Lee Booth with day 10s activities in Rwanda…

With a 7.30 start this morning it was perhaps fortunate that rains of almost biblical proportions last evening reduced any planned festivities to a couple of Mutzigs and a pizza next door. The Castro again winning more votes as best pizza on show (a handy bit of consumer advice for any future volunteers I think).

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The early start once again had us heading South to Nyanze where the team will be coaching all week, our first school Lycee De Ruhango provided us with just over 100 boys and girls who had never before been exposed to cricket. It is always a challenge when outside of Kigali as the language barrier is much more obvious making delivering our HIV/AIDS awareness messages more difficult. This is where our local Rwandan coaches become even more important as they get heavily involved in translating. We are always happy to get the children playing cricket without clear verbal explanations as a good demonstration can speak a 1000 words but we ensure that the messages are always delivered loud and clear.

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After an hours lunch we looked headed for disappointment as once again the rain came down hard for around 45 minutes as we arrived at ETO Gitarama, but fortunately as our start time arrived the clouds rolled away and we got away on time all be it with a slightly damp outfield (basketball court / football pitch).

The next 2 hours then provided the final piece in the jigsaw for the new volunteers. On the dot of 3 as expected around 70 children arrived and slotted seamlessly in to our well positioned / planned coaching stations. After 10 minutes I looked up the hill to see another mass of people in sports kit, a quick word with the teacher and we discovered there were 100 more children ready for action. Not a problem, plans change and within no time we again had everyone in action. The final nail in the well planned session was the last group of around 200 that then made their way to the field.

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Any attempt at organised activity then descended in to mass games and relay races keeping everyone happy and involved for the rest of the session, Rich Davies running an impromptu game of crown green bowling with around 50 youths is a sight that will stay with me for a long time. Importantly we then got everyone together at the end to ensure all at least heard our important messages even if they didn't get the level of cricket coaching we would have liked to deliver.

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This is my last night with the group as I have to return to the UK a couple of days before the rest of the team, it will be a sad farewell in the morning as I wave them goodbye to another days coaching in the sun and return to the snow bound UK, but I will leave as always from this trip with more good friends and a host of amazing memories.