FoRR Volunteer's Rwandan Experience

Day 1

Arrived at Kigali airport 1320 very long wait through customs.
Met by Emma
Went to the bungalow where Emma & Deena live (very basic).
Emma and I went to a rugby match between the Red Cross and Essi Nyamirambo teams.
Considering that rugby was first introduced in 2001 by Emma the standard was far better than one would have expected.
There is an enthusiasm amongst the local youngsters which is wonderful to see and must be held on to for the advancement of rugby.
The team Essi Nymirambo were the winners which totally upset and annoyed the Red Cross team (they lost for the first time)
Observation. The teams play with lots of energy but too much kick and rush. These teams require coaching to create a more controlled game. Also the refereeing was fair but needs more knowledge of the game.
Considering that these guys have never seen a rugby game the results are fantastic considering the timescale.

Day 2

Early morning we had a surprising experience when we met a young Rwandan boy by the name of Alex Sibomana who had travelled for one and a half to two hours by public transport just to collect two rugby balls. He was going to use these balls whilst training two secondary and two primary schools. Following the collection of the balls he was making the trip back to his village again taking another one and a half hours for the journey.
It is amazing the amount of time and effort that is being put into rugby by youngsters who have been trained by Friends of Rwandan Rugby, his enthusiasm towards rugby was a pleasure to see.

Went to Emma and Deana’s friends apartment taking the rugby kit kindly donated by Kingswood RFC in Bristol. This was added to a number of bags of kit donated by clubs: -
O A SAINTS
LONDON WELSH
WASPS LADIES
SCARACENS LADIES
GUISBOROUGH RFC
SHANGHIGH HAIRY CRABS
BARBARIANS
NOMADS LADIES

A meeting was held between members of the Federation of Rwandan rugby namely: -
Vice President Gerald Nsenga
Technical Director. Heavy Hategekimana
Trustee in Rwanda Emma Rees
Trustee in Rwanda Deena Aiken
FoRR volunteer Mike Nicholas

Reason for meeting to was to establish a programme for Mike to both coach youngsters (age 13 and upwards) in the skills of rugby, and referees in some of the finer arts of refereeing.
A programme was agreed for the following two weeks and the names of the schools recorded.

Following the meeting a visit was made to a potential site for a rugby ground.
The access to the site was arduous, difficult and a distance for travelling school children. We were informed that this very dusty and heavily rutted track was due to be turned into a road but the timescale was unknown. The site would have been ideal for two rugby pitches side by side, work was needed to level both pitch sites. The cost was on the high side and too expensive for the project.
Further studies to be carried out by Emma and Deena.
An observation, time is not an important factor by the local community this leads to frustrations when trying to speed up a project.