There was a phenomenal thunder and lightening storm late last evening with torrential rain which was heavy enough to shower in ( if you wanted).The storm blew out the wifi (which had been patchy at best) Team bonding session last night along with our Cameroonian team to a local restaurant / Karaoke bar.
We all ate off the “African menu” :Jess-Porcupine in a jar: Dave – crocodile in Termite sauce: Andy – wild lizard in black sauce; Ian- snake in bobibi sauce; Dom – local chicken in undefined sauce?: and Sam “chorizo pizza!!!”
Then a sing off between Cameroon v UK: not sure who won but many strange looks from other restauranteurs.
Started today with visit to a local orphanage where we played many different inpromptu games from quick cricket to catching, juggling, throwing etc. The manager wearing his “Bruno Mars” hat had already been teaching them some cricket and it really showed as they could bowl well and had amazing throwing and catching. We took them new T shirts and a large sack of rice and noodles. A Really enjoyable hour or so was had and we would have liked to stayed longer but we had a festival to set up at Marie Chevreul Ecole.
Simon, our driver went to get the teams from New Bell and returned with 30 children and 2 teachers in our van which usually has seats for 10!!!
So 3 pitches set up and 3 games of Chevreul v NewBell. Pairs cricket with slight confusion about running between wickets initially but with a bit of charades and some help with translation, they soon got the hang of it. Competition was intense with chanting and pitch invasions after good shots and catches.
Game 1 an easy win to NewBell who have been playing cricket with their teacher Sandrine, so were favourites to win the festival.
Game 2 , a surprise win for Chevreul so it’s all down to the final game with New Bells strongest team . By now with both other matches complete and a lot of home team supporters ( Chevreul), the noise levels are rising with competitive chanting from both sets of supporters. To much surprise , though NewBell are hitting the ball hard , the catching from Chevreul was immense. So it’s down to the last ball finish and ……. New Bell wins. Hand shakes all round in “ the spirit of cricket”
So the journey to Buea with 2 hours stuck in a traffic jam but we are here now for a 05:00am start tomorrow for “Commonwealth day”.
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