Following our previous day's exploits at Club Rafiki, which continued well into evening when having practiced our moves during the day we decided to continue it in a questionable reputable nightclub in Kigali, we woke up a little stiff and rather tired from all the exercise. As an excuse cricket coaching works certain muscles, throwing wide shapes obviously utilises other muscles. Our flight is due to take off at 4pm, which when we woke at 8am left us with just enough time to return to Club Rafiki, to coach, for one final hurrah before we departed.
Our coaching session today was with the Ubaka U Rwanda Charity, the charity run by Evode who came to coach with us on Wednesday, and his wife Becky. We had the BBC with us to complete the final interviews with Ange and Big Eric before the Beeb departed to Kenya, with Lee, to continue their documentary. Although we did not have the soundsystem set up, to be fair it was 9.30am in the morning and most of Kigali were asleep at this point, we had a fair amount of entertainment going on aside from the cricket coaching. Of particular note was Evay, an 11 year old boy who 2 years ago was found on the streets high on glue, drunk and who had been set alight by someone. Having been taken in by Becky and Evode, he had given up his life on the street of alcoholism and glue sniffing to essentially become a champion acrobat. He demonstrated this today by displaying his back flip skills to Phil Mackie, the BBC reporter. He had apparently told Phil he could do 10 backward flips, but that today he was not really feeling on it so he will ‘just’ do the 7 continuous back-flips instead. So as a side show to the game of Kwik-Cricket at the end of the session, the group were treated to Evay’s impressive skills pitch side.
Following the session we went to Evode and Becky’s house, which is home to 30 boys at present providing them with shelter, education and medical care as part of the Ubaka U Rwanda Charity. All the team in attendance were awe-inspired by the work done by Evode and Becky, and their commitment to try and help to develop the boys here.
As we depart their house, we are acutely aware that our time in Rwanda is now coming to a close and having now completed our last coaching session we had a rather sad goodbye (hopefully not forever) to our two main Rwandan Cricket Coaches – Ange and Big Eric. Over the past two weeks their assistance, guidance and translation skills have been invaluable to the team, and to be honest the Kiss classic ‘Crazy Nights’ will never be quite the same without hearing Ange’s delicate gospel voice singing along to his favourite tune.
So as we travel to the airport, we may be slightly achy and exhausted from our two weeks of coaching, but this does not really matter as for the team we have had the most life-changing experience out here in Rwanda. On our journey we have visited some stunning places, met some amazing and inspiring people, and seen how in a short space of time a country can move forward from the events of 1994. Most importantly of all we have brought some smiles to the faces of the kids we have coached and given them vital information about HIV/ AIDs awareness.
We have had the time of our lives out here and cannot wait to do it all again.