Umuganda Day

In Rwanda, every last Saturday of the month is Umuganda day. It's a compulsory community volunteer scheme where every Rwanda citizen has to undertake community work such as helping to harvest vegetables, cultivating land or building infrastructure. We managed to persuade Hyacinthe and Paci from RVCP to take us along to a local community where we could take part, and this resulted in sunburn, possible jiggle worm infection and mud EVERYWHERE.

Using my long-forgotten netball skills to volley lumps of wet mud onto the 'scaffold'

Paci, Hyacinthe, Me, Miri

Paci and Miri

In true African style, I think we hindered rather than helped the work because everyone would just stop and watch us work. (Great example in the above photo). I think we definitely made everyone's day when we were carrying the bricks, I have genuinely never carried something so heavy in my life, and have never been laughed at so much in my life when trying to pick them up.

The community turn-out to help build this house was actually incredible. It was so inspiring to see people of all ages come out to lend a hand (and in some cases, feet) and use their individual expertise to contribute skills. The men actually constructing the house were local construction engineers and house designers, and so the whole project was well-thought out and we knew that the house was properly designed and built. People divided up their labour, which meant every member of the community could be involved. I was surprised at the amount of children who came to help, since Umuganda is only compulsory for those over the age of 18. However the community was really keen to get stuck in and throw some mud about for a few hours on a cloudy Saturday.

Speaking of a cloudy Saturday, I ended up getting quite sunburnt. I now have what is known as a Doxy Nose (super sunburnt nose as a result of photo-sensitivity caused by my malaria medication. Great).
I really am going to have to get rid of the fringe at some point if I want an evenly tanned face… As for the jiggle-worms, they're little parasites living in the mud which bury into the skin, which Libby is convinced she has after stomping in the mud. They have to be dug out of the foot which is gross, more updates on this later. 

On Saturday afternoon, Miri moved house! Into the RVCP house! Much excitement and much walking with her stuff from one end of the town to ours. We never did catch the mouse but it did eat the poison (or at least some sort of rodent ate the poison) so either it got sick and died somewhere else or it's super resilient to rat poison. Judging by the size of it, it definitely could be the latter...

More information on Umuganda on the Rwanda Governance Board website: http://www.rgb.rw/main-menu/innovation/umuganda.html