The day started as per usual; bumping about in bus listening to tunes and picking up every Eric that we could find at any random bus shelter. (Pretty much all the CWB cricket ambassadors are called Eric)
The group split with half us going to Gahanga 1 and the other going to Apace. I was in the team that went yo Gahanga 1 and we had a great session coaching around 300 children cricket skills. I was impressed by some of the questions they asked about Hiv/AIDs. Not so much by their one cricket question; ‘Whats the purpose of cricket?’.
The second group also had a great morning with brilliant children but seemed to have also managed a hill ascent unaided by any Sherpas, poles or crampons. Apparently Apace school was on the side of a hill even our fabulous driver, Eddie, couldn’t scale in the Hiace
We met for lunch and again split in the afternoon, with my team going back to Gahanga 1 and the others going to Meg Foundation.
We had approx 150 secondary school children and played rapid fire. Let’s just say they were a ‘high spirited’ bunch and leave it at that! They did show some good knowledge of the A,B,C,T, which was great.
Again the others had a great time at Meg and said the children were fabulous to coach.
On the way home we visited an area on the outskirts of Kigali called Ntarama. We went to a church where approximately 12 thousand people sought refuge during the genocide. Most of them were killed there. The church is a living memorial to those people. We were shown round by a couple of men who had survived the atrocities. One of them said he was 5 when he had come to the church. We walked round as Tall Eric translated what the survivors were telling us. It was a powerful experience which I can’t do justice with my words. Enough to say it was a lesson in human resilience, humility, and spirit.
The bus was a very quiet place on the way back to our hotel….
Lesley
Fantastic blogs – what an unbelievable experience for you all.You should all be very proud of your achievements – wish I was there!!