39 days...

This is what Caro just sent me in a text when I was enjoying my cabbage salad, alone, while doing some self-reflecting and simultaneously watching some Bollywood on TV, at the Shake and Stir restaurant today. Bad idea.

Why not rub salt in the wound a little more? Okay! So, C and I (at work with no internet, in other words not much to do ie no Facebook to be crept I mean uhhhh HIV education documents to be researched…) decided it would be a good idea to read Anthony and Claire’s (interns from 2010 and 2009, respectively) final blogs/final reports to the Coady, just for kicks. ‘Masochists’, C said after we finished this little activity. Too strong of an adjective? Not far off. Why on earth would two people, in already-delicate emotional states, read about the feelings that may or may not be coming for them in the near future, head-on, full force? I don’t know. Maybe we think it’s easier if we somehow prep ourselves in advance for this departure. I sincerely don’t think there is any way to prepare ourselves to be thrown back into Canadian reality though, what-with the StFX university scene, the wealth of Tim Hortons’ in Antigonish, the SNOW (!), the warm water, the running water in general, the lack of dirt-bikes as taxis, the lack of black people and the abundance of white people, among many, many other things, of course.

BUT it is far too soon to be speaking of such matters, am I right? If you think these thoughts are weird, check in when there’s only a week left of me being here and THEN we’ll see what CRAZY shit I start to write about.

Last week I saw history made. I watched as the U17 Rwandese football team beat tournament favourites-Egypt at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) U17 tourney, which earned them a spot in the semi-finals and as it happens, also to the country’s first ever representation at a FIFA World Cup which is going to be in Mexico in June. I watched the game at the stadium in our ‘hood’ of Nyamirambo, which is a much smaller, more intimate venue than Amahoro Stadium (which seats about 35,000 people and served as a refuge for as many as 12,000 people, mostly Tutsis, during the genocide). It was even closer to home because I watched the match with Emery, who was on the team in 2008 and then on the U20 team in 2009 (he’s 24 right now, you do the math…haha something isn’t right.), when in both tournaments, the teams missed making it to the World Cup by a single goal. I have experienced being THAT close countless times over the years, on every single Nelson/LVR team (sorry Keith and Mr. Simpson), probably at least once in every single tournament, except Revelstoke (wooo!), but never were the stakes this high.

After the team of ‘youngsters’ was done running around the field and jumping on the fences to thank the blue, yellow and green-clad fans, after all the vuvuzela-toting drunkards (due to Primus or excitement, still not sure) were making their way out of the stadium, spilling onto the streets of Nyamirambo, I said to Emery:
‘Okay, on y va?’ Let’s go?

‘Attends un peu.’ Wait a minute.
I only then looked over at him after hearing a tremble in his voice. His eyes were glossy. This was undoubtedly due to the pride that only a fellow football player could feel for his ‘little brothers’. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t get teary-eyed at the display of national pride before the match, which was the first time I had ever heard the national anthem, with everyone in the crowd around me belting out the words in Kinyarwanda. After the game, this is what I imagine it felt like in Vancouver/Montreal/any big Canadian city during the Olympics after Crosby scored the game winner in OT for the gold, only that was on a way bigger scale with much more booze involved. Too bad on that fateful February day in 2010, I was in the Mitsubishi in the middle of nowhere, Newfoundland, waiting for my brother Chad in Toronto and sister Sydney in Nelson to call me with the play-by-play, all the while Telus going in and out of service (go figure). Clearly I am thankful I didn’t miss out on the big deal this time. Not a feeling a washed-up football player like myself gets to experience very often.

Un fanatique fou.

Game time.

Speaking of being a washed-up football player, I decided to use my Nelson Youth Soccer connections to get me a bunch of jerseys, some cleats and balls, to bring to Rwanda to give to a team or two here. Julien Cormier was great enough to hook me up with all of this stuff, so here it came, in a huge duffle bag that even made it to Kigali after being ‘lost’ at London’s Heathrow Airport. So after Emery made a call (because everyone has EVERYONE’S cell phone number, somehow, in Rwanda, even mine..) last Wednesday, a group of about thirty young men were excited at the prospect that:
a) a muzungu showed up to their practice, willing to play,
b) she had a bunch of jerseys with her, and
c) she showed up with another muzungu and, even more importantly, a dude that plays on the national football team.
After a game with too-many players per side on a dirt field, them forcing me to take the game’s lone penalty kick (I missed.. ugh), and of course some laughs when one of the players threw his weight and elbows around, not knowing that it was the muzungu girl behind him challenging him for the ball, these boys had sweat in these jerseys so much that they had made them their own. Great success. They had a few laughs trying to figure out what ‘All Hit KBS’ meant, but no such trouble with the international Rotary symbol. Pretty cool that every so often at practice, some of these guys will be wearing a little piece of Nelson. Seems like just a tiny, miniscule thing I, thanks to Nelson Youth Soccer, could’ve done for this team from a country and a football community that has contributed so much to my experience in East Africa.

Quite muscular young men sporting these NYS jerseys

Spot the woman

Roster shot.

Me and the rival keeper

 Love L