After a sunday lunch time session with boys at St. Michaels rescue centre, which started with the boys competing in a series of skills related drills in 4 teams and resulted in a game of rapid fire, the CWB team were ready for week 2 of their adventure.
Having moved our base from Muranga to Thika (proudly calling itself the Birmingham of Kenya) we are now at the Luke Cravers hotel. The absence of regulated hot water in the showers had dented team morale but in the face of adversity we came out fighting as a united force and ran a very challenging session at our first school of the day Umoja primary. I use the word “challenging” as this particular group of 220 children split across 2 sessions proved to be quite a handful for the coaches on their respective stations. Their exuberance and excitement at our arrival spilled over in excess to the point that it was quite difficult to keep the coaching coordinated. The school had never received any form of cricket coaching previously and so skills were fairly limited. However we succeeded in driving home the ABC messages and by the end of the morning all the children were comfortably reciting the Abstain, Be Faithful and comdomise principals.
A short stop for lunch at the local supermarket to pick up some snacks and compare some war wound stories from the morning events and then on to our afternoon session.
Kenyatta Harambee primary school presented us with a wide expanse of a flat red sand surface. As we only had one hour with the children (Circa 120) it was decided that the best approach would be to split the team into 2 groups of 4 stations. Therefore the children were divided into 2 groups and each child had the opportunity to try batting, bowling and catching.
On the batting station I found myself contending with the screaming and shouting emanating from the adjoining classrooms as dozens of children hung from the mess and bars on the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of what we were doing outside. Getting instructions across wasn’t always easy but compared to the morning group the afternoon was a pleasure for all. AS per this morning the skills on the cricket front were fairly limited as they had not received any prior coaching. Yet more surprising was their lack of knowledge of their ABC’s compared to what we had seen elsewhere.
In one of my groups, the starting point i had to work from was that A stood for Apple, B for Beautiful and C for Cricket. However in no time this was soon rectified and we were soon on message.
This evening saw the team enjoy a pleasant meal and a few drinks at The Coconut Grill in readiness for another busy day tomorrow. The current fear is that the schools are in the midst of exams and there is a looming threat of a teachers strike in the coming days. Both of these factors are impacting our ability to get coaching agreed in some schools meaning that our itinerary is quite fluid and can change by the hour. Our ambassador Nicholas is working tirelessly with Luke to try and cement the itinerary and secure the next few days at least before any strike commences but with such factors out of his control we go into the next few days slightly unsure of how much coaching will present for us in week 2.
Keep up the good work guys – challenging at times but such a worthwhile cause and very rewarding..