Tennis in Rwanda

     Again, always playing catch up. I've been spending 9-11 hours at the office for the last week or two and it leaves me with little to no time or desire to write. Basically I sleep, eat, workout, spend too much time at work, shower and repeat. So the only way to keep myself sane is to workout. Back in the month of March I decided to pick up tennis. When I was a wee one, I was a summer pool rat. Tennis clinic in the morning, then morning swim team practice, a few hours of play and lunch, then afternoon swim team practice, more play time, dinner, showers, and often we were asleep by the time we got home. It was a fabulous childhood.

     My mother, to this day, loves to tell the tale of how funny it was to watch me during tennis. I would cross the court with the most perfect footwork... and my racket was dragging behind me on the court. Back in the early '90s rackets were a little heavier than they are now and I was one heck of a scrawny child.

Me (R) and my sisters in our swim team suits.
I was about age 10 here, you can only imagine
how scrawny I was at a younger age.

     Anyway, with the exception of a tennis date during my years in DC in my early twenties (and I could barely keep the ball on the court) I hadn't touched a racket in roughly 20 years when I had my first lesson with Jean Paul. Jean Paul is a patient man at 28 years old. And to teach me, you have to be very patient. He has been playing tennis for as long as he can remember. But it wasn't until the other week that he let me in and told me a little more about himself (beyond his marital status of course).

     Jean Paul's father was a tennis player for Rwanda and use to play doubles with a Canadian man. I'm not sure why this Canadian was in Rwanda, but he left before Genocide. Years after the horrors he returned. His former partner, Jean Paul's father, had been killed. The man found himself back in Butare and in need of someone else to play with. Someone recommended the young Jean Paul. Neither one of them knew who the other was for a time. Jean Paul plays for the Davis Cup Team Rwanda and makes his living by teaching tennis. I'm not sure if he does anything else, we haven't talked that much about life. That's the thing about Rwandans. They will talk to you, but it is very difficult to get to know them. Jean Paul has a circular scar on his head where his hair grows funny. I assume that this is a result of Genocide, but I never ask, it's not acceptable to do so.

The very nice hard court in Savé

     I started playing 2-3 times a week and over the last few months have greatly improved. I very rarely hit a ball out of the court (as in over the fence not keeping it in bounds) and can keep a very slow serve from the baseline in bounds now too. It's been great fun picking the sport up again having not played it in so many years. I think I might be a bit better once I play at home too. I typically play on one of two courts, the sand court at the university or the "clay" court in my neighborhood. The clay court is really more like gravel. I took a spill one week and my knees were pretty banged up for awhile. The inconsistency of both courts leads to a lot of odd spinning and bouncing balls. Many a time a ball will look as though it's going right, will hit a rock or a line (which are indents into the ground) and bounce the completely opposite direction. I probably won't know what to do with a normal bouncing ball when I return home.

     Several weeks ago, Tim one of the internal medicine physicians and I drove up to the hard court in Savé for our lessons. It was amazing how much faster the ball went, but how normally it bounced. We employed several village children in fetching our missed balls and I enjoyed watching Tim and Jean Paul play games. My lessons are truly lessons, we haven't quite advanced to game level quite yet.

One of my colleague Tim getting ready to serve.

     At times I get frustrated when I'm having an off day. Sometimes I get frustrated at Jean Paul because his simple terms of "no," "distance maker," "get down," and "wrist" are repeated a million times and I get tired of hearing them. Trust me, I realize what I'm doing wrong and repeating the same thing isn't helpful! But then I have to remind myself that he probably gets very tired of always saying the same thing to me and I continue to screw up in the same fashion. On these days I very rarely hear high praise from Jean Paul, which generally consists of "good ball."

     I haven't been able to play in over a week and I miss it. I am hoping to finish in the office tomorrow at a reasonable time so that I can play with him a few last times before I head home. Of all the things I am going to miss about Rwanda, I will miss my easy lifestyle here the most. Of course my job can be frustrating, I really miss consistent (it doesn't even have to be fast) internet, and the food can be lacking. However, my quality of life in Butare has been wonderful. As I'm down to my last 2 weeks in Rwanda I am hoping to enjoy this life as much as possible before I will have to close this chapter of my life and move on.

Lessons Learned:

1) Even after all this time, I am not sure I can say I really know my Rwandan colleagues and friends.

2) I love how sports always bring people together all over the world. Sports are a universal language and so long as you know the rules, everyone can talk.