Challenge I

Tonarigumi (Chonai Kai)

Hi, my name is Fatih, I live in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I joined exploration online, they give me a challenge to interview Pak RT about RT/RW in Indonesia. Because I live in Ethiopia, no such thing as neighborhood association (RT/RW) here. The smallest district is Kebele (the same as municipality in Indonesia). So, I went to Mariko’s house (a Japanese woman, a friend of my Mom) on Wednesday,27 March 2o19. I interviewed her. She said that there is no longer tonarigumi in Japan.    

Tonarigumi is a neighborhood association created by Japanese government. Formerly, 250 years ago, in Edo period, there was a group called ”gunmi gomi”. Gunmi gomi means five groups of people. Gunmi gomi will become tonarigumi. The function of tonarigumi is to share information from the local government to community and sometimes they were trained the military service.

In 1943, the Japanese were attacking the Pearl Harbor, in U.S, where the military are resting. 2 years later… the Americans got their revenge. The Americans were planning to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the big cities in Japan, with the nuclear atomic bomb that created by: Professor Albert Einstein

After the Japanese lost, the Americans controlled Japan. At that time, America prohibited tonarigumi in Japan. In 1951, after the agreement, there is tonarigumi again, but the name become “chonaikai” (cho=town, nai=inside, kai=committee). This chonaikai is not controlled by the local government. Usually, chonaikai cover 5 to 10 households.

The functions of Chonaikai are: 1. To share information from the Japanese government to community 2. Take care the people especially elderly 3. Security patrol 4. Waste management (recycling trashes 5. Hold festival like winter festival & summer festival. 6. Funeral arrangement 7. Fire drill training 8. Helping others if there is a disaster. The chonaikai leader is called hancho. Mariko is never become a hancho but, her parents did. The last hancho around Mariko’s place is Mr. Mukasan. If you want to join a member of chonaikai, you have to pay fee every month.

The administrative system in Japan is different from Indonesia.

The system in Japan:

Country –> District/Perfecture –> City/Village –> Town –> Chonaikai.

If you want to know about the administrative system in Indonesia, you can see the picture below.

        Today,3 April 2019, after school, I wanted to stay home and relax, but my mom force me to go to Kebele office. So, I went to Kebele Kirkos 06. It was 15 minutes away from the school. My driver went inside first because he wanted to ask permission.

Before, I thought the office was clean but it was not. I went to the 6^th floor. In the 6^th floor, I met Mr. Tadelle, the chief of public service. I ask questions to him. After I interviewed Mr. Tadelle, I know some information about Kebele. The function of Kebele is to serve people (if people wants to create an ID card) and give people jobs. There are 107 Kebeles in Addis Ababa City. There are 7,000 populations in Kebele Kirkos. The leader of Kebele is called chief executive.

The administrative system in Ethiopia:

Country –> Region –> Sub city –> Woreda/Kebele.

So, Kebele is the smallest unit of administrative system in Ethiopia.

Fun facts:

Ethiopia has different clock, date & year. They have their own local time, for example: today is 3 April 2019 but in Ethiopian calendar, today is 25 Makawit/March 2011, so if you live in Ethiopia, you’re 7-8 years younger.

If it’s 9AM, it means 3AM (Local or Habesha time)

Direction/Map

This picture shows you the direction between my house and Mariko’s house (let’s pretend her a Hancho). The red one is my house & the yellow one is her house. The distance is 3 km .