Our second day coaching in Kisumu had the team coaching over 1000 children across 4 schools.
We started off at Lakeside Primary with a visit to the headteachers office for the whole team (not to be told off which in its self was a novelty for me) before 246 children enjoyed 5 different stations covering all bases of cricket and game play with lots of singing and dancing between stations.
At MM Shah Primary & secondary school we went into overdrive to avoid what could have been complete chaos with up to 90 children per station. While keeping control was a challenge, the children seemed to thrive in our chaotic games
Luckily, lunch followed to allow time to recover, reapply sun cream and get water and food on board for another hot afternoon.
At our third school, Kisian Primary, the smaller numbers initially allowed for a bit more coaching although about half way through the session, Beatrice lead all the female volunteers to meet the school’s grade 7 and 8 female students to hand out sanitary supplies and to talk about the ‘taboo’ subject of female menstruation and the need to defeat the stigma surrounding menstruation. The message being it should be viewed with pride rather than avoided and something dirty to be hidden away. We found this session to be a real tear jerker, but definitely an eye opening experience due to the amount of girls being grateful for such a small gesture. Beatrice fights this battle in all of her schools, and we are thankful for her to include us in her ongoing battle.
The boys were working hard with the children that remained on field playing cricket whilst Dean was trying to keep the younger ones and those not involved in the session entertained with his magic trick.
Quite an emotive day was far from finished and so after a quick pack up we were back on the bus to try and get to the next session on time. As it turned out we boarded in the ‘Nico of time’ (pun very much intended) as it rained cats and dogs for the 15 minutes travel time
At Kisumu Boys School, an all boys boarding school as the name suggests there were around 2000 boys all milling around or playing differing sports as diverse as football, rugby, volleyball and what would appear to have been ‘Army Cadets’ doing their drills
All normal structure was modified at this point as we decided to ‘just let them play a game. Quickly the team split into 2 groups and realised many had never played cricket before. They were all happy to be involved, giving bowling, batting and fielding a go. Fielding however would’ve been difficult for one game due to the offside being packed with over 100 children eagerly waiting for the ball.
We eventually arrived back to the hotel around 1830 for one or two well earned cups of African tea.
An 0515/0530 wake up call was in store for day 5
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