I built a road the other day.





I have mentioned Umuganda a few times before. Hands up who remembers what it is...

Every final Saturday of the month the whole village population meets in the market place and is told by the local head what community work they will be undertaking that day. This could be planting trees, cleaning schools, cutting bushes, clearing the road side of weeds etc. So I went along with Max and a couple of other friends to where he works – a small village called Sovu, which is much smaller than Gikongoro where I live.

When the villagers saw us turn up they looked a bit nervous. Well, we didn’t have any machetes or digging tools after all. I mean, were we inspectors? Nervous men and woman shuffled past us as they set to work levelling a grassy, weedy footpath. Then after speaking briefly to the army chief, a set of hoes was presented to us.

And then the villagers broke into big grins. Some doubled over and hooted. My Kinyarwanda was enough to set up the giggles, but then they saw me heave my hoe up above my head and bring it down with a thud on the baked ground in front of me. But I worked at it! I soon had a rhythm! Heave, hover, thud, pull. Heave, hover, thud, pull. Heave, hover, thud, pull. Wipe the brow. Heave, hover, thud, pull.


I do wonder though just how positive our effect was on the creation of that road. I mean there were four of us muzungus getting hot and sweaty, battling with heat and hoes - but whenever I glanced up, I could just see a wall of staring people with huge incredulous grins on their faces watching these strange white people getting down and dirty.


And after a while I really was making a road. The path was being levelled, widened and flattened to allow all the cars to go down it. The fact that there are no cars in Sovu doesn’t matter – Umuganda doesn’t have to be practical, it just needs to involve the community to make sure they are well disciplined and work together. Social cohesion and all that.

It really is interesting, these social cohesion projects though. A couple of months ago Rwanda abolished the death penalty, and rather than the decision be taken from high up above they sent people into every tiny village all over Rwanda, sat people down under a tree or in the market place or at the football pitch and asked their opinion. And the whole village decided together, and told the representative who then went back to the larger town and told the district leader and so on, Yes, ok a form of election – but it was a discussion rather than a straight out vote. It allowed people to properly ask questions – and have them answered rather than just be given a slip of paper and told to tick a box.

So, although I had blisters on my fingers and an aching back for a few days, I’m glad I helped build a road in Rwanda. That’s my contribution to social cohesion – integration of mzungus on every level! I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty...