Festival day

Adam reflects on our final day festival and his two weeks in Botswana.

With the thunder storm in full flow, and wind and rain buffeting our plane from side to side on the runway at Jo’burg, it was the clearest sign yet that CWB’s Autumn 2016 Botswana Project had come to an end.

But not before we had hosted our closing competition, the culmination of two weeks of hard work, inspiring kids across the country to play some cricket, and, much more importantly, teaching them how to protect themselves from HIV/ AIDS.

The schools which we had previously visited in Maun were invited to put forward their teams for the 2016 Rapid Fire World (Botswana) Championship. From what we’d seen that week, telling the rest of the kids that each school’s team could comprise just ten boys and ten girls must have been about as easy as telling Clement Chipanga you didn’t want any chocolate cake. Difficult news to break.

It was another sweltering day, and a day that summed up everything that made this project, and makes CWB itself, so worthwhile; the joy on the kids’ faces as they charge around in the heat, the lessons learnt (by us, and them), and the final summary of summaries by project leader Lee ‘Andy’ Booth, the response to which only reminded us all how much had been achieved in teaching the kids about HIV/ AIDS.

It’s not clear at this stage if Lee was actually born in Yorkshire, such is his enthusiasm and joie de vivre. To misquote Harold Macmillan, you’ve never had a project leader so good. Given the cynicism usually displayed by those fortunate enough to have been born in God’s Own Country, I can only assume that it was the effect of spending time in Botswana. The folk are as friendly as one could ever hope for, and more. Not only could they not be more friendly, they could not be more generous. If only the same could be said of the country’s weatherman.

Lots has already been written about the heat in Botswana. The only thing worth adding is an enjoinder to Elon Musk – forget your plans to make Mars habitable, and perhaps concentrate on making Botswana habitable. Forty degrees is appropriate for a sauna, not a country.

Little wonder the countryside is quite so samey (my auto correct just suggested sandy, which will work equally as well). On the seven hour drive from Francistown, we saw three people, ten goats, and one faun, as we wended our way to Maun. And whenever we thought we might be lost, as we past yet another barren field, we always had Clem ‘the human GPS’ on hand to help us find our way..

But find our way we did, to Maun, and to an incredibly successful conclusion to yet another successful CWB project.

So, well done to all involved, and thanks again to project leader Lee and Botswana cricket’s Clem.

To quote Andy B after yet another tough session in the punishing conditions, if we changed the life of just one kid, then it was all worth it. And I know we did a helluva lot more than that.