Soccer Match in front of a 1000 people.....

Posting for Kal (Kalpana Ramani):

I'm sitting in a beautiful outdoor area in Rwamagana, Rwanda with fellow traveller Tim.

We are both completely exhausted and reek of bugspray..why you may ask??

At 2pm on field in the Rwingbogo district Hobsons took on Rwandan school children in a soccer match - we have never played infront of a bigger crowd - an audience of 1000 plus..following every goal, every foul, every trip. Needless to say it was a very uneven match - 3 to us..maybe 8-10 to them...but we had out moments...they just had more :)

Earlier in the day we finally got to visit the site for the school we had raised money to build. It is still 2months away from completion. By school I mean 3 classrooms and latrines and water storage.

But the site on which it was being built was something else. the most lush, green, view. Untouched by powerlines, pollution. So far from everything - and yet we came upon a community gathered together, having prepared wholehearted welcomes for us the visitors.

They saw us and just started waving and smiling. We couldn't wait to get out of the bus and meet them. There were the children, their parents, the contractors and builders working on the school classrooms.

We were first introduced to the contractor who gave us a brief rundown on how the planning fo the site was going. We then viewed how the materials (bricks) were being made on site to create the school. Myself, James and Matt contributed one brick each - photos to follow :) Well I have to be honest I only contributed about half a brick...but I dirt on my pants to prove I did the work :)

We were then introduced to the mayor of the district, who said that he wanted to be here, not in an official capacity but as a citizen on the area.

The official ceremony started with song and dance by the children in colourful costume..egged on by the mayor Janet joined him and started dancing!! The rest of us followed..obviously not dancing as well as the kids but adding our own flavour....that's what we like to think anyway...

We had all brought gifts for the students and couldn't wait to show them, James and Matt demonstrated skipping, baseball, bubbles, propellors?? and the kids loooooooooved it.

We then handed out silly bandz to all the kids, which they went gaga over. The aim was to give one to each kid...but their a wily bunch. They would put the band on one hand and then come back and lift p their other hand for another one :) we only cottoned on sometime later but it was lovely to see how much they liked what we were giving them.

It is going to be very hard to describe today to friends, family and workmates once I get back...It's really one of those things that you must experience to get the full picture. In fact I wish I had an extra pair of eyes to take in more than I did.