A mixed day for the team as a whole on the trip today as at various points individuals are struck by the intestinal 'Curse of Cameroon'…..
School here starts at 8am so it's an early start for the team, as we collect the local coaches on route via every cafe serving breakfast in Buea, we are slightly halted as Prote (one of the new Cameroonian coaches who has joined us this week) tucks into a sit down breakfast by the roadside. Not quite getting the need to get breakfast on the go, we bundle Prote (and his breakfast) into the bus and head up the mountain to Buea Town school.
Following on from our coach the coaches session on Saturday Roger, our ECB tutor, has worked on coaching drills with both the school teachers and Cameroonian coaches which will get the kids quickly into the drills, having fun and picking up the ABC messages. Whether it's the French tendancy for philosophical background we don't know, but we have noticed that the Cameroonian's seek to explain every minute detail of cricket before going into a drill, when really the kids should be getting involved with the game as quickly as possible and having fun. So today was the first test, if you will, for the coaches getting into the habit of delivering drills quicker following Roger's session on Saturday.
During the first warm up we discuss the need to get the kids engaged as quickly as they can with Winston, explaining that as a coach your aim is not to make everyone into the next Jacques Kallis or Hashim Amla in twenty minutes, as you will only train some of the kids and quickly run out of time after you have explained everything. Your aim is to get all the kids bowling, catching or hitting the ball, having fun, and enjoying cricket, and through that we can speak to them about HIV.
It's clear by the end of the first session, that Roger's coaching plan for the team is working, within a minute of moving to the drill station 135 kids are throwing balls around, hitting them off cones and bowling. As we move onto the next school for the morning, Molyko, the Cameroonian Team coaches and the school teachers are leading the coaching sessions well, and with confidence and another 80 kids are CWB'd!
As we seek to develop Cameroonian coaches and the school teachers further this week, the CWB team are growing in confidence that when we leave Buea, the coaches out here can continue to deliver engaging cricket sessions and get the HIV messages across effectively. Our final session today will be at Bokwongo, but not before a cheese sandwich and a catch up on the World T20 scores….
Lunch over, and congratulations to Ireland on St. Patricks Day in the World T20, and we head off to Bokwongo School, where we are met by one of the most enthusiastic teachers from Saturdays Coach Ed. Once again we set up three stations and took 80 kids through their skills development & ABC's before finishing with some competition, the 'testing'. Tomorrow we will return and organise five matches of pairs.
Mega-full day in store tomorrow with three schools in the morning and a fourth in the afternoon.
Hi Thomas and your gang. Logging on every day, interesting reading. And on your day off you played cricket! Enjoy the rest of the week.