After a slight lie-in and an early morning dip for some in the hotel’s enormous pool we headed to our first school of the day.
Our first session saw us with around 115 children, which after 30 minutes turned into about 200, thanks to the morning break: very excited faces attempting to charm us to give them a ball. Ndanga, our local ambassador, was soon able to whisk away the session-crashers with clapping and skipping, at which point he resembled a famous pop star.
In the second session we were joined by a group of teenagers who easily looked older than the youngest members of our CWB team. Their old appearance did not impact their enthusiasm for Ally’s boogie-woogie-woogie during the warm-up. As a team we seem to be becoming more efficient and individuals are becoming more confident as everyone is finding their roles. A highlight of the morning was Warren discovering his role as the CWB’s Freddy Mercury, all of Nymata could hear the glorious eyyyy-ohhhh calls.
On the go for lunch again, we enjoyed chapati, bananas and samosas from the local market. In between sessions we were able to sneak a quick game of cricket in, where we witnessed Ally’s gun fielding, Warren’s tight bowling, and learnt why Chris would like the words ‘He was once quick’ on his gravestone.
We then had an excellent session during the afternoon with the same secondary students we taught yesterday afternoon. It was very rewarding as we were really able to see them develop the skills they learnt the day before and witness their growing enthusiasm for the game. Ally also managed to recruit three local mothers with their babies as cheerleaders.
The biggest win of the day – we lost fewer than five balls!
Gabby Dunnage – specialist 12th man, professional chatter and all-round procrastinator.
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