Time off for Rich, Jack and Dave C today – they’re off for a little golf at Kigali National (after a bit of a lie-in of course!)
As for the rest of us we’re headed to Gitarama today, an hours drive South of here, with more space than usual in the van. We arrived around 9:30 after an uneventful journey (covering the same ground as we did down to Butare yesterday) and Lee and Tim went straight to meet the Head of Sport at the St Joseph’s school to confirm when and where we would start the session and how many children would be involved. In the event we started with about 45 children in a large, but fairly rough sports ground about half an hour later.
The morning was well organised with Jono leading the introduction and Dave T setting up a really energetic warm up session. We then split the children (all but one, sadly, boys) into three groups for batting, bowling and fielding. By 11:15 the rain had started so we improvised with bowling and catching practice on the terraces of a covered stand – great fun, fortunately health and safety were looking the other way! This part of the day ended with a choral session of a Rwandan song conducted by Dave and Bob – this after one lad, when asked what song he could sing, came up with |”Everybody’s Talking At Me”
Talking to the children on the way back to lunch we learned about their knowledge of HIV/AIDS, which for this group seemed pretty good, and talked to them about their lives and education.
We had a great lunch in Daphy’s Bar of local grub including rice, veg and meatballs coming to about £17 for seven of us!
Back to work with the children in the afternoon we organised three games for the 30 so who returned (some of the others had exams in the afternoon!). The games gave us the opportunity to re-inforce the HIV/AIDS prevention messages – “One chance in cricket, one chance in life”, “Be faithful to your partner” etc. We left as the rain started with promises that we would see the children again soon (hopefully tomorrow or Saturday).
Home just after 4:30, time to meet the others, who had ripped up the golf course, and freshen up for the evening……..we might be going to Heaven! – Bob Hopkins
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