When we looked out of the window today somebody said the legendary sentence: ‘It will be another scorcher.’ And indeed, it was. We arrived at the Mbale Municipal Stadium at half past eight and watched the football practice once again. The stamina of the players amazed us once more and after they left (apparently with some very ugly looks towards Chris…), we took over the stadium. We were expecting eight primary schools this morning and to our disbelief they all arrived.
We divided the 110 children with their teachers (who attended yesterday’s coaching) and started our spiel about CWB, cricket and the HIV/AIDS messages. I must admit, we are all very good at delivering them these days. It comes as a second nature and we might face some challenges when coaching back in the UK!
After two water breaks and a practice games of cricket – we are preparing the kids and the teachers for tomorrow’s tournament – we finally got break for lunch. Chris and I ventured to the local market, that the boys discovered yesterday. I had a great time, the further we went, the narrower the streets were and the less light was getting through the sheets of plastic above our heads. Chris took me to the ‘chapatti’ place, where a smiling man sold me six pancakes while the surrounding people watched Chris taking a picture of it. Then we got some more bananas and water and went back to the ground.
The afternoon went pretty much in the same pattern, except we only had six schools. That made 81 children. It was getting very stormy and after a very few spots of rain the dust storm arrived. We all managed to get our kit into the bags in a record time. Only Mike took his time and was caught in the wave of dust.
Helen (and her 15 pairs of pants) arrived today and by 5pm she was sitting with us in the hotel, enjoying a cold beer. We seem to be drinking a few of those, and after the scorcher, who can blame us?
The ‘twit of the day’ title was won by Richard, who about 30 minutes ago destroyed a plastic chair by simply sitting in it.
We finished a successful day by visiting the Mbale Resort restaurant. We were lucky as tonight was a ‘traditional African food’ night and we tasted matooki, goat, yam and other local delicacies. On the way back we caught boda-bodas (motorbike taxis) and had a round of crazy golf at our hotel. Needless to say that we should really stick to cricket…
PS: the Mbale