HITTING HATRED FOR SIX
AS THE light from the setting sun dances across Rwanda’s new international cricket stadium, Alby Shale has to pause momentarily, his voice cracking with emotion.
It is a moment that is soon gone, as he manages to compose himself and carry on talking passionately about the venue that stretches out before him in the hills of Gahanga, on the outskirts of the capital Kigali.
Sitting on the grass banking that wraps around almost half the stadium for spectators to relax on while watching matches and surveying the striking three-domed pavilion whose design represents both the bounce of a cricket ball and Rwanda’s famous hills, it is easy to see why emotion got the better of Mr Shale.
The £1m development has been a dream he has held on to for the last six years, ever since the seeds were sown by his father, Christopher Shale, shortly before his death at the age of just 56 in 2011.
His son, who was the project director up until the stadium’s official opening a fortnight ago, is keen to stress the ground would never have been built had it not been for the team around him, but his resolve has been instrumental in making it a reality.
The 27-year-old politics graduate from Newcastle University told
“Rwanda brought my father and I together to be even closer than we were before.
“I came here in 2010 when my father was involved in building a community centre, and that in many ways was the catalyst for what has happened now.
“I can’t exactly say I came here kicking and screaming, but I have to admit that I was thinking there could have been better places to go to spend a couple of weeks of my summer.
“But I soon realised what a special place this is. Rwanda meant so much to my father, and his death has had a profound effect on me.
“In many ways, I am still dealing with the grief after all this time, but seeing the stadium now means so much.
“It is so much part of his legacy, and hopefully it will become part of Rwanda’s legacy too.”
Cricket is the sport that Rwanda is turning to to heal its troubled past, taking the painful lessons learnt from the 100 days that changed the country forever in 1994.
The genocide which saw as many as a million Tutsis slaughtered by members of the rival Hutu tribe may still loom large in the memories of the international community whenever the name of Rwanda is mentioned.
But the people of this tiny central African nation are determined if not to forget, then to definitely move forward. That quiet optimism for what the future holds is demonstrated by the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation (RCSF), which has morphed into a new charity, Cricket Builds Hope, with the launch of the new ground.
The organisation, now under the stewardship of a new project director, Geordie Morrison, with Alby Shale one of the trustees, will oversee the operation of the stadium.
But even more ambitious is its ultimate aim of using cricket for social change in a country that while transformed from its darkest days of 23 years ago still remains plagued by intense poverty among large sections of society.
However, despite the huge challenges, there can be no denying that the project has the support that is needed – helped by how wellconnected Alby Shale and his team are.
His godmother, the Duchess of York, travelled to Kigali for the unveiling of the new stadium a little over a fortnight ago, and gave a raucous but ultimately emotionally-charged speech at a dinner on the eve of the official opening.
She told the audience of invited guests that she had become the patron of the Rwanda women’s national cricket team, adding: “Thank you Alby for opening my eyes (to Rwanda), You may be only a whipper-snapper, but my goodness, I am proud of you.”
Even more importantly, the project has the backing of President Paul Kagame, the cerebral and softly-spoken politician whose strict regime has faced criticism but which has undoubtedly seen huge change in Rwanda since he assumed office 17 years ago.
And the high-profile backing of Cricket Builds Hope is not only confined to the upper echelons of Rwanda’s political sphere.
Mr Shale senior was David Cameron’s Conservative Party constituency chairman, and the former Prime Minister has been a supporter of the new stadium project since its inception.
Writing in the programme for the official opening ceremony, Mr Cameron’s short but succinct introduction summed up the essence of Cricket Builds Hope.
“As a charity and a social enterprise, Cricket Builds Hope’s mission is to change the lives and long-term prospects of vulnerable young people in Rwanda through cricket,” he wrote.
After the razzmatazz of the opening ceremony, during which a celebrity T20 match was played involving former England captain and Yorkshire batsman Michael Vaughan, ex-South Africa international Herschelle Gibbs and current England international Sam Billings, even bigger challenges will need to confronted.
For the captain of the men’s national cricket team in Rwanda, Eric Dusingizimana, it has been an emotional journey to reach this point.
An imposing figure of a batsman, Mr Dusingizimana admits he cried on the morning of the opening of the stadium, as the reality dawned on him that the long-held ambition of a new ground was no longer simply a dream.
Facilities before had been shockingly poor, with no grass pitch for either the men’s or women’s national teams to practise on.
The national cricket ground had previously been at the Kicukiro Oval, based at a secondary school that was one of the most notorious massacre sites in the 1994 genocide.
Hutu militia murdered the vast majority of the 4,500 Tutsis who had fled to the United Nations compound there thinking they would be safe, only for the international peace-keeping force to withdraw when their own safety was questioned.
Until recently, players continued to stumble across fragments of human bones on the cricket outfield.
“The new stadium really means so much, considering the old ground we played on,“said Mr Dusingizimana, 30, who holds the world record for the longest ever nets session, totalling a marathon 51 hours to raise the profile of the sport in Rwanda.
“It represents a new beginning for cricket, it is a wonderful venue. But cricket is more than a game, it is a way of life for us.
“We want to send a message out to a whole new audience, to use it for social change.
“The future for Rwanda is bright, and it is bright for our generation.
“We don’t forget the past, but we are looking to the future.”