This Girl Can Bowl Aids Out of Africa

Today was International Women’s Day and in my naivety I had assumed this day would be unknown in Cameroon – oh how wrong I was – it is everywhere, they even have a national holiday for it; Ladies are wearing IWD dresses, they have been talking about it on the radio and even as I write this blog we can hear music from a dedicated party!

Prior to coming to Cameroon I thought that today would provide a great opportunity for me to add value to the trip (I am a non-cricketer, trying to coach Cricket!). In my day job for Get Berkshire Active I work on a number of ‘This Girl Can’ projects which similarly to IWD is about celebrating women and therefore I was presented with a great opportunity to bring This Girl Can to Cameroon!

Today we visited two schools, it was a particularly hot day, we were sweating before 9am, however, this didn’t appear to have any impact on the levels of enthusiasm from the children. I put the coaching skills I’ve learnt into practice, attempting to bat this morning, followed by some simple catching skills this afternoon. You can sense a lack of confidence in some of the girls as they step up to the stumps but they prove to have a very respectable level of skill, and this is replicated in their catching and throwing too. We rewarded the children for their hard work and enthusiasm with This Girl Can stickers and whilst they didn’t cope too well with the dusty environment they were still well received.

Couple of highlights today were during the short breaks between sessions with one girl telling me I had good legs (she appeared to enjoy stroking them) and another asking me if my hair was real (they love to tug on my plaits).

I definitely grew in confidence today and am grateful for the support I’ve had from my CWB colleagues and the Cameroon Cricket Federation coaches. I will continue to step up to the challenge and prove that This Girl Can Bowl Aids out of Africa!