After landing in Ethopia at around 7am local time we then had around a 3 hour wait until the flight to Kigali. Most of this time was spent introducing the group to the card game ‘S*%thead’ and then on to a cafe for breakfast. Scrambled eggs or an egg sandwich being the food of choice for most however Stu and Dave feeling more adventurous both ordered local dishes (Injera Firfir for Dave, Zilzil Tips for Stu). For those interested the verdict is go for the Firfir, it’s a few dollars more but definitely worth it.
The flight again was around an hour late, but once in the air it was only another 2 hours until we landed to clear skies and 27 degree heat. The baggage came out nice and quick and once out of the airport we were met by Robert our host from the Rwandan Cricket Association, the next hurdle was to get all 8 of us plus all the cricket kit into a minibus for the 10 minute drive to our apartments.
I think everyone was pleasantly surprised at how nice the rooms were and the views from the higher floors over Kigali and the golf course are stunning.
There was no time to waste however as Robert was back in an hour to take us to the Ecole Technique Officielle in which grounds stands the Kicurio oval the only cricket ground currently in Rwanda. A schools and universities competition was taking place with 3 games going on at the same time on different parts of the school grounds. We first watched a bit of girls cricket and then we watched a close finish to a game between Rukara College of Education and The Institute of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry with the latter running out winners of the tournament after scoring 18 in the last over including hitting a boundary off the last ball.
The enthusiasm and commitment of all the players was great to see and after the match we were given a lift in the winners bus to the last match that was taking place. The players were all excited and singing the praises of their coach Tall Eric as they had only been playing for a month and had 4 training sessions prior to the tournament.
We managed to start a game of our own with the local kids after the last match and the standard of play was very impressive with kids as young as 9 showing great bowling actions and catching skills.
It was then back to the apartments to shower and change and then out for pizza next door.
Click here to view all the videos from the trip on our YouTube Channel.
