We are a bit behind so sundays blog is brought to you by Luke,
So today we had the opportunity to have a lie in, which was welcomed with open arms by those who sampled some local refreshments last night.
On our way to our first school, we had a very surreal experience….it’s not every day you get taken over by two rollerbladers dressed in Lycra! However the old saying ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ came into play as the Team Roon passion wagon regained the lead 100 meters up the road, the rollerbladers were not to be seen again.
We set off at 10:30am to LCC to begin coaching at 11am. On arrival we were greeted by 30 children all looking excited and ready to play a game some had no idea what it was, that game was cricket. So we begun the session demonstrating what the game of cricket was before getting the children involved to bat, bowl and field- as they say, you learn better whilst doing and not watching.
As the session continued, more and more children walking across the field decided to join in, resulting in the total number creeping towards the 50 mark, classic Africa but as always, the more the merrier.
We then moved onto a game of Rapid Fire which is a guaranteed winner with children as it provides them with great fun and a competitive edge. Two of the local coaches lead the game and had it under full control which allowed some of the CWB team to sit back and relax, or in my case play football with some local children, resulting in working up a reasonable sweat in what was warm temperatures. I spent a good half an hour delivering balls into the box from the wing, putting the ball on a sixpence for the children to finish into the back of the net.
Back to the cricket, at the half time stage, Lee delivered the ABC-T message in such a way the children all interacted which is vital as it is essential the message gets across and sticks in their heads.
Lunch was just a standard pit stop at a local bakery which had a Donna kebab stand outside, however none of the group had the minerals to gamble on having one, including myself, there’s only so much Imodium one can have!
So onto the afternoon- we once again had the privilege to attend an orphanage which always provides a massive eye opener. The kids were amazing and welcomed us by singing a couple of songs to us which was a great moment for the group. Onto the cricket – Sunjo, who is a national team cricketer lead the session and it was crystal clear to see how much his coaching has progressed which is so important as it’s people like him who will drive cricket in Cameroon when the team depart the country. We started off by teaching the children some close catching before moving onto batting and throwing.
We departed the orphanage at 4:45pm to head to a couple of local schools to meet with the head teachers to get some sessions booked in for later in the week to keep our diaries nice and busy.
The evenings events saw us being wined and dined at Patricks house who is a doctor and medical researcher with a cochrane collaboration. His wife who has four beautiful children spent the majority of the day slaving away over the stove. It was a great chance to experience a typical African dinner which included foufou corn, jellof rice, karti karti chicken and njama-njama which is a vegetable based dish. A truly amazing feed which the team needed after a long afternoon in the sun.
So that concluded the days events and another successful day for Team Roon, pulling each other through tiring times during yet another hot day in Bamenda.
Here’s to another another action packed day tomorrow.
Blog written by Luke (the boy who beats Africans at dance-offs in their own back garden!)