Umuganda

Something I love about Rwandan culture is Umuganda. Umuganda is a once month mandatory community service in place of taxes. Even though it is mandatory most people skip it. So obviously it is not enforced very well and the people who do show up to participate are more there because they want to help than any other reason, but the police are there and they are supposed to arrest those who refuse to help (except in the cities where it is enforced and that is how they are able to keep them really clean). Living in Pittsburgh, for a long time I volunteered with an organization called the L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry. L.I.V.I.N.G. is an acronym that I have heard many times, but can never remember what it means. What they do is care for the homeless. They are located in Pittsburgh’s North side and do stuff like provide food, clothes, job opportunities and more importantly in my opinion spiritual guidance and prayer. These guys depend on donations for their salaries and need a lot more help than I do because they don’t have a government that supports them. Instead they need to depend on God to provide for them and while I can live comfortably making under $3000 in a year they live in America where the necessities are more in both cost and quantity. I feel like they are braver than I am because not knowing when you are getting a paycheck is scary. I grew to know everyone who works for the L.I.V.I.N.G. really well after volunteering for them so long and taking every opportunity I had to help them. One of the founders, Mike, who I got to know very well through a discipleship group my senior year, left last year to try to further his education which he told me only one year before that he hated school. I wish I could call him and see how he is doing. His leaving opened up a position for one of my best friends, Jenna, to be the Volunteer Coordinator and I know she is doing a great job. When I was leaving for Rwanda she gave me a deck of cards with their logo on it and a t-shirt that I regrettably left at the Holiday Inn in Philadelphia when I was trying to make my luggage lighter to avoid any kind of hassle when I left the US.

I got involved in the L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry because my friends were involved with them and volunteering with your friends is fun. They just finished a project last year that they were working on for about four years. It is a halfway house for the homeless. They bought a condemned house and completely rebuilt it using mostly donations and volunteers. When I am doing umuganda I feel like the same way that I did when I was working on that house. The biggest difference is that there isn’t free pizza after you finish working. Since finishing this house they bought the house next door and are making the North Side a better community a little bit at a time. There are a few other organizations in Pittsburgh North Side that do similar work and the difference that they are making is incredible. I would hate to see Pittsburgh without these organizations because I know those people would be completely neglected otherwise.

The first umuganda that I went to at my site I wanted to get stuff done at my school. I saw some work that needed doing so I showed up to that with a plan. First thing was to try to get the basketball court playable. Devin came with me and we took my new hoe that I had just bought because I was planning on gardening, and since then we have with success with carrots and cilantro, but all of the tomatoes died. I organized the students to clear out all the weeds growing on the dirt playing surface. Then we put a hoop on the back board that was missing one. I let one of the students go crazy taking pictures with my camera and I think I already put some of them up here. After that we played some four on four. It was very fulfilling and I felt like I was doing some for real development work, although since then the weeds have all grown back and it is once again unplayable.

The next umuganda I returned to the school where I walked around and helped the students in their normal chores like piling wood and sorting beans. I spent most of my time talking to students who were trying to improve their English. I don’t mind this at all and I even enjoy it most of the time, but it is also my everyday so umuganda just felt like more teaching other than a little bit of bean tossing.

The next two months I skipped umuganda unintentionally but also without remorse. So far both of the umugandas that I had participated in had been for nothing. I didn’t see why I was going to these things if it was going to be the same as every day or be undone in in two months. This of course is not the right attitude to have. I know that every minute I spend with these students could have an impact on them. I also know that nothing lasts forever and no matter what I am doing for umuganda it will eventually return to its original state unless it is maintained. My entire service might result in no change in anything or anyone other than myself, but that wouldn’t make it worthless.

Last month I went to the first umuganda that I have been to that was for the community that I live in instead of at the school. The goal was to carry rocks that were being quarried out of the side of the mountain three miles up hill so they could be used to build a poor family a house. I showed up prepared to work at 8 AM. I brought my empty backpack so I would have something to put the rocks in which is very different than the normal way of carrying the rocks on your head. I made my way to the village center and started asking where umuganda was. The kept telling me I was in the right place and it would start soon. I passed the time by greeting everyone who was out there and offered water to a lot of people. Some of the men I offered water to would tell me no because they wanted ikigage (sorghum beer –the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted, I tell people that it makes me sick which it hasn’t done but I am confident that it would because I do not trust their home brewing). I can’t help but think that they must like to get the party started early if they already want something alcoholic. They invited me to go get drunk with them and after carefully considering their offer I decided that it wasn’t worth risking the reputation that I had built up by drinking at nine in the morning. One of them told me that ikigage is for the morning and water is for the evening.

