We are halfway through our Rwanda trip, which I think creates a opportunity for reflection. New volunteers Charlie and Sarah have moved onto new adventures, and their input will be sorely missed next week. We started in Kayonza, east of Kigali on the Muhazi Lake, where CWB have previously worked, and finished our time there with a hugely successful Rapidfire festival. Five hours of cricket, laughter and astonishing athleticism from 13 teams. The Spirit of Cricket was flowing!
We moved north to Nyagatare (stopping briefly to meet Coach Eric’s beautiful daughter) and settled ourselves into this new CWB area. We have spent two days here so far, visiting primary and secondary schools, introducing cricket and its values to new students. At one school, our two sessions were either side of break time. We could have packed up our kit and sat on the bus for a 20 minute rest but in true CWB style the seven volunteers with local coaches Eric and Robert entertained 1000 children with just a tennis ball each. The very small classes all mastered the wiggle bottom move of “head shoulders knees & toes” much to the amusement of their teachers.
Our last session of the week was at a Teacher Training College, where 16-18 year olds are learning to be primary school teachers. A tough crowd but Coach Abi did a great job with the messaging about the values of cricket and how they can take those values into their future classrooms, followed by a game of Crossfire cricket.
Highlights of the week?
The festival, baby Amaya, and being quizzed by a teacher about why we were bringing cricket into their school. This gave us the opportunity to discuss the CWB messaging about the values of cricket and how they can be applied in school, in the community and in life; equality, inclusion, respect, teamwork, learning, caring and KWISHIMISHA (fun)!!!
And here are the stats so far:
17 sessions
1651 Girls coached
1640 Boys coached
And at least 20 teachers joined in too. So that makes 3300+ smiles and a lot of laughter!
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