Today we headed further south to Mushishiro, about 45km south of Muhanga, an extremely remote village situated on top of a hill for the first of our two day stint here. For our west-country representative, Mark, this was his last day with us before he heads back home following his army call up and there could not be a more picturesque ground to coach at.
Surrounded by rolling hills as far as the eye could see, the Mushishiro Oval, quite frankly made Cape Town’s Newlands ground look particularly ordinary by comparison. The gentle gospel singing from Mushishiro’s church choir was the perfect soundtrack as we step off the bus to admire the awesome view.
In comparison to the previous afternoon where all the boys we coached had heard of the game, here no-one knew a thing about cricket, including the teachers. On the plus side, the kids here were aware of some of the HIV/ AIDS messages, but there was still work to be done.
Key to this trip is ensuring that after we’ve gone, we have teachers at the schools, and new coaches who can spread the HIV/AIDS awareness messages through the game. Ange is permanently with us for the two weeks, learning to be a coach so that he can continue this after we have gone, as part of his role for the Rwanda Cricket Association.
He’s a mechanical engineer by trade, but when Ange is given a bat or ball, his day job goes out the window. His ability to translate for us during this trip has been invaluable to the team, because for the rest of the team our command of Kiyrwandan is totally lacking, and in somewhere as remote as Mushishiro where English is spoken by only a handful of people in the village, Ange’s assistance has been greatly received. That said cricket, despite assertions, is a beautifully simplistic game made complicated by man’s modification of it. What we have all noticed is that a quick two minute demonstration of what to do, is sufficient for the kids to pick up the techniques no matter the age.
Being in such a small village, word soon gets around of what is going on at Ecole Primary and Secondary School, and soon the area surrounding the pitches attracted a huge crowd who are also learning from the side-lines with the coaching we were delivering.
On day one of the Mushishiro leg of our trip, we coached 280 kids between the ages of 3-16 who had never heard of cricket. We spoke to all of them about the importance of HIV/AIDs awareness. For Mark, as a last day experience, you couldn’t really have asked for more.
Day Four – ‘Of the day’ Awards
Batting of the day:
Bowling of the day:
Moment of the day: The view from the Mushishiro Oval’s ‘Rolling Hill’ end.
Item balanced on the head – Wardrobe (going uphill – a very steep one at that)
