Day 5: Kayonza Festival, Bill Oddie and some surprises.

Today was our last day in Kayonza which culminated in a local festival played at Nyagahandagaza school, The continued attempts to pronounce the name of the school have continued to amuse the local coaches all week.

4 secondary schools and 7 primary schools attended today. With Rich and Eric running the secondary school games and Ben, Landry and Jackson the primary school games, the competition ran very smoothly with our first surprise of the day coming with the schools turning up mainly on time thanks to Jackson’s organisation of local buses to transport the schools. The local teachers also helped with the games and it was great to see them putting into practice some of the skill they had learned from the coach education sessions earlier in the week. After watching the first few matches they were soon running and scoring the the games themselves.
Lee did a great job of keeping the rest of the Nyagahandagaza primary school children who were just watching behind the force field line occupied with small catching games and relays, and DJ Mac Daddy Mac was on the tunes around the ground with a vast array of music. Nyagahandagaza secondary school ended up winning theie festival by 1 run in a super over after a tie with Mukarange secondary. Mukarange won the primary festival after some rather complicated maths similar to the Duckworth/Lewis method. As always we related everything back to our A B C and T messages, and information seemed to be getting though especially with Victoria’s Gahini and Kayonza Primary which Lesley did some outstanding work with keeping them entertained throughout the morning as their team manager.

After the festival we got the bus to Jambo Beach resort by Lake Muhazi to have some well earned lunch. While we were there Bill Oddie appeared in the shape of Lee taking many a picture of the local wildlife. We did notice 2 spotted necked otters in the lake which Lee failed to capture on film to which he replied “I only take pictures looking up, not down”.

After lunch we retired back to the hotel where Eric and Landry left us briefly to go back to Kigali. We will meet up again with Eric tomorrow and Landry on Monday in Kinihira. Rich, Ben and myself had a wander into Kayonza to see the sights and sounds that it had to offer. We did go down mattress alley and see some well named local establishments.

The day was finished off with our final meal at the Eastern Country hotel which to our surprise arrived only 6 minutes after the time we ordered it for!!  We have also started a team 2 pack rummie game which Lesley is in the lead after our first night, this game will be continued throughout the rest of the trip no doubt.

Jono