Umuganda

Yesterday (Wednesday) was Umuganda for our Cell. Umuganda is a 1/2 day set aside for community projects. EVERYONE is required to participate. The national umuganda is the last Saturday of each month from 8am-11am. Our Cell has a umuganda each Wednesday morning. I found this out as we drove to meet the Cell Leader, She was in the middle of organizing the villages (smaller groups of families) into this weeks project. As we rounded the corner of a "cow path" in our Land Cruiser, I saw about 300 people cultivating and planting. It was amazing display of community action! Apparently the field was chosen to be a "shared" field and everyone will benefit from the cassava that they planted. Cassava is a white root that Rwandans use for all kinds of food. I can't stand the taste! Apparently their is little or no nutritional value in cassava and yet it is so easy to grow that everyone uses it.

As we walked around through the muddy fields I waved and greeted everyone. I even held a baby for a brief moment. It almost feels like we are politicians shaking hands and kissing babies. Part of what we are doing is building trust with our neighbors and it is important for them to see us as their neighbors.

We waited until the project was over and were hoping to meet with the 20 women that would start sewing on Monday. What I realized was that there was a lot more happening in the official business than I knew. Speaker after speaker stood in the middle of the crowd and shared information. This was their "news" time. One primary school teacher talked about the upcoming election, the other three speakers also spent time addressing the crowds.

Finally we met with our 20 women....well that was suppose to be the group. But apparently some of the men were also interested in some help. The men would like carpentry training and work. So after an hour of talking we told everyone that sewing would start on Monday and carpentry would be something that we would look at to offer the men.

We hopped in our Land Cruiser and I looked into the back and 12 people had also climbed in with us. We stuck it into four wheel drive and made our way back up the muddy path to the gravel road. It took 3 hours but it was a good meeting and a good community building event.