Vacation Games

Soccer, basketball, volleyball, dance and music competitions are all part of the Vacation Games, hosted by Maison des Jeunes, a youth center in Kigali, Rwanda. The games go on for two weeks during the school holidays in late July and early August. By the time finals roll around they're drawing thousands of spectators. It's one of the only places for kids to go during the holidays, and the impressive attendence shows a clear need for these kinds of programs here.


Soccer tournement during Maison des Jeunes Vacation games:

Even with the goal keeper laid out in a pile of sugar cane husks the green team somehow managed to prevent a goal.







Games were frequently interrupted when trucks brought in boulders to reinforce collapsing riverbanks next to the field.

Never did figure out why the guy in yellow is wearing black nylon stockings...


No Rwandan event is complete without some traditional dancing. For the Vacation Games groups of competed in singing and dancing.










As much as Rwandans love their traditional dance, "modern dance" was clearly the most popular event of the Games.
Stayin' Alive?

Nice hats. Nice pinstripes. Nice surgical gloves?

Oh yeah. Nice shoes.

Nice moves.

Nice shades.

These guys got kicked off the stage for making a mockery of, well, pretty much everything. Nice.

The kids on stage were lucky this woman wasn't competing.

The Vacation Games draw huge crowds. The director boasted that even the mayor of Kigali couldn't get such a turnout.

Top row, balcony.

The hills around Maison des Jeunes form a natural amphitheater.