So, we're approaching rainy season (which I thought just passed) and there have been a string of rain storms over the past three days (like, legit rain) which has been beating down on our roof, which apparently has a leak, which happens to be directly over my bed and since I tend to sprawl out in the middle, it dripped right next to my head until I woke up in a puddle of water (that's an exaggeration but you get the picture). So, not cool.
Aside from the leak, life is good. I am obsessed with the basketball camp, obsessed! I am so excited for Saturday and I really like the people I am working with. It's a great group and I always find it amazing how quickly I like people....haha it's a problem! They are just a good group which makes it easy for us to work together. Usually we meet once a week, before camp, and write up the schedule. They decide what drills we should do and how much time each should take. We then do a walk-thru. This week we went over defensive positioning. They had NO IDEA. They did not know what on-the-ball, help or denial defense was and most of them played basketball in school. I have no idea what they are teaching them in terms of the principles of defense if they do not hit on those three positions. The problem here is that no one learns the fundamentals because their is no one here who can really teach it. There is a huge gap that needs to be filled...
Now, on to filling that gap...I met a guy at the grocery store the other night when I was in my Bentley sweatshirt and he asked if I played. I said yes (obvi) so he gave me his card (He is one of the assistant coaches for the national team as well as a manager). I called him and set-up a time to meet because I was curious how we could work together to improve basketball on a national level and see if he wanted to be a speaker at the camp. Well, we met at Bourbon (the hot spot in Kigali and the place where I had my first full cup of coffee...monumentus occasion for me) and we had a great conversation. He is from Kenya and it was really interesting to get his perspective on the Rwandan culture in general and the current sporting environment. We had a lot of similar views and we are going to work together to start-up a few camps in Kigali with the Federation (maybe). My goal is to have a open session where everyone in Kigali interested in learning how to play comes to the National Stadium for a coaching session. It would be an all day event and the first 50 participants would be on the floor as the players and the remaining participants could just fill the stadium and watch. I’m going to work closely with him to figure out the best approach and if that is even possible. Either way, I’m excited. After talking to a couple local officials directly involved with Rwandan sports, I have decided (with no research or experience to back it up) that the problem lies in the lack of exposure. If you don't have access to the sport or any knowledge base whatsoever, why would you care? And, if the general population does not care, then they do not attend games, if they do not attend games, teams cannot get sponsorship, if they don't get sponsorship, they have no money to fund activities...it’s a vicious cycle!
WHO KNOWS?!?! So much to do, so little time AND, I have to start to relax, per usual. I’m working like crazy and one of my colleagues gave me some good advice…she said you should never care more than they do….food for thought! And she also said that sometimes we spend too much time on the urgent things but not enough time on the important things….all true statements.
Sending huge hugs (I can’t say massive anymore because I over use it)
I love you.
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