Uganda-Rwanda Trip: Day 8

Continuing the chronicles of Gav and Dunc’s trip to Uganda & Rwanda…

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Dunc and I woke to an early morning (6:30am) call from one of the amazing people we have met — Emannuel of the Rebero Orphan Association. He was calling to tell us that he was running a bit behind –- something that we were okay with at that point.

A few blurry hours and a marathon moto-taxi ride later, we were there: A fully-operational bakery that runs 24hrs a day, employing at least 28 people, and has so many orders that Leonce and Emmanuel only get about 3hrs of sleep a night.

The money that the bakery makes gets plugged back into their work for the 70 or so girls and boys who are living in their neighborhood without parental guidance.

This place is amazing.

And so were the kids.

We brought them just one ball, and they were so excited. After a few minutes of total chaos, we were able to get a pick-up game going using yellow water buckets for goal posts. The game was full of energy, enthusiasm and, with Dunc and I on separate teams, some healthy competition.

To our dismay, after about 30 minutes of heated action, the kids came running to us saying: “Umuzungu! Ichibazo! (There is a problem)”. However, after repeated attempts by us trying to tell them “Nachibazo (no problem),” we realized that there was a problem: The ball had been unceremoniously punctured by a pile of sticks behind one of the goals. A brand new ball that we had taken out of the plastic and pumped up that morning was already rendered useless. This was our first personal experience with the frustration of playing football (soccer) on a surface that basically shortens the life span of ball to a matter of days or, in our case, hours.

We spent a couple of more hours at the Centre, learning more of the details from Emmanuel and Leonce about their own lives, why they started it all, and what they do on a daily basis. Needless to say, these are two souls who are dedicated to great things.
We finished our time off there by listening to a specific project idea -– build a program/team for the girls of the orphanage.

Girls in Rwanda, and Africa for that matter, tend not to have the same opportunities to access sports and programs as they do in — let’s say — Canada. In a country that has little football (soccer) infrastructure, programs for girls are usually not the top priority.

Although I am not going to go much more into detail about the project, we are going to pursue this intently, as OA would love to get involved in using football to promote gender equality. Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks as we learn about the potential for OA to get involved in building this program.

That evening, totally exhausted, we met with Louis Ntyamira, a Rwandan who has spent almost 20 years in Canada (most of them in the Lower Mainland of BC).

We discussed many of the needs of the youth of Rwanda, the current strategies of the government and some of the specifics of the fields.

One particular about the fields is a sustainable way to maintain the fields. Most (practically 98%) of the current fields in Rwanda are dirt/dust. These fields were once grass, or still have a few patches left, but the resources to maintain them were missing.

Louis told us about an ingenious way of collecting rainwater from the roof of adjacent buildings and then use this to water the field and the surrounding area during the dry season.

This is great not only for the maintenance of our fields but also for helping to make the surrounding environment and vegetation sustainable in a country where soil erosion combined with heavy rains leads to many problems.

We also discussed specific areas and school districts that would be good places to start. The one district of Kigali that seems the most likely for us to have a closer look at is Kicukiro -– one of the 4 districts of Kigali.

Louis has been, and will continue to be, a huge help for OA. He is a connected and respected person in Rwanda who understands the Canadian perspective of things.

Tomorrow’s post will cover the day of memory on the 14th anniversary of the Genocide.