Todays blog composed by John ‘Buzz’ Macca

From our base in Jinja we travelled an hour to Iganga. Not sure if that was an attempt to deprive us of an hour ‘s precious sleep or the nearest suitable accomodation. On arrival we were directed to the now all familiar dust bowl, which as we found out later in the day, not the best for practising ‘the long barrier’.

13 coaches duly arrived at varying degrees of lateness. This gave the team an opportunity for an impromptu game of pairs cricket. This proved very competitive, scores of 22,21,21 and 6 (well batted Rocky). The deserved winners were Mike and Kirsty (sorry Kristy!). We started around 11 when the last coach arrived , a very good humoured bunch, reason for lateness; “This is Africa my friend”.

During the coach education, Alan showed the coaches how to play Continuous Cricket. This resulted in a tumble for Alan much to the amusement of the team. Showing no pain, he carried on and later patched himself up with some plasters. A true warrior. After a very hot day the teaching ended with a very competitive game of pairs cricket between the teachers, Coach Rocky was the happiest after getting one over his mentor Coach Neil.

As the tired and somewhat pink team members thought we were heading back to the hotel, our project leader T announced that we were going to make a visit to an Aids centre. As is this team’s ethos, that is fine, we travelled around Iganga for an hour until T finally got to speak to the right people. After negotiations with Christine from Iganga forum of people living with HIV/Aids, the children will be having some expert advice tomorrow. Well done to T for sorting this out.

We finally got back to the hotel for a well deserved cold drink. A late afternoon snack was ordered and the team’s dedicated “Foodie” declared that the chips were “the best I have ever tasted”, it was a long and hot day.