You know those days when everything seems to be going badly? You woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Despite your best intentions, you just can’t seem to turn the day around? While I wish I could say that everything the past month has been all sunshine and rainbows, that’s not reality for anyone, and I had my fair share of rough days. However, I found the panacea for a “bad day” in the Eastern Providence: going to a Shooting Touch Court. 

Let me illustrate. You make the seven-minute walk from the house to the court in Mayange, and our Head Coach Patrick runs over to give you a fist bump. Next, our Junior Coach, Isaie tosses you a ball - a clear indicator to jump right in with the group shooting around. Once practice starts, you loosen up with a few laps around the court. With every step and the subsequent release of endorphins, your mood starts to lighten. This is compounded by the joy and laughter emanating from the women, and their excitement to have you join them. Then, it’s time for a full-court 12 v 12 scrimmage. Teams are picked and suddenly you’re running up and down the court. You help your teammates try to guard Coach Isaie three-on-one, with limited success and lots of laughter. There are baskets made and celebrated accordingly. You quickly forget about the score and just have fun playing. When Coach Patrick blows the whistle far too soon, your team runs over to give high-fives and fist bumps before meeting as a group for a Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene health lesson.

It’s pretty hard to wallow in a bad mood with that much joy all around you. Whatever I may have been feeling before practice was quickly flipped on its head, and I left feeling energized and in need of a glass of water.

In all actuality, this month has been hectic, but rewarding nonetheless. After spending much of January settling in, it was time to jump into work. Between mobilizing for Mutuelle health insurance registration with our Community Engagement Coordinators, to preparing for the Community Day in Rilima with the entire Shooting Touch leadership team and Fellows, to drafting and teaching a Coaching Clinic on professional communication with Madi, a lot was going on. In between, I traveled an estimated 600km back and forth between Mayange, Rwinkwavu, and Kigali. Needless to say, for a very short month, February was packed full.

The highlight of the month, by far, was our community day in Rilima. After working with the Shooting Touch leadership team and specifically Ingrid, our Community Engagement Coordinator in Bugesera, it was exciting to have all our work come together for a fun day of basketball and noncommunicable disease (NCD) testing. Our teams from both Rilima and Mayange came to play. Every game was competitive and the crowd of spectators was invested in every play. Just as importantly, we were able to provide NCD testing for women aged 35 and above and men aged 40 and above. This meant mobilizing not just our group of beneficiaries in Rilima, but the community at large and providing attendees a better understanding of their health status.

On top of the basketball and health testing, our beneficiaries currently participating in My Voice, My Power, a youth gender equity curriculum led by our local nonprofit partner Paper Crown Rwanda (PCR), presented a skit. It was exciting to see the work that PCR is doing to move the needle on gender equity across Rwanda and watch our beneficiaries share what they are learning. The entire audience was engaged and laughing right along with the beneficiaries performing. Although I may not have caught all of the jokes, I was energized to see the attentiveness of the community and their understanding of the lessons on gender equality that our beneficiaries were sharing. 

At the end of the day, I was exhausted, slightly sunburned, and grateful to have one event under my belt to learn from before preparing for our International Women’s Day event in March. Onward and upward from here!