Football's coming home
on Rose Hardman (Rwanda), 23/Jan/2011 07:57, 34 days ago
The new volunteers arrived in Rwanda on the 15th January and so on the 20th January I headed into Kigali to meet Geri, the new YWCA Marketing volunteer, and to see the new YWCA office in Kigali. Geri is absolutely lovely and I’m sure will fit into the team perfectly. (These comments are only partly to do with the fact that she brought me Marmite!! She is also just very nice, Marmite aside!)On the 22nd Christine, Vanessa and I headed to the stadium to watch the Rwandan under 17 football team play Burkina Faso. We had a bit of a job trying to get in. Christine and I travelled in together and then tried to get tickets whilst waiting for Vanessa. We eventually found a policeman who said he could help us get in but first we had to wait for Vanessa. We called her to tell her where we were and then waited... and waited... I then decided to go and find her. It turned out she had been swept up by another policeman and ushered through the crowds into the stadium. As I was looking for her, the same thing happened to me! So then Vanessa and I were in the stadium and Christine was still waiting for us outside! We eventually communicated what had happened to Christine and she went to the same place we had been and she also got swept into the stadium by a police man. This was all well and good but none of us actually had tickets. We went to look for a seat but everywhere was full. We eventually got to a roped section where the guards asked to see our tickets. We explained that, whilst we would have liked to have paid, as we wanted a seat, we hadn’t had that option. They eventually allowed us to pay them and let us through. The match was brilliant but unfortunately Rwanda lost. At first I was sitting on the steps but then some very nice children offered to share a seat and let me have the spare. I bought some chocolate for them to thank them which the adult with them (I presume their father) found very amusing!Unfortunately as we had to go to the Family Dinner we had to leave early. But they wouldn’t let us leave the stadium until the President had! Christine had to sweet talk the police, which took a while, but she did very well and we were eventually allowed to leave! We then had a right job finding a moto but still managed to make it to the Family Dinner in time for the games.