You can catch me on the 5:00 news

It’s indescribable, the Rwandan history and its ink-stain on the lives of these people. At the Rwandan’s core, they are survivors. They are battlers. The Spanish verb for “to survive” sort of means literally “live OVER” and that’s what they have done is live OVER years of pain and suffering and live THROUGH. It’s only mentioned briefly when it’s absolutely necessary, and no muzungu (white person) is stupid enough to be the one to bring it up. But it’s still very much so here, and it’s still very much a part of every day life. As, it should be.

Every day I stare into the obstacles preventing our office from securing perpetrator convictions and get so frustrated by the poorly written laws, the loopholes the perpetrators take advantage of, the lack of resources of the doctors who write the medical reports, etc. But, in fact, all things considered, it is simply miraculous that the country has anything organized, much less written laws or functioning courts, or a community spirit.

This morning, Carmen and I woke up at 6:30 am and walked along the deep red Earth (as Ann Voskamp called it) to the office. We were expected to participate in building a house as part of Rwanda’s Umanganda.

The last Saturday of every month, every single Rwandan is required to participate in community service. From 8 am until noon, no store or business is open, the roads are closed, cars must have an official government permit to be on the road and is required to explain to officers where the car is headed and why. If you do not come out from your house to participate in Umanganda, you risk getting fined. You’re required to work in your own neighborhood where you live doing something toward the development of the country- planting, watering, cleaning trash, sweeping, etc. Isn’t this the most incredible thing you’ve ever heard?

So IJM partners with other non-profits to do work outside of Kigali city in the poorer communities. I read that IJM was planning to send the director of administration for the day, and I invited myself. Jean Pierre was like, “you want to… go?” Carmen and I were like, “YES! Absolutely!” Shocked, as a grin started to grow on his face, he said, “Okay, be here at 7:15.”

In a typical itinerary in Africa, we didn’t build a house. We didn’t even almost maybe build a house. But we did do umanganda.

We joined about 1,000-1,500 Rwandans in what was chosen to be the “national project” for the day. The President attended, worked a bit and then gave a speech followed by singing of some Rwandan national songs. We first arrived to a huge mass of people, each carrying a tool of some sort. From IJM, each of us had a hoe. And not like a wimpy garden hoe you’d see in the US, a hoe that is serious.

We were corralled over to the women’s line where we were patted down, our bags inspected and then we were motioned over to a long line about 5 or 5 football fields long of people hacking away at the earth with whatever tool they brought. Along this dirt road of deep red, Rwandans were standing hacking away at an edge of dirt about 3 feet tall to a line floating above the ground pulled with string. We joined at the end of the line and were expected to begin. For the first minute or so, I just watched the man next to me. He lifted the hoe high in the air with both hands, and bring it down into the dirt and then just rip back as huge chunks collapsed and fell onto the lower section of dirt. Okay, I got this. So I did what I thought was the exact same thing, and not the smallest pebble of dirt even thought about moving. Hmph. So I did it again. Naturally, the guy next to me started laughing. He tried to teach me how, but I was simply incapable of investing 1/8 of the strength that he had. So I raked the dirt with the hoe instead. This, I could handle. About ten minutes later, but what felt like thirty, my hands were beginning to hurt, it suddenly felt like 100 degrees outside and it was time to do that whole hacking-away-at-the-rock-hard-dirt routine again. Not five minutes later did Carmen and I have an enormous crowd of onlookers, laughing, whispering about how pathetic muzungus are at doing absolutely any hard work. It was a scene.

The crowd of interested parties was boldly talking about us. Carmen and I were laughing at our own inability and pathetic-ness right along with them. I know how ridiculous we must have looked. It is worth mentioning that in five hours we maybe saw ten other white people, amongst a crowd of over one thousand. Because this was the national service project for the day, the mayors of each district of Kigali, members of Parliament, city officials, etc were there working too. Jean Pierre is the one who attends all the government meetings and deals with those sorts of things, so he introduced us to Mayors, members of Parliament all day. The Vice Mayor of Kigali, a very nice woman, came over to “teach us” how to do it properly. Five minutes later, JP was informing us that we were on camera. Sure enough, there was a huge camera held by a man with his “PRESS” tag and the Kigali major news network. They asked JP some questions about who we were and why we attended Umuganda. There we are, learning how to hack away at the Earth with the Vice Mayor of KIgali, barely managing to move any dirt at all, next to people on both sides just destroying it, with a HUGE laughing crowd behind us and a headline along the lines of “Expats join in at Umuganda.”

I’m not sure I was able to accurately describe this scene for you, but I hope you got a good laugh out of it. When we finally accepted that we were being of absolute no use to the project, our hoes got traded to others to work while we were allowed to rest. About every ten minutes, a member of the Rwandan national police or military official would corral those not working and move them to an area where they could be working. Military men and police had tools and spent their own share of time at work, too.

Apparently, the were pushing back the dirt and leveling more space for the road in order to build a gutter so that during rainy season, the water would drain appropriately. This will make a huge difference in that community for the road, but also because the rain water will drain into a well that can be used for drinking water in the well. I thought about all the non-profits boasting bringing water to African villages and laughed out loud and me, shamefully attempting to BE the person helping bring water to an African village, so unsuccessfully.

After about two hours of this nonsense, we all walked over to a large field and gathered to hear the President’s speech and his gratitude for Kigali’s people helping to develop the country. On our way back to the car, we encountered another news crew, a Japanese network. This time JP took over the interview and I’m just standing next to him, covered in dirt and awkward. So in theory, I will also be on Japanese news tonight!  

It’s pure genius, if you really think about it. Bring everyone together, do something good for your country, renew your spirit of patriotism, improve the place where you live. Free labor! And the irony of this monthly event—the community’s eagerness to dig this gutter for strangers in juxtaposition with such brutality against humanity just ten years ago—was puzzling to me. Perhaps this is how they’ve rebuilt, how they’ve found reconciliation. This is a quandary I cannot answer, but I was thrilled to participate and observe something so remarkable.

So, Los Angeles, all 4 million of ya, Umuganda?

Atlanta, umuganda?

I’m thinking, Saturday, July 27.

You will have to close your business for those four hours, no cars allowed to go anywhere. Let’s start small, nothing intense like forming a gutter by manual labor, you can just start by picking up trash in your neighborhood.

Oh, and you’ll be fined if you don’t attend.

See you there!