By Sam

Previously, on CWB Botswana….

Dumela Botswana! After a ridiculously easy flight from London to Nairobi where we all had 3 seats to ourselves, our luck finally ran out when we got to Gaborone to find that 2 of the bags were still AT Nairobi…. Not only were we a kit bag down, but poor Clare was faced with the prospect of  wearing the same kit until her bag turned up, and worse, days without hair straighteners! Any GHD devotees will be feeling her pain! After ten minutes of looking extremely pale, she rallied admirably, aided, no doubt, by the treat that was in store for us at the Botswana Cricket Association… CEO Girish Ramakrishna and his amazing team had laid on a fantastic curry for us at the club. It just kept on coming, even after we were stuffed, a fact that didn’t seem to deter Head Tutor Adam, who just kept on consuming…

The afternoon progressed in similar vein, with more goodies being brought out, topped off by a round of Sambuca and a little nets practice.. And so, finally,  to our super-comfy beds at the Stay Easy Hotel…

Day 1 – Rock the Baby, Miss B! Up bright and early (OK, early) for breakfast and then off to our first school, Borwa Community Junior Secondary. We were welcomed by Monty, the Principal, and then introduced to the group of 20  teachers we would be coaching during the morning, some of whom were visiting from other local schools. The session commenced with a prayer and a rather lovely hymn, and then we were all off to the fields to play some cricket. The drills and skills were absorbed with much enthusiasm, and a little individual flavour added – effervescent Miss B delivered the quote of the day when she invented ‘Rocking the Baby’ to describe her batting action. And boy, did she rock that baby! After a fantastic first morning, all the participants passed their ICC Introduction to Cricket course with flying colours and lots of laughter. 

Time for the kids! Our afternoon session involved coaching some of the children from Borwa, plus some other local schools in the area such as Ramogotsi Primary School that were keen to help develop the game and the opportunities it offers  (and also had aspirations at a National level!) Incredibly polite and quiet (only because the teachers were there, according to Mosa, one of the BCA coaches!) we split the 50 or so kids into four stations, and spent a lively couple of hours  with some of our newly-trained teachers from the morning session, helping the children learn the skills of catching, bowling, batting, so that the teachers would then be able to develop the game in their own environments. The AIDS/HIV message was framed around all these skills, so that we were re-enforcing what the schools are trying to achieve in educating the children young enough to have a potential impact on their behaviour as they grow up. ""

Whilst the AIDS/HIV message is very strongly incorporated into life at the school, teachers we spoke to reported that there are still a lot of issues to be resolved. Discrimination is a major problem in general, and creates resistance to the idea of getting tested. One of the teacher’s feedback about the afternoon’s activity was particularly positive on this point, because she felt it addressed the issue really well, as everyone was included, regardless of status, which was particularly lovely to hear!

Girls as young as 13 are getting pregnant, so are obviously not practising safe sex. Young girls face a lot of pressure to become sexually active, and there were lots of references around the school about date rape being a crime; its OK to say no to sex etc. The teachers were hopeful that if young people were hearing the same message from us about AIDS/HIV, that at least some of them might just take notice…. And so, after a final ‘ke aleboga’ to Borwa, a happy, and well fed (after a delicious lunch!) bunch of volunteers hopped back on the bus and headed for the airport, where we where able to not only pick up our 9th team member, Richard, but also our missing bags. Pula!