Day 6

Festival Day!

Day 6 was the day of the big, inter-school festival where 4 schools set out 10 teams (8 junior and 2 senior) to compete in a day of carnage/kwik cricket. With over 200 children kitted out in white CWB shirts it made for a fine spectacle and was a fitting finale to our time in Kisumu.

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All the junior teams played in 3 round-robin matches, whilst the senior teams played a full game of ‘proper’ cricket on the main pitch. Each side played in a competitive yet friendly spirit which was perfect for the occasion, but eventually in a closely fought contest the school we visited on Monday, Highway juniors, triumphed in both the boys and the girl’s tournaments.

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This was an especially pleasing result as cricket had only been introduced to their school (by CWB) 1 year ago. Clearly their head coach, Mr Hussain (another coach introduced to the game by CWB) is having an excellent influence on cricket in not only his own school but in cricket in Kisumu as a whole.

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Prior to the festival we signed out of our hotel and left our ever faithful security guard Martin, without any English friends, but with a lovely new cricket shirt which he will surely treasure for some time to come.

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After the festival we began the journey to our second location – Kericho. With timings and distances not having always been accurate on the trip so far (10 minutes!) the bets were on to see how long it would take us to complete the 83km journey. These ranged from 3 to 5 ½ hours but remarkably in just under two hours we arrived at the magnificent Tea hotel. However, this was not before witnessing a 30 Ton truck trying to perform a 3 point turn in the middle of a 7 metre wide road which resulted in a near punch up between the truck & bus driver who was refusing to lose face and reverse the 10 metres needed to allow the rest of the traffic on the road to pass. Charles, after exiting the bus and trying to act as peace maker, eventually managed a detour via the adjacent petrol station to get us to the hotel but interestingly as we passed by we saw the bus was from the teaching college we are due to coach at later in the week!

The rest of the afternoon was spent acclimatising to our hotel and local surroundings. Kericho being a hill-side town; passing through the hills and valleys of East Africa was a surreal experience for most of us; especially for those who haven’t visited Africa before.

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Anyway after dinner and a few Tuskers we were all in bed relatively early and ready for a FULL ON day of action tomorrow!

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