Golden Jubilee celebrations: FC Ente Bagdad choses visit and discovery Rwanda (Pictorial)

By Kayitare Jean B.

As German Football team FC Ente Bagdad was celebrating its 50-year Golden Jubilee of existence, the Team members and well wishers decided to come visit Rwanda and celebrate it hand in hand with the Rwanda Rhineland-Palatinate partnership which is also celebrating 40 years of cooperation.

The visiting team was comprised by German Nationals from different walks of life and professions.

The group was headed by its President Ronald Uhlich who says; “we worked for this project for over a period of one year in preparation for the Golden Jubilee.  Our team in German is comprised of different members, non-members and sponsors as well of whom we meet and play football together in the region of Mainz Germany”.

“After we talked with Mr. Gaspard Ngarambe also a member of our team FC Ente Bagdad he proposed through his Non-Governmental Organization in Mainz Germany he accepted to organize for our trip to Rwanda”. Added Ronald Uhlich the Chief of the delegation.

Dr. Ulrich Ruther the Vice President of the team said; “every year we decided a country of the venue to celebrate from as a team but, we decided to choose Rwanda because Rwanda is so special. The country had been through a lot of difficult through pass through the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis where 1 million people lost their lives and left the country in ruins. Many of us had wrong perceptions about the country mainly because we accessed the information through online platforms of which sometimes cannot give you the truth.”

“We found the country completely different from what we had back in Germany and in social media, the country had developed in a beacon of hope and development. The roads where well paved then we visited 11 districts across the country seeing different cultural heritage sites and we meet good people all welcoming. On 29^th July 20223 we happened to be in Musanze the Northern province we participated in community work and helped the poor locals in the construction of a house,” Dr. Ulrich adds.

Another member of the team Lora from Mainz said; “currently am based in Switzerland. I was a member of the team since I was a little girl so I was even part of the travel team since 2019. I was so impressed in the cultural heritage. What I liked most in Rwanda was the beautiful site seeing the beautiful landscape and the smiles,” She adds.

Among the things Lora experienced was actually she realized during her visit that even though the country was small but it had a lot of places to visit. She says; “I will come back again by myself”.

Derick who works with construction material company near Stuttgart says; “the gap between the rich and poor is more in Rwanda than many countries I visited in the parts of Asia. I don’t know about other parts of Africa since this is my first time to visit Africa,” he says.

The visit to Rwanda by FC Ente Bagdad was organized in partnership between the team members and a Non-Governmental Organization REDISCUVERING RWANDA based in Germany and the President Gaspard Ngarambe had this to say; “I have lived in Germany for fifteen years and I happened to be a member of the team. People had misconceptions about the country due to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis so convincing the members of the team took quite some time. At the end they made the trip memorable”. He says.

I was joined by my young children who had never even stepped in their motherland they were so happy and thrilled. We plan to even facilitate more trips in the future to make Rwanda known globally for its diversity, beauty and cultural heritage.

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