After finishing my water at 9:30 I decided to return home and refill. I told the housekeeper when she asked me about umuganda that they weren’t doing anything, but that I was going back out anyways. On my way back out a girl whose name I didn’t really catch, but didn’t correct me when I started calling her Ashanti, asked me where I was going and when I told her umuganda. She let me know that I was going the wrong way. Unlike everyone I was hanging out with in the village center Ashanti was on her way to do her civic duty. I walked with her over to the quarry, stopping along the way to give someone who was digging a ditch a drink. He turned out to be my neighbor that is only home on the weekends and hadn’t met yet. When I started loading up my backpack with rocks everyone started laughing after the first rock, then after the second they were seemed impressed, then after the third rock they seemed shocked, when I reached for a fourth rock they shouted at me to stop. I decided they were right and I didn’t need to take that fourth one, but I did carry a small one in my hands. Each of the rocks that I took I wanna guess weighed between ten and twenty pounds and the one in my hands was about five. Ashanti took one that was probably about seven pounds. We walked up the mountain together greeting everyone we came upon. When we reached our destination the people who had already finished carrying rocks up were resting and some of them laughed at me because they thought I had only brought up the one small rock in my hand. I tossed that one on the pile and then removed my bag and unloaded it to gasps and cheers. Everyone was thanking me and my reply was the same to all of them, “Ntakibazo, nkunda gufasha.” – no problem I like to help.

I made my way back down the mountain with Magenzi the village boss and Stan the grounds keeper at the health center. They are the kind of people that I want to be. These guys are running the show trying to develop the community. They both thanked me for helping and I thanked them as well for their organizing.

That night there was another guy who started making fun of me for only carrying up a small rock to which I became defensive about and told him about the rocks I had in my bag. I also visited my neighbor later who saw me loading the rocks into my bag. She told me how impressed she was and that made me feel good. It feels good to be recognized for helping, but I don’t need recognition so for all of the other people who thought I only carried up one small rock I am not going to argue with you if you want to laugh at me, but come on man, I bet I carried up more than you did.

One of the conversations I had that morning was with a guy who asked if they did umuganda in America. The obvious answer is no because what we do is different. In America we are required to pay taxes and then we have people whose full time job is to do what they do for umuganda. He also asked me about the machines and told me that they don’t have any in Rwanda. I proved him wrong immediately by pointing to a motorcycle and a truck transporting the newest shipment of tea and asked him what those were, but he isn’t all wrong. America has machinery that unless you are trained to use it you really shouldn’t touch it so that wouldn’t be a good idea for umuganda. Americans do umuganda though. The L.I.V.I.N.G. Ministry does umuganda in a very similar fashion to Rwanda. They don’t have the best tools or materials, but they have people donating their day off to work to improve the community.

The Gorilla Naming Ceremony from in the crowd.

My buddy Jonathan and I at the school’s African Child Ceremony.

Children dressed in gorilla costumes. Still haven’t seen any real ones though.

Me in my gorilla pose.

I am Weak

Not everyone is going to want to read this one. It is a little gross.

I have had a great time in Africa when I have gotten together with friends that I have made within Peace Corps. Peace Corps volunteers are a great group of people. One thing that we can all ask each other is why are you doing this? Everyone has a different reason to that question, but they are usually fairly similar too. I like hearing why others joined Peace Corps. I joined because I wanted to do something exciting, I didn’t want to work in an office, I don’t care about having a career, and I love helping people.

Making friends has never been too hard for me and I have made a lot of friends in my village (which is the one thing the Peace Corps administration wants us to work on the most, it is important that I teach but integration is top priority). One of my friends told me that I am the ‘star of the hood’ because everyone knows me. This was in response to another friend asking me if I could find him a job in Kigali in agriculture. I asked him how I would do that and he replied with, “you’re famous.” I wish I could help him but I don’t know anyone in agriculture or even ever seen anyone on a tractor here. I really like my friends in Mulindi, but I also love my American friends in the rest of Rwanda that I get to see a lot less often than the ones in Mulindi.

Recently every time I get together with other volunteers I become weak. Last time I was brought to them when I fell off of my bike was badly injured. When I was recovering I really should have spent time alone, but I forced myself to be social.

Yesterday I returned from a weekend in Gisenyi where I enticed to come out by the promise of pizza, beer, the beach and friends. All of these promises were fulfilled. Leading up to the weekend I was deemed one of the four horsemen by Steve. Sera decided which of the horsemen we each were and there is a good reason behind each one. Pat is pestilence because he is always intoxicated, I am famine because I have lost a hundred pounds, Steve is war because he is always fighting everyone and Sera is death because she is better than the rest of us and trumps them all with the result of the suffering that rest of us cause. I had a hard month in May so I was looking forward to a good time at the beach with a lot a great friends.

I was really enjoying myself until Saturday evening when we were hanging out by the lake and a fever set in after dipping my feet in the water. I had ordered food that I no longer had interest in eating and the others kept trying to buy me another beer when I hadn’t even finished a third of the one that I had been nursing for over an hour. Hope gave me her fleece to wear after talking about how the bar didn’t give me my change and I revealed how cold I was. After that I got the key to the room from Sera and called it an early night at 9pm by walking the two miles back to the hotel by myself freezing. I arrived at the hotel and climbed into bed after sitting on the toilet for a half hour.

I couldn’t sleep because I was too hot under the covers and too cold without them. About an hour later Hope and Hannah brought Steve back because he had literally drank himself under the table. They put him in the bedroom with me and grabbed me some water. Before Steve fell asleep I called him a mess and he responded graciously with thank you. I couldn’t drink the water they gave me because I felt nauseous and I didn’t want to cause myself to vomit also they used iodine to clean it and I hate that taste. After lying there for a while longer, not too aware, before all of the others returned, Steve peed in the corner of the room even though the bathroom was only twenty feet away. I hope I am not violating his privacy by posting this on the internet, but I’m sure he’ll let me know if I am. This is just too funny not to include in this story.

I felt like I had been lying awake for a long time so when I heard voices in the common room I assumed that it must be morning. Turns out it was still the middle of the night and they had just gotten back from the night that I missed out on. Had I known this I would have just stayed in bed and suffered the rest of the night, but it was good for me to join them. I walked out to a series of symptom related questions and the first one that I told them was that I didn’t sleep at all last night. No one corrected me that it was still night but based on their responses I was able to figure it out. When I sat down I was comforted by all of these great women that before this only my mother has ever comforted me like this (and my buddy Chris’ mother the one time I got sick at his house). They all had medicine to give me. Kayla gave me pain killers, Kim gave me nausea medication, Sera gave me water and another stomach settler, and Genevieve gave me a eucalyptus pad. I took some of the painkillers and put on the eucalyptus pad which together I think induced the vomiting that followed. I threw up more with more force than any time I could remember. If I had been entered into a contest of longest distance for projectile vomiting I would have won first prize because this stuff flew twenty feet at a horizontal at a rate of seventy miles per hour. When it started I tried to cover my mouth with my hand and it was like when you put your thumb over a hose and the water sprays in all directions all over myself and everyone who was there caring for me. I was able to make it to bathroom before I got any more on anyone else to vomit all over everything in there. I went back into the common room and swallowed another handful of pills. Everyone did their part cleaning up after me and Jonathan gave me a clean pair of shorts to put on. Everyone started going to bed now, but I still wasn’t tired. Sera put on a movie for me and I watched it for a while before the drugs finally knocked me out.

The next morning all I had for breakfast was half a roll and yet I spent more time in the bathroom than out of it. I finally called the doctor and told him all about what I had been going through while sitting on a toilet that was missing the seat (a step up from the hole in the ground that I use at my house). He told me that I needed to drink a lot of water because I was losing it all to the diarrhea. After everyone finished breakfast I caught the bus back home with Sera. She gave me another water and more medicine that put me to sleep for a lot of the ride. We then made it to Kigali where I would go north to Mulindi and she would go south to Nyanza.

I made it to Mulindi around seven thirty and went to my neighbor’s house because a week before I promised I would come and let them use my camera, but I only stayed long enough to finish the tonic water they gave me and told him that I needed to go home because I was really tired.

Today I am taking the day off from work to try and recover. The doctor has me taking really strong diarrhea medication and is calling me periodically to check on me. Since I am on such strong stuff I feel like I can go ahead and eat something so I ate a whole box of Special K with chocolate pieces in it that my mom sent me. Now I just have to worry about throwing it back up.

Being put into these situations of where I can’t be myself because I’m injured or sick are humbling. My friends kept saying that they wished I wasn’t sick and even though I felt really terrible I was extremely apologetic. I felt awful that my feeling terrible was making others feel bad. When I am this way I want to be alone so I don’t concern others. I love to help others, not the other way around. Although there are times when I desperately need it I don’t want others to help me. I don’t want others to help me because I don’t to be seen when I am weak. I don’t want to be seen when I am weak because I don’t want to be weak. This is my struggle. I have so much pride. God keeps putting me through these humbling situations so that I will be humbled. I hate being humbled, but I need to be humbled. I am weak.

I am very grateful to everyone who was there this weekend and took care of me. I have developed a bond with the other volunteers that is unlike any connection I have made with any other group I have ever been a part of. We are sharing such a hard and special experience. I have been able to be completely open and vulnerable with more of them than I have been able to be anywhere else. The reason they are were so prepared to take care of me like that is that they had ALL gone through the same thing already. Maybe they didn’t vomit on their friends, but their symptoms might have been worse and they had to deal with it on their own. Our training had a freshman year feel to it and once we had all gotten the chance to know each other we started working separately, but in close contact. I love them all and each time I get to see them I am reminded of why. I really hope that I didn’t contaminate the rest of them with whatever I have.