Thursday – Day 11

What. A. Day. The sun was shining bright here in Bamenda on a lovely Thursday morning. An excellent breakfast of omelette and hot chocolate was consumed and it was off to our first school of the day. On the way to Cenajes we found out that it was a sports teacher training college. The setting was absolutely beautiful with the mountains and valleys in the backdrop. Upon arriving at 10.30, we were told they were not coming out until 12, meaning that we had an hour or so for a Cameroon v England cricket match. The less said about this the better regarding our performance, with Sam and Rob managing to get out 6 times between them in 2 overs! There will definitely be a rematch to coming tomorrow.. !

So at 12 the teachers started appearing in their dribs and drabs, around 100 of them in total. What an opportunity this was for around an hours worth of coach education. Many of the teachers had never played cricket before, but their enthusiasm was amazing! We did 3 brief stations of bowling, batting and catching, and finished with a Kwik Cricket game. This is where they really came into their own and we saw the competitive side as there were teachers running swinging bats over their heads, amazing catches taken, and cheers and shouts from the teams that could be heard in Nigeria! It was an amazing atmosphere as some teams burst into spontaneous songs and chants at the end, and many photos were taken. CWB will definitely be back there again, what a place and what great people!

It was a quick turnaround as we had to rush off to our second school, GBHS. As this session was after many of the students had finished school, we had a feeling that there could be a lot of children here, and we were certainly right as we turned up and were immediately swarmed by children.

Words can’t really describe what it feels like to walk onto a school field and find 250 children waiting for you in a crowd as well as another 200-300 in uniform watching and wanting to take part. As we set up our every move was cheered, we felt famous! It was an exhilarating and exciting feeling, what a challenge and what an opportunity! We did 6 cricket games, which was absolutely manic but great and Carl took another 200 to do games on another field. Another 500 children playing cricket and learning the HIV/AIDS messages, awesome!

So after finally managing to get back on the coach at the end, off we went to our final school of the day, P.S.S Mankon. It’s fair to say the children here were keen and very excitable! It was hard work at times but there were another 100 children hearing the messages and learning cricket which is what we’re all about!

700 children coached in the day! We were tired, we were ready for a beer but we were absolutely thrilled with our days work, and a rendition of the Cameroon song ‘Alleluiah’ was sung on the way back, led by Frank!

This evening we all dined at International Hotel. The food was excellent and we even finished the day with a taste of a Cameroon nightclub! A great evening was had with lots of laughs which finished off a great day. Days like this are what life is made of and what CWB are all about!