By Sam aka Bambi & Clare aka Essex

The day started off calm and quiet as we stepped off the team bus at Mogabane Community Junior School where we were once again greeted kindly by the head mistress and Mr Smith, the designated cricket coach.  This was shortly followed by an introduction to the teachers and some tea and scones; we were then advised we would have around 6 teachers and 60 children, so another manageable day ahead – or so we thought….

In the end we qualified 17 teachers and had in excess of 150 children in the afternoon.

The highlight of the day was Jono’s group, who were far the loudest in their chanting and singing of the ABC messages.  We finished the day by handing out the wrist bands, which ended with the coaches covered in dust.  Today’s lesson for the CWB coaches was 'handing out wristbands to 150+ children on a dusty field = dust storm!'

So after 2 days of team bonding, we are now comfortably at the point of giving each other nicknames. Today we added a few more to more to the ever growing list: 'Smurf' a.k.a. Jen, who sommehow ended up with blue legs after trekking across the field (so not just because her lack of inches in the height department); 'Bambi' a.k.a. Sam, whose rickety bambiesque style legs collapsed beneath her whilst attempting to field and landing her in a heap in the mud – of course we were all concerned,  but unfortunately for Sam, the first question was not “Are you alright?” but rather “Did anyone catch that on film?”. Sympathetic lot that we are! 'Three words' a.k.a. Rachel because that’s all she can manage to muster in the morning (although later that day it was changed to 'three bellies' for a short while as the tiny frame engulfed at least three bellies worth of curry during the evening when we enjoyed he hospitality of BCA once more!)

During the evening the team found themselves in the limelight once again, this time an interview with a local sports magazine.  Sports reporter Brian Phiri King from Life and Sport  interviewed the volunteers, who will be featured in the magazine released on 5th May.  Brian was fascinated with how we manage to deliver AIDS/HIV through cricket and what we are doing, and will be an active supporter in the future.

Ben delivered a superb Umpire's Evening to umpires from clubs all over Botswana – but he was stitched up mid way through his presentation with an image of his nicknamesake, a joke that the audience all heartily appreciated.  We tell him its character -building…

All in all a good day once again!

The video to a little clip of Ben's presentation please click here