July 17th – 18th

Just a few more things to cover before the camp starts.

While Dunc and I were in Kigali in April, we met with a few people about the field, but the person that stuck out the most was Emmanuel Ruziga – the Executive Secretary of the District of Kicukiro (the no. 2 behind the Mayor), one of three Districts in Kigali. As he is a very connected and senior person (with a seemingly large passion for the sport), we decided to work with Emmanuel during this Phase, our pilot project, to re-build one field in his community.

On the 17th of July, Dunc and I, along with our local liaison/translator, Louis, spent four hours with Emmanuel touring Kicukiro looking at different fields and discussing the logistics with the leaders at each respective site. The 3 fields that we had a close look at had 3 different stories.

The first was a community in a more rural sector, Masaka, of Kicukiro, and was totally uneven with makeshift goalposts and patches of uncontrolled grass. There are a bunch of teams that use the field, and we were pleasantly greeted by some of the youth playing with some of their creative homemade toys – including a pretty cool airplane.

The second field, next to the airport, was relatively flat but had no soil or grass on it whatsoever. The field plays host to many games on the weekend, and, with no maintenance or support, the field has basically been reduced to a hard and compact clay surface.

The final field that we looked at closely was right in the heart of Kicukiro, in the sector of Gikondo. Surrounded by overflowing communities, the field is part of a larger plot owned by a private Christian school. The field sees a ton of community action and is home to many inter-community games on the weekend. However, the field, much like that of the 2nd field, was relatively flat but was compacted clay with no grass or soil…leaving a playing surface much like concrete.

That day gave us much to think about. How are we going to repair one of these fields, properly, with the timeline that we now had (4 weeks) and with the shoestring budget that we are on!

On the 18th, after about four days of phone calls and SMS messages, the founders of the Rebero Orphan Center finally secured a field for the weeklong camp — at no cost. The only potential problem with the field was that it is a public one and is very popular amongst the locals. Let’s see what happens on day 1 of the camp!

Gav.