Rubindi Umuganda

Over the last two months, Mutuelle sensitizations have been scheduled and rescheduled a half dozen times. We made it through 4 of the 6 cells in Shingiro’s catchment area before the local elections. Many of the cell coordinators were not reelected (I don’t have any read on whether they did not run or were replaced by voters) and we had to wait for the new cell coordinators to settle in before we could approach them to let us speak to their communities.

At any rate, this past weekend we were able to speak with the good people of Rubindi. It was quite a Saturday morning.

The last Saturday morning of every month is Umuganda. Because taxes are hard to extract from low income communities, the government instead asks people to volunteer labor. It’s not a bad system, though ideally it would be unnecessary.

So at 9 AM on a Saturday morning, Elie, Consolate and I piled into the Land Cruiser, bright eyed and bushy tailed. We picked up Laurent, the Mutuelle Accountant and interim Manager, on the way.

Rubindi is in a really nice area, flatter than most of the rest of Shingiro’s catchment area, with lush, green fields during this, the rainy, season.

We rolled up the road into Rubindi and took the left fork to what I think of as its main town. When we arrived, Elie wandered off to find out where the Umuganda/sensitization was going to be while Consolate and I tried to interact with the community members. A woman sitting on a blanket was shucking ears of corn while about 12 children (probably not all her own) stood around her, a couple of them half-heartedly helping.

An old woman came up to me. She was smoking a pipe, and was leaning on a walking staff. “Matamuetze,” she said, and then all I heard was something about “Faranga.”

Elie came back, “It is in another place,” he said.

We left and the woman had to be restrained from trying to the Land Cruiser with her cane. “Awww,” said Consolate, “Some people just feel entitled to get money because they are old.”

We drove back to the fork in the road, and this time took the right fork. We drove a bit to what looked to be a school, where we found several people coming up from a path that led down into the valley below.

“They said that the Umuganda is across the valley, down at the new school that is being built,” said Elie, “You can ride with me while I drive around, or walk.”

I turned to Consolate, “Let’s walk.”

It was such a beautiful morning and within 15 seconds walking on the trail I know I had made the right choice.

The path was covered in fist-sized pebbles, neither small enough to crunch through or big enough to support our steps. So we slip-slided our way down the trail – even though I was wearing my hiking boots, I probably turned each ankle 2-3 times.

Consolate and I quickly lost sight of Laurent, who was moving speedily down the path. The view continued to be amazing.

There was a river at the base of the valley.

We crossed the stone bridge over the stream and arrived at the school where the Umuganda was taking place. There were several hundred people gathered in total, with community leaders talking to them in groups of 50-100 each.

“They are deciding who will be on the indigent list,” said Consolate. This is very important business, because indigents receive financial aid for Mutuelle, among perks. However, there is no really good ways to decide who is and is not an indigent – how do you compare wealth in a largely non-cash economy? Thus, a lot of people get on the list, many more than are given financial aid. We have found this to be a big problem for Mutuelle, because the final indigent lists are not announced until January or February – after the Mutuelle enrollment period closes. After the Mutuelle period closes (December 31), new enrollment activations are delayed by a month. The delay is to prevent people from waiting until they get sick to enroll. However, many people who are on the indigent list wait to see if they will get sponsored, and if they are not sponsored but want to enroll they then have to wait 30 days for coverage.

Elie had not yet arrived in the Land Cruiser. Consolate called him, “He says that the Land Cruiser is stuck in the mud,” she said. Laurent collected a group of 10-15 guys and they ran off to help push Elie out of the mud.

At previous Mutuelle sensitizations, we had attracted maybe 75-150 people. But because this was at an Umuganda, there were probably 300-400 people present. At this point, though, 400 sets of eyes fixed on my every movement doesn’t feel much different than 100.

As the minutes passed, I noticed small groups of people leaving. The Umuganda had concluded, so now people were just waiting to be lectured by us. I decided that I needed to do something to keep them interested in us and what we were going to say.
I turned to Consolate, “We have to dance.”

“What?” she asked.

“We have to do something really embarrassing, to make everyone think ‘what are those crazy Muzungus doing? I better stay to see if they do something interesting.’ C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

Consolate sort of giggled and refused to help.

So I did a little groove.

The idea, of course, worked perfectly. Every single person in attendance started looking at me and laughing and pointing. This was pretty fun for a couple of seconds.

Fortunately for my fragile dancing-ego, a few seconds later Elie pulled up with Gertie.

With no delay, the three to four hundred people circled around. Elie and Laurent spoke for a while - everyone seemed interested and listening but it’s hard to get a read on the crowd when you have no idea what’s being said.

After Elie and Laurent spoke, they opened the session up to questions. The head of COSA, the local quasi-governmental organization that technically runs the health center, got up and asked a question.

“What did he say?” I asked Consolate.

“He asked whether CCHIPs would help pay for extra indigents,” she replied.

I was struck by the extreme inappropriateness of the forum for the question. And it kind of pissed me off. I stewed – what kind of question is that? You can’t sand bag us like that in the middle of a presentation. Elie began to give an answer, though he appeared to be equivocating. I thought about the question, and what could be the right answer. I thought I had something worthwhile to say, and I went over to Elie and asked if I might say something. I began in English…

“I came to Rwanda two months ago from America. I have not been here long, but I’ve seen the beauty of this country and the potential of its people. Based on everything I’ve seen and the people I’ve meet, I can see that Rwanda is a great country. And I believe it will soon be a wealthy country. But this wealth will not be given to Rwanda. Received wealth cannot last. You must work hard to create it. CCHIPs is a tiny part of the growth and change that will come to Rwanda. Focusing on health centers, we are here to help Rwanda fulfill its great potential. I have seen progress made every day and I know that great things can be done. But we do not give hand outs. We can give ideas and training. With those ideas and that training, Rwanda can grow and support its own indigents. That’s what CCHIPs does because that’s the best use of our limited resources. We could cover everyone’s Mutuelle for a year, but it’s better for us to help Rwanda grow so that it can support itself forever.”

Elie said, in Kinyarwanda, “I’m sure you all understood what he said…” That got a good laugh from everyone. Then Elie began to translate what I had said…

…As Elie entered into his fifth minute of translating my thirty second speech, I turned to Consolate, “what is he saying?”

“You know Elie, he loves to go on and on. Right now he is saying how what you said is like how you treat a child. You support them less and less as they grow up.”
“Wait, what? No! That’s very colonialist. I did NOT say that.”

“It’s ok, they won’t care.”

But I care, I thought,OK, the analogy is not totally false, but it’s also not very PC. I kept thinking about it as Elie finished speaking. We thanked everyone for having us, and got back in the Land Cruiser.

As we drove out of Rubindi, we had to stop several times for people to move their mats covered in sorghum. It had become a sunny day and the people were taking the opportunity to dry out the harvest before selling it.

The whole ride home, I thought about what exactly I meant, about why CCHIPs is in Rwanda, about why I’m in Rwanda, about what forms international aid and NGO interventions should take. Not small topics, I guess.

At the very least, I concluded a few things, which I plan to touch more on in this blog:

1. In Rwanda, critical thinking and forward planning are missing skills sets. This is not to say that Rwandans are stupid or can’t make decisions, but there are socially constructed and learned ways of viewing the world that improve economic decision-making. These skills are far from ubiquitous.

2. I strongly believe that if those deficits in critical thinking and forward planning were erased, Rwanda would grow at a high rate for a long time.

3. For those with an entrepreneurial frame of mind, there are so many opportunities to make money here. Indeed, I’ve met several entrepreneurs here who I plan to write more about.