Having now spent a full day at work reminiscing every moment with my colleagues I feel I can now reflect on what has been a blooming brilliant trip.
Rwanda itself is a magical African country as they seem to have it right. Every inch of land including steep hills, is being used to cultivate much needed food. The roads weave effortlessly between the valleys of the country and the streets are spotless due to the monthly national cleaning day. According to one of our ambassadors ‘Tall Eric’ every poor family is given a cow by the government and its calf passed on to another family in need. Perhaps this is something our government should look at doing.
Cricket is clearly thriving in the country. Schools are playing regularly and those that aren’t it’s only because they don’t have the equipment and knowledge to do so. One of my highlights was seeing the schools festival in Kigali and how everything had all come together because of the work of our ambassadors. Our legacy is clearly living on.
The highlight of the second week which I think everyone will agree with me was integrating a class of deaf children into our coaching session with another school. For Dan and I the class were the last group at our batting station and it was an absolute delight. The station had never ran so smoothly – it was therapeutically serene. We completely integrated them into our rapid fire game and we had one of teachers, who ended up qualifying a level 1 coach, also doing sign when coaching too. It wasn’t just the session that was amazing it was the ripple effect it created. Our ambassador Mary based down in Huye was insistent she was coming back to coach them and started learning even more sign. The RCA in turn were really supportive of this initiative and wanted her to get involved too.
My 3rd and final highlight of the trip has undoubtedly got be the CWB Team Rwanda family. On paper our team sheet looked to have the perfect blend of youth and ‘experience’ plus a good mix of female volunteers too. This was only on paper…but boy did we deliver. In the words of Katie we were ‘ONE TEAM, ONE DREAM’. The ambassadors were the that secret ingredient that made a good team incredible.
To Audifax, Eric, Mary, Jamie, Rossy, Steve, Kevin, Katie, Adam, Dan, Mackett and Lee. Thank you for making my trip so memorable.
I hope that at some point in the future I will be embarking on a trip with any of you or at least have a reunion in England next summer.
Holly