Our friends in the north

Our friends in the North

Greg Mackett

So firstly let me apologise for the lack of blogging, unfortunately up here in Kinihara there is a distinct lack of internet. To be fair the stunning views make up for it.

So Lee, Audi and myself set off early on sunday morning in the Eddie bus with the destination of the Sorwathe tea plantation in Kinihara. We were straight into the action upon our arrival with a coach education session on the community football ground provided by the Sorwathe plantation. All 18 coaches were fantastic and the woman were asking some great questions on how they can be better, not only as coaches but as advisors for their students with regards to HIV and AIDS. The afternoon was chilled out as we retreated to the guest house on the plantation where we played a mini olympics of tennis, table tennis, Darts, Badminton and culminating in a game of pool. You may think that we are living the life of Riley but once you read on you will realise we needed the R&R.

So Monday, well we expected some fun but Gsmata (spelling may be horribly wrong) threw us an absolute curve ball. 135 secondary school kids on an area the size of a basketball court, I hear you laugh and think thats not a lot, you’d be right. 330 primary school kids rocked up for the second session. All in all a fantastic morning session and big credit to the teachers who after a little persuasion got waving their arms around like idiots during some distraction catching. A quick pitstop back at the guest house for the lunch break and we were off out again.

The afternoon was a session at Murambo school in the bottom of a valley surrounded by the tea fields. A staggering 450 primary schools kids can cascading out of the school, a session of organised chaos that left Audi without a voice. The final session of the day was the secondary school and a mere 100+ kids, nice and chilled with some proper batting, bowling and fielding stations exposing the kids to more of the cricket skills.

So after a day of 1000+ kids of which we say over 50% of them were girls its been a fantastic day for Lee, Audi and I. We are now off for dinner as the guests of the head honcho of the Sorwathe and a man that deserves credit for his desire to bring cricket to the region.