Trimming Grass with Hoes - The Umuganda Experience

Umuganda is a monthly mandatory day of service for every resident of Rwanda over the age of 18. Seeing as we all fit the requirements, one Saturday every month we all go out into the community and work with them on a designated project. We have experienced two umugandas so far and our third will be this Saturday. Both times, we have worked on digging drainage ditches on the side of the main road by our training center and using the dirt to fill in the holes that washout during the rain storms. The community provides us with the necessary tools: hoes, shovels, and machete-like weed-whacker things. My tool of choice is the hoe; I have tried them all, but have settled on the hoe as a good stress-reliever and a much better upper body workout. The downside – BLISTERS. The machete weed-whacker thing is a lot of fun cause you just swing it back and forth across your body (like a golf club) and it cuts the grass, but I’m really worried that one day I will accidentally let go and cause some serious damage to someone or something, so until I perfect the technique, I’m sticking with the hoe. The shovel is just boring, so I’m not even going to explain why I don’t like it.

            So umuganda round two was the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Thinking that we were going to do a new and exciting project, we were a little disappointed when we were sent back to the same ditches we had dug the previous month to maintain them and continue further down the road to the dairy factory. After successfully hoeing our way down the road and making some high quality ditches, we were sent up to our old ditches to trim the grass with hoes. How do you do that you might ask? Well, it is a technique that requires a light touch and precision or else you will dig up the dirt and make the ditch deeper than it needs to be. So yes, I spent about an hour lightly scraping the ditch with my hoe in order to trim the grass. It was certainly a let down after throwing the hoe up over my head and doing some serious damage when it came down, such a short while before.

            But in all seriousness, umuganda is an inspiring day. Everyone in the community, rich and poor, comes out to work for about four hours one Saturday morning a month. The government offices decide what project each umudugudu will work on so that all of the community needs are met. Again, all people over the age of 18 are required to serve and I have heard that community members will come looking for you if you do not show up. But really, who would want to miss it? You get to spend time socializing with community members and working hard on something that will benefit the whole community. Granted, we haven’t been building schools or houses for the poor like a lot of Rwandans do as projects, but if we didn’t maintain those ditches, our main dirt road would flood and washout, affecting many of the houses in the area. I will definitely continue with umuganda once I get to my site; I believe that it is hugely important for integration and getting to know my fellow community members, but come this Saturday, I sincerely hope I am not digging anymore ditches – my hands need a break.