Hard work!

Posted by Mikkel

It’s been long since I wrote more than one or two lines to you.  I have been very busy!!! I keep telling myself that I must adopt a more relaxed (some here would say African) attitude to work, but it’s difficult. Especially when my organisation (Educat) has gone schizophrenic on me. I believe that is the best way to describe it. 
We are engaged in very positive and serious talks concerning training activities with a number of new potential partners, donors and customers: the ILO, Gemeinschaft Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Rwanda Development Board, Private Sector Federation, a big telecom company, one of the major banks, etc. We delivered a very successful one day training workshop for 20 business development trainers last week. We just updated our website (www.educat.dk…check out the “Educat Rwanda” section if you want to know more about what I actually work on). We are planning to launch the Kigali Executive Club for inspiration and networking between the city’s business leaders. And we are taking new steps almost every week in making the organisation work better and more professionally.

That’s all very positive, exiting and surely gives me a lot of energy. At the same time the organisation is in crisis: It does not need a lot of explanation: there is simply no money! The reason is a number of bad decisions in the past which were relying on possibilities that looked very positive but in the end did not turn out that way. And a lack of a sound strategy and realistic planning. Being used to think 20-30 years ahead in Almere I guess I am the right person at the right place J But not knowing if the bills can be paid next month does take some adaptation from my side. The schizophrenia: in one way the organisation is doing better than ever and at the same time we are not one step further. Does it make sense?

Luckily it’s not all Educat work. I got another part time job as footballer.  Unpaid off course taking my skills with the ball into consideration, but the team I found is VERY serious. They play in the second best league in Rwanda (there are only two leagues); train every day of the week when they don’t have a match; have a president, two coaches, a team manager, a doctor and a do-all-the shitty-tasks-boy; the average age is somewhere around 21 or 22; they all hope to become professional players, but now half of them don’t have money for shin guards. During warm-up conversations I ask people what they do (“study, work or what?” ). So far several responded that they play football! One even moved here from Congo to play football.

But they are nice guys and the alternative is to play with the so called “volunteers” who are a mixed crowd of other guys (also very nice) hanging out at the football pitch. That always ends up being a bit too unorganized, too crowded, too much waiting time and too many different coloured t-shirts on black guys looking too much alike.  So at the age of 32 I’m actually aspiring to live a life resembling that of a professional footballer. We even have quite an audience during trainings. I guess my participation also says something about the level of the game down here. I won’t make the cut for the league games, but the team manager is seriously talking about using me for other matches...