“Mwaramutse” – the receptionist looked up, and her expression of surprise turned to a sweet smile. Picking up greetings like “Good Morning” in a new language can go a long way to building a positive rapport in a new land, and is one of the great pleasures of travelling for many.
The CWB team had found a greater immediate yearning to acquire key phrases in the local lingo following the playground ‘joys’ of yesterday having been faced with 250 primary school kids on their lunch break, each desperate to get their hands on a ‘glowing orb’. Who knew an old tennis ball would be quite so desirable, but it was and is, so ‘agapira’ (ball), ‘umurongo’ (make a line) and ‘genda’ (go away) are all now part of the CWB lexical kit bag for this trip!
Not sure what ‘go with the flow’ is in Kinyarwanda yet but Wednesday started with another change to the schedule and being prepared for adjustments to the day’s plan is a must for anyone on a project like this in Rwanda. We did finally kick off mid morning at GS Kinbungo with 72 very well-behaved kids (their ‘Head of Discipline’ did accompany them!). Bowling, fielding and batting all introduced and developed on the dusty football pitch with a stunning backdrop of the hills, watched on by a few local kids from the village and their rather perplexed mums. Coaching highlight came from CWB trustee, Gillian, throwing herself into her first demo which involved her batting keepie-uppies relay race missing the cone and heading for the hills. When it came to the kids’ turns, they all copied her thinking that is how’s it done!
“The thing i’ve learnt is never demonstrate a skill you don’t have”
Quote from the legend herself (editor note – I personally believe Gillian is now a cricketing legend also) – “Huge thanks to team Rwanda 24 for letting me follow their journey from the training weekend in Coventry to coaching sessions in the eastern region. It has been amazing to see the games and training come to life in the hands of such a passionate group of coaches. And if you’re reading this and wondering if this is for you, do it! You’ll be encouraged and inspired by brilliant people and visit places no tourist usually goes. Go well team Rwanda – look forward to hearing the stories!”
The Kinbungo school badge featured the words of “Inclusivity” and “Integrity” which neatly aligns with some of the key messages that CWB seeks to integrate into its learning as part of the cricket sessions, and was nicely highlighted as part of the closing words of the session by Coach Andrew.
“Rain stopped play”, is a phrase far too familiar to an English cricketer, but the downpour this afternoon was very much of African standards – torrential, relentless and enough to abandon any match anywhere in the world and we thought that would be curtains for our last session of the day. But this is Rwanda! Within half an hour of it stopping, we were on the pitches at Andera and ran practice sessions and games of “5 bats” with 300 kids over a 2-hour period. This is one of the major junior hubs for the Rwandan Cricket Association (RCA) and there was real batting and catching talent on display from the youngsters. Based on what we saw here, Rwandan cricket is most definitely heading in the right direction and looking forward to seeing their rise.
Next stop is Huye.
Written by Rob
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