Breakfast seemed to merge into lunch as I didn't have much to do today apart from the meeting later. It's great to eat real quality food as team Norway like to bake cakes and bread and always buy fresh vegetables. I'm getting a lesson in cooking as well as a lesson in Norwegian culture and i really want to try and continue to cook different things when I get back. I take pride in a good Spaghetti Bolognese but that is unfortunately as far as I go and I tend not to advance my cooking abilities further than the campsite.
We arrived at the football stadium at 2. The local team that play in the professional premier league have been given some money from the government to give their stadium a face lift. As with all new buildings that I've seen in Kenya, the materials are quality but the Kenyan people lack any attention to detail so the finish of the build is horrendous. We had a wander around the newly built changing rooms and I had to laugh at the doors. There were two brand new doors on either side of the changing room. The doors had spy holes on them and because of the poor finish of the build, the doors were fitted so people outside could look into the nakedness of the showers/changing room and not the other way round.
We sat down in a meeting room and waited for the members of the board to arrive. In true African fashion, not everyone turned up and they came dribbling in over the course of an hour. In the end we began with just the Chairman, vice chairman, secretary and one of four coaches present. The main reason for this meeting was to establish how much money the club had spent in 2013 and work out a budget for 2014. Malin had asked them to bring along a list of what they spent money on last year and how much they needed for the coming season.
Here's where the issue is. The mentality of TWOMOC and with a lot of Kenyans it seems, is that the white person should just give them money. They have no explanation why the white person should give them money, they just should. The chairman said great lines like, "all you have to give us is..." and "last year Susan stopped giving money to us so we had to pay ourselves" Susan is a local lady that has kindly donated money previously.
Unfortunately due to people just giving money and there being no structure or honesty in certain organisations in Kenya, the money has been spent and has not been utilised at all to make things sustainable.
Team Norway are here for their expertise to help TWOMOC be self sufficient, the Kenyans think they are here to just give them money. Breaking down this mentality will be the battle and it won't be solved in a 3 hour meeting unfortunately. The first hour consisted of us trying to get their budget numbers to a realistic value. It is great that TWOMOC does not charge the players anything to play football but we had to be realistic and question whether it was viable that the organisation should feed every player, every match, and at a cost of 4 times what even a mazumbu could pay. My inkling that the chairman was ballooning the budget prices in order to get as much money from the white people was confirmed when he insisted the club should buy 20 balls at £25 a piece.
I was pretty disappointed with the chairman and had to try and keep slightly restricted and work with him and not attack him when we calculated that it would cost around £7000 for the year. My previous experience in fundraising organisations and seeing how Sport the Bridge worked was invaluable in this situation and i knew there was no way they needed that much money. Together we all worked to chip the budget down. The chairman didn't exactly seem happy with everything i was saying but after a while I think he understood that in order for a club like this to survive, the base and bulk of the money and support should come from the community and not from calling upon the odd foreigner!
If the club can become self sufficient through local sponsors and making good relationships with markets and equipment providers etc then money donated should be a luxury and not relied upon to pay the referees. After we eventually got the budget down to a value that the Kenyans felt they could find themselves, we then tried to give them fundraising ideas.
I was shocked that in a country where the mentality of the people is so money orientated, they had no ways in which they could try and raise money themselves. It seems in some organisations, the damage caused by the combination of money just being thrown at them, very little education and the odd corrupt boss has resulted in a complete mess.
At TWOMOC i don't believe this is the case as although it took time, eventually some of the members started to think of money making ideas to help the community as well as the club. The secretary is an ex professional for the national team, "surely you must have some contacts" I said, that was all it took for him to spark a light to talk to a friend that owns a sports shop that has provided discount on boots in the past.
It felt good to install some self belief again and to see that TWOMOC are already doing great clean up projects in the community. Finding this out meant it wasn't hard for us to plant the idea of charity buckets to try and utilise this situation to help the football club. It seemed the reliance on exterior funding had distracted them from ways they could help fund themselves.
Parts of the meeting were like pulling teeth which incidentally is something I may need to do. It seems this ride with all its learning and philosophising has resulted in my wisdom tooth making an appearance. I only have one at the moment so I'm not exactly Gandalf but its annoyingly affecting one of my favourite things to do...eat.
Wisdom tooth aside, other parts of the meeting felt promising and despite the chairman talking alot about nothing and trying to reject some of our ideas, other members seemed enthusiastic and keen to raise awareness and funds for the club. This is certainly something that team Norway can take and harness and with a litter picking project for the local market already in place, the main focus will be to get the players involved and use this as their first fund raising scheme.
Team Norway classed this as a good meeting but I could certainly see how other meetings could be very painful and frustrating. Trying to change the views of a Kenyan that doesn't understand a "give - take" relationship can be very stressful and despite it being a good meeting, we were all pining for a cold one when we finished.
After a few drinks and a conversation with an Aussie guy who was on a 3 month placement here, we decided we should treat ourselves to a dinner out. We conformed to stereotypes by eating where most the muzumbo's eat but its good food and the free wifi is always a bonus.
A bit of a shop later and a few more beers and I was pleased with my day. Team Norway were very happy with my input and i was happy to assist them. The next thing for me is to do a coaches clinic on Sunday at the community hall similar to what I did at Sport the Bridge. I'm hoping for as many coaches as possible from the whole of Nakuru. TWOMOC will hopefully contact every club in the area and to get the fund raising ball rolling but not deter anyone, we have said if the other coaches can pay a small fee then that would be great.
Fingers crossed its a success but until then I will be concentrating on my tough task of recovering!
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