With fingers crossed for a good turnout we all headed to the Kicukiro Oval in anticipation of running a cricket festival for several of the schools in the Kigali area that we had coached in during the previous two weeks. On arrival at 8.45 we received news that one of the schools was a definite no and indeed as the clock struck 9 not a single child was in sight.
Even allowing for the almost standard African delay of half an hour we were beginning to worry that the morning might be a complete disaster as by 10 there was still no one around, but just as plans were being made to try and find something else to occupy our time around 20 children from the nearby school were spotted heading our way. The plan had been for each local school to send around 20 children ideally from their school team however this message had clearly not been received by this particular school as the 20 children quickly became around 120.
As no one else had arrived this worked in our favour and we spent an enjoyable two hours working with them, just as the session was winding down another school Nyaragunga finally appeared ready for the festival (Just the two and a half hours late). So we finished with one school and went directly into a game with Nyaragunga who had at least followed instructions and sent their more experienced cricketers.
The handing out of t-shirts and wristbands to all that attended was a fitting end for most of the coaches on the trip and once again the smile on every child’s face when being given a gift will stay long in the memory.
Only Tim and Lee still had work to attend to in the form of coach education, this has been another difficult thing to organise on the trip but is a key part of every CWB project as leaving behind trained cricket coaches is essential for the sustainability of the game. Much like in the morning the proposed start time of 1 o’clock came and went and only at around 2 was there any sign of life.
We finally managed to attract 16 people to attend the course and special mention must go to Rogers from Ruhengeri and Che from Lycee de Kigali who were so good we awarded them the ICC Level 1 award with the rest receiving the Introductory award.
As it was our last night we all decided to return to the fabulous Heaven restaurant to celebrate what has been another truly memorable trip, once again we were blessed with a tremendous group of willing volunteers who gave everything they could to the project. Thanks must also go to everyone at the RCA for their support and special mention to Don, Desire, Andre and Eric the local Rwandan coaches who worked with us on a daily basis.
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