Rwanda national cricket team captain Eric Dusingizimana said that it is "a cream come true," while "sitting looking out over the newly constructed Gahanga cricket stadium a day before it is to be officially opened by the country's long-standing" president, Paul Kagame, according to Charles Reynolds of the London INDEPENDENT. The inauguration marks the end of a "remarkable six-year undertaking" by British charity the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation, which raised the £1M ($1.31M) required to build the "spectacular new home of Rwandan cricket." As well as captaining the national side, Dusingizimana, who works as a civil engineer, served as GM of the RCSF as it constructed "the Lord's of East Africa" in Gahanga, "about half an hour's drive" from the center of Kigali. The pavilion, which will also serve as an HIV testing center and restaurant in the future, is a "fantastic feat of engineering," built using 66,000 handmade tiles in layers without using concrete -- "the same way as Barcelona's Sagrada Familia although with the added bonus of actually being finished." Previously, Rwanda's only other cricket pitch was at at École Technique Officielle, the site of a "notorious" '94 massacre and the location of the film "Shooting Dogs."
'UNIFYING FORCE': Cricket "has proved a unifying force in a country still feeling the effects of the horrific" '94 genocide. The "first tentative stages of cricketmania are sweeping the country, thanks in part" to the president's presence at the opening of the new ground. It is also "largely as a result of the exploits of charismatic national team captain Dusingizimana," who last year became a Guinness World Record holder for the longest cricket net in history, "batting for an unbelievable 51 hours straight, becoming something of a celebrity in the process. He also earned a sponsorship from a local beer company and is "catapulting cricket into the nation's consciousness." RCSF Project Dir Alby Shale said, "That was the moment that cricket was really born in this country." Shale is the charity's third project director, following Oli Broom and Ed Pearson, but "it is thanks to his relentless drive and determination" in organizing and fundraising that the construction project has been completed. On the eve of the inauguration, "looking a little worn out by all the last-minute preparations but hugely enthusiastic," Shale said, "It feels surreal. What's so exciting for me is how this game is really playing a part in the healing process and how this new facility is bringing these guys together in perhaps a way that wouldn't have been possible 20 years ago" (INDEPENDENT, 11/2).
