Umuganda

On the last Saturday of every month, from 7am-noon is Umuganda. I'm not sure how it translates exactly, but it basically is a morning of community work. Everyone is expected to participate, roads and businesses are closed, and everyone reports to their community organizer. Last weekend I saw tons of people cleaning the streets, building things, a real frenzy of activity. At first this struck me as a really nice idea, everyone working for the common good, building the community, etc. But as I've talked to people about it over the past week, its quite controversial apparently.

The arguments for it are that because the informal economic sector is so large in Rwanda, it is very difficult to collect taxes, and this service is in a way a method of collecting a tax. Also, everyone working alongside each other promotes Hutu-Tutsi collaboration and reconciliation, and of course the community and infrastructure benefit.

However, some people say that the idea isn't new and that it originated with the previous regime, and that certainly didn't result in ethnic reconciliation. Also, the idea that it is forced is a bit too Soviet-centralized-state-esque for comfort. When you participate, you get a card with a stamp to prove you've gone, and you're often asked to show this when you need government services, and if you have missed a Saturday, good luck getting power, water, etc. Wealthier Rwandans abuse this system by sending their houseboy, etc, to participate and get the boss' card stamped.

What do you think? Great community initiative? Good idea, but hard to implement equally? Scarily interventionist? In any case, it's definitely indicative of a different mentality than we are used to...