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Lee Booth checks in with Saturdays events so far from Kigali

With the weekend arriving our focus switched to Coach Education, around 12 teachers were expected for a morning session so it was decided to give most of the team the morning off to recharge ahead of more busy days next week. This all changed as over last nights dinner we discovered that in classic African planning style Tall Eric a Rwandan CWB veteran was due to play against the national u19s at 9 in the morning and also had planned a coaching session for 9.30.

As is usual on a CWB trip the team decided to give up their limited spare time and so at 8 this morning we all boarded the bus dropping Gary, George, Jonno, Adam and Chris at the Kicukiro Oval as I and Rich made our way on to Lycee for coach ed.

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More suprises appeared for the Kicukiro team as on arrival they discovered that the All Star team selected to give the u19s a test prior to their important competition in South Africa were a man short. Again CWB came to the rescue, this time with less impressive results.

Adam kindly offered his services as the CWB ringer and confidently strolled to the crease at number 11 as the All Stars had slumped to 45 for 9. A stone dead LBW decision first ball however ended his very brief international career and severely dented our prowess as cricket experts.

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After the usual sluggish start me and Rich ran our now well grooved coach ed and it was a real pleasure to work with him again and pick up our partnership from 9 months ago in Uganda. A good 3 hours was spent and as always after the ice was broken the group were very responsive to what we were doing. As always we finished with a good chat about HIV/AIDS and what they now can do to help get out the messages to their children.

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We were told that the afternoon in a PSI centre would be similar to yesterdays session with us demonstrating our brand of cricket coaching with HIV/AIDS messaging to another 12-15 people. With this in mind we again split the group to allow 4 members of the team to watch the local football derby at the main stadium between ARP and Rayon. From the stories they have been telling including being snapped by the local media it sounds like a great afternoon.

With the 3 remaining members travelling to Kabuga having between them been on over 20 CWB projects we really should have known better and as we arrived to be greeted by around 120 kids from the age of around 3 to 20 plans had to be hastily rearranged. Fortunately with this level of experience we managed to have a wonderful 2 hours with a great set of kids from one of the poorer areas of Kigali.

We may have returned to the bus about 60 tennis balls down having given them all away but it was a small price to pay for what has so far been my favourite session of the trip.

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