Adopting “Amakirikiti”

Imagine being slapped with a wet fish; you are just minding your own business and going about your way, then someone out of the blue pops up and slaps you with a wet fish. There is a reason for that expression; when a human being is slapped with a wet fish, they have the same expression. Your eyes pop out, your nose flares, your mouth forms an O and your jaw drops. That was the expression I saw at Kicukiro oval when I saw a Rwandan watch cricket for the first time; he demanded an explanation “Ibi ni’ibiki?” and the reply was baffling “amakirikiti” and his expression froze on his face. He demanded a refund immediately, an Indian enthusiast was irritated at their disdain and offered them a full refund; a CNN delegation must have been sent to cover that exclusive but considering the show was free, he didn’t stand to get much. When we talk of sport in Rwanda, we talk of football, I doubt that Rwanda will ever adopt “amakirikiti” as wholly as the Indian sub-continent but sport is so important whatever the type. I wondered why there are links between the military and sport; they have a similar ethos: hard work, discipline, teamwork, self-sacrifice, determination and so many other life skills. The British colonised the world with guns and sports; they either invented or codified most of the sports that are played today. If you didn’t like football then they had cricket, rugby, badminton, hockey, tennis, table-tennis, volleyball, handball, netball, boxing, wrestling and almost every game on Earth. The sport that people adopted was reflected in their culture, the Afrikaners, Australians, New Zealand, the pacific islands chose Rugby; the Indian sub-continent chose cricket, the rest chose football or various versions of it. It is an undeniable fact that if India didn’t have cricket then they would probably go collectively insane or descend into civil war. Africa loves football and there’s no changing that; we can all find a sport we love and play it. It teaches the young the facts of life; how to obey rules, how to negotiate, fair play as well as the qualities I mentioned earlier. There was an old Roman saying that “the secret of good governance is bread and circuses” it was attributed to Vespasian or Cicero; we all know that is too simplistic but put simply: people want to make a living and have something fun to do in the meantime. At a time when we have mass global communication, we won’t see a game take over globally as football did. To understand the history of football is to understand the socio-economic history of any given nation; football spread around the world at a time when railways were being constructed to connect industrial cities, quite often by British crews. Athletic and Cricket club of Milan (AC Milan) is just one example of a club founded by expats; clubs were formed as far as Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Africa, Asia and often in industrial areas. These new cities had masses of new inhabitants looking for a new form of entertainment that could also be a new identity as well as a pastime. Football is a game of strategy that anyone can play; all you need is a patch of field and a ball, but cricket requires equipment such as ball, bat, gloves, wickets, pads and so forth. For the man with patience, cricket is the best game; imagine a game which lasts 5 days, and a series which lasts nearly a month. Sadly the Test version is being slowly abandoned for the shorter forms of the game such as 20/20 and One-Day Internationals but nothing is better than getting a week off work to just sit and watch 5 days of cricket. The beauty of the grounds with their perfect manicured lawns, the sound of bat on ball, the polite smattering of applause as a drive slips past mid-off. The only game where you can have a nap and come back to find it hasn’t changed the score much. However the rules are cumbersome and not as easy as football, most people give up at the first hurdle but it is rewarding in the end. ramaisibo@hotmail.com