise village behaviour and its security. Each household would pay 500 francs per month (less than a 1$US) for the salary of up to 15 guards to patrol the village.

Police chief speaks

I asked Theo why there were so few female umuganders and he said I should ask the meeting so I plucked up courage and did so in my best Kinyarwanda. The leader smiled and said that he would take it on notice and make sure that there were more women next time should I decide to come back. I immediately regretted asking the question as the women were probably flat out at home preparing the men's lunches!

Theo and Lucien, the umuganda coordinator

The leader also stated that non-attendees would be reported and fined 500 francs (maybe less than a dollar but nearly a day's pay for some people). Feeling even more guilty I thought a 'ni menshi' was in order. ('It's too much' is one of the first things that volunteers are taught in Kinyarwanda in order to learn how to bargain and it has a kind of joke status). There was a laugh but the leader stated there needed to be a stiff fine so that recalcitrants would see the error of their ways and learn to do their civic duty.

Stella showing her silky cutting skills

I couldn't help but feel overall that the grass cutting exercise was a bit of tokenism but that the meeting afterwards appeared to serve a useful purpose in managing wrongdoing. I did, however, feel uncomfortable at the social control aspect of dealing with the guy who didn't want to do what he was told which was reminiscent of scenes in societies much less democratic than Rwanda.