Ladies and Gentlemen in the world outside Rwanda, this blog comes to you from Captain Sensible (Steve Newham), a first time CWB’er and debut blogger.
Day 4 dawned happily without too much nocturnal activity from the local dogs and birds, but with renewed vigour on the building site next door. The team had been fuelled by a magnificent curry the night before so was in fine fettle to board the bus for the journey to the day’s activities. Amazingly the human pyramid of the previous afternoon hadn’t led to any life threatening injuries, although one of our number claimed to have lost his voice, and was rewarded with a gentle day of camera and timekeeping duties. Crafty move eh?
Our first stop was at the Oval, the only proper cricket ground in Rwanda, and somewhat eerily the setting for a large part of the film Shooting Dogs (a must see for anyone wanting to know about the Rwandan genocide). We were greeted in the best way possible in Africa, by wave after wave of smiling, laughing 4 year olds; a heart lifting way to start the day but somewhat daunting to teach cricket to! Fortunately their teachers led them away to be replaced by about 100 12-14 year olds from St Esprit School, to the relief of the team.
A hearty buffet lunch was taken in the stadium canteen, followed by a drive out into the leafy suburbs of this beautiful city to the ESPH school where we presided over two matches between two teams of enthusiastic teenagers on an interestingly two tiered dust bowl surrounded by thigh length grass. The greatest moment and champagne moment of the day was by far the 6 back over the bowlers head and then the very next ball, a cover driven 4 all along the carpet…
A splinter group went somewhat off piste to a school just up the road who didn’t know we were coming, and managed to set up a quick match for about 35 18 -20 year olds who went from looking somewhat baffled as to what we were up to, to having a great time and begging us to return. Hopefully we will one day…
We finished the day with our second visit to Fawe Girls School, where Rossy’s team enjoyed a glorious victory over Mary’s girls.
A brilliant day with 310 children coached, taking our total in only 4 days to an unbelievable 2680!
Lessons learnt so far for the first time volunteer? Conserve your voice, go easy on the hot sauce, avoid chafing in any way you can and never, never volunteer to be in the bottom row of the pyramid! A couple of interesting facts about Rwanda: firstly, every Saturday morning, everyone stops what they’re doing and spends 2 hours cleaning up their community. No wonder this great little country is so clean. Secondly, Rwanda is the only member of the Commonwealth not to have been a British colony. The things you learn through CWB.
Tomorrow we look forward with keen anticipation to the arrival of Katie to complete our team, and with some trepidation to the return of Lee and Greg from their trip upcountry.
Over and out.
Loving reading about Rwanda. Happy memories. Enjoy week two.