Across the villages that line the wild Rufiji River, though infrastructure is scarce, the thread that ties all the communities together is their love of the ‘beautiful game’. Called football on one side of the ocean, soccer on the other, each Rufiji village in Tanzania has a team. Baker & Sons Safari Company had a standing invitation from the surrounding villages to be the official sponsor of these local football clubs, and in the summer of 2019, the company through East Africa River Mission selected four villages to sponsor.
The village clubs were Mloka, Nyaminywili, Ngorongo, and Veterani. With the Baker Safari logo on the front, and village name on back, jerseys were printed and brought over from Canada in preparation for a big tournament hosted by the company.
Over the course of 3 days, the teams competed against each other. Meals were hosted by the mission before the matches, with all players, their coaches and families joining together to dine and celebrate. A family from Canada – the St. Aubins – made the trip over to Tanzania to help facilitate the event. Joey St. Aubin, the CEO of Canlan Ice Sports, shared with all what it means to be an athlete and from his own faith what it means to be a Christian.
At each game all the villagers lined the field serving as spectators and to help the lone referee mark the boundary. Fire ashes were used to paint the centre line and select hardwood trees stood as goal posts. The final prize for the winning village was to be the goal netting, carefully put up and taken down each day of the tournament, awarded to the victors to take home and keep as a club.
Video footage was captured throughout the tournament. Watch the key moments of the event, the match tallies and the spirited cheering of the local crowds.
Comments(2)
Henry Boer says:
February 7, 2020 at 9:27 pmWhat’s the cost to have our company name on the backs of the jersey under the number ?
East Africa River Mission says:
February 7, 2020 at 9:47 pmHenry, hello. We’re thinking of hosting a second and larger tournament that will include more local Rufiji villages than this first tournament. In it, we’re considering assembling a ‘TEAM CANADA’, that will travel with EastARM to Tanzania and challenge all the villages along the bush road. If we do this, we can definitely collect company sponsors to put on the jerseys as you’re saying. It’s an idea now, but it’d be very exciting to see this happen and the event from this past year should help pave the way to do it again and bigger. I think as early as summer of 2021, in which case we start promoting april/may this year.