Our last day of coaching today at a rural school in Obala, about 30-40 km outside Yaoundé. We started the day on Africa time ( i.e. About an hour late leaving) but at least we missed the worst of the Yaoundé rush hour. Our armed guards outside the residence now know our van and wave us through. The further we get from the city, the hotter and dustier the terrain gets. So we arrive at the school and met by the sports teacher proudly brandishing his homemade cricket bat. You can judge the school often by the standard of the “pissoir”.
Here probably a 3-4 / 10 ( and we only get shown the staff “toilette”!!).
We asked how many children and was confidently informed 50 , but this is an African French as about 110 turned up for the session! But this was by now quite manageable and we set up our usual stations. Batting was interesting as there was no wall to hit towards , which meant many trips into 3 foot high bush grass to find it. Fortunately no snake 🐍bites reported. It must be getting tedious about how often the heat has been mentioned but it has been a significant factor in our days. Today even the children were asking for water 💦 often.
A short dash to the the local town to find a “boulangerie” and our safe bet lunch of bread and cheese, then back to the same group of children for an afternoon of games. 4 teams and probably the most competitive bunch we have had with voracious determination to win at all costs.
By now our A-F-C-T group dance and chanting has been perfected and as this was a bilingual school, some of students spoke reasonable English enabling us to expand our HIV conversations and even add in a little “amateur dramatics” to our presentations.
From our nervous beginnings at our training weekend , we all now are adept at making complete fools of ourselves, from dancing to prancing and as has become a tour theme “dabbing”.
We thought how tanned we were all looking now but this illusion was quickly dashed after the red dust was washed away in the shower .
The drive back to Yaoundé consisted of many tired heads nodding fast asleep in the van.
James has organised 8 schools for tomorrow festival , which should be a grand finale for the tour.
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