Our next stop took us to the sprawling city of Dharan, one of the biggest pilgrimage locations in Nepal.
We started our sessions early at the local hospital cricket ground where we ran batting sessions with 50 boys. We were then welcomed with Nepal ornamental scarves by the President of Dharan Cricket Club.
In the next secondary school, we conducted two hours of skill sessions of bowling, batting, catching and a round of matches with 200 children and refreshingly, the huge majority were girls (70 girls and 50 boys!) The children were very enthusiastic to learn and the rest of the school all eagerly watched from above.
The Holy Garden boarding school kindly hosted us for our next session starting with a delicious lunch in the Principal’s office! The Principal, coaches and school coordinator all avidly spoke about their investment in girls cricket and even participated in the sessions.
Our busy day ended with a net and ground inspection of a few cricket grounds (one which had doubled up as a playing ground for the goats!)
Unbeknown to us, the Principal of the Holy Garden School had arranged a special dinner for us at The Backyard restaurant, the owner of which was a former pupil at the school and a cricket colleague. It was the soft launch of the restaurant and we were very honoured to be part of the event.
The following morning we were back at the Hospital community ground for some fitness sessions, bowling and batting. We also had mini sessions for the younger children with a couple of 4-5 year old girls also participating in the session. Sara led a coach education refresher class with the local coaches after which we were presented with awards from the Dharan Cricket Club as a token of appreciation.
The last of our school visits was at Bishnu secondary school at which we coached 40 children including 10 girls who did a round robin session of batting, bowling and catching. It was encouraging to see some of the boys from the morning session who had quickly dashed home for lunch and rushed back for another session with us. The girls, hesitant at first, did a brilliant job unearthing their cricket interest and showed real potential.
Our time in Dharan sadly came to an end and we had to swiftly leave the children. We left with a real sense of achievement in bringing equality within cricket through the messages all the team had delivered to both the girls and boys as well as to coaches and teachers.
Armed with another of Saqib’s eclectic playlists, we then set off for the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve. We were happily enjoying going through decades of music when a sudden hue of purple flew through the air and landed with a thud behind us. It was Ali’s suitcase trying to escape us! After another tight secure on top of our vehicle, we resumed our journey and 30 mins later, arrived at the beautiful Koshi Tappu Wildlife reserve – 176 km of forest, grasslands and marshy vegetation.
We set off in tuk tuks for a 2hr safari ride with our well versed guide Chakra, who was also a “bird” specialist. Our first encounter was with a blue bill antelope and a few macaques. Next, we approached the elephant signs with excitement and lo behold, we spotted a couple of Asian elephants in the far distance! It was a marvellous sight to see…
On the way back to our camp, a couple of golden jackals lay across our path while some mongoose sneakily ran past as the hog deer lurked in the trees.
The end of our safari led us back to our glamping huts at the Koshi Wildlife Camp where we enjoyed a sumptuous meal of fish curry and vegetable thalis by candlelight.
Outstanding write up. Great work – paving the way for others.
Well done.