The journey begins

Lots of anticipation building up to our departure, the long BA flight & a night in the Blue Hut all gone – it was time to get to work on Day One.

It being a Sunday, the kids were coming in to school especially. After a quick survey of our playing area, more than big enough but a little bumpy underfoot as was expected. The later bowling drills included a couple of Shane Warne-style balls of the century!

We quickly drew a crowd & being CWB, all are welcome and no one of any age or sex is excluded. Carrying the kids over the fence was a little dicey but no one misses out!

Several cries of “Awoooooga” down in the initial stages, we put into practice our learning from the training weekend & set about our task for the whole trip: Educating children about HIV through the best sport in the world.

The joy on the children’s faces as they catch a ball I throw at them around my back (so they’re not expecting it and have to react last minute) is a joy that I will always remember from my CWB trips.

As always, my chanting and singing as I took the kids to the next drill – having reiterated the ABCT messaging – left a lot to be desired! Thankfully my voice was soon drowned out by the children’s.

In our game of crossfire, it became clear there were some myths about how HIV is transmitted in the group, so we all gathered round the whiteboards and voted “true” or “not true” on what had been written.

There was good discussion about some common myths, like that you can catch HIV from coughs and sneezes, and it was lovely to see older students speaking up and sharing their knowledge with the younger member of the group. Once we’d identified all the myths they were written up on a single whiteboard and we knocked the myths down with our new knowledge – represented by a dozen or so tennis balls!

A special thanks from our group must go to Rose, who initiated the first women’s cricket in Kenya. She spoke to the children briefly at the end of our session and thanked us along with several of the kids, in doing so practicing their English (which was excellent).

Our accommodation for the next 6 days is the Great North Hotel, Muranga, and great it is too. We arrived to find we all had top rooms and the food was great, although the group were either introduced or reintroduced to Africa time, dinner taking nearly 3 hours to arrive!

There’s a real buzz around the table as we look forward to our first full day coaching tomorrow. After a taster of a first day, it’s time to really get to work from here.

 

Fun fact #2: The USA have *still* not won the Ryder Cup when it has been played away in Europe since 1987.

 

Ed

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2 Comments

  1. Clare-Matic
    October 3, 2018
    Reply

    Just reading the blogs takes me back to my CWB trips. It’s almost like I’m there with you. Keep up the good work and keep blogging….
    good luck folks ???

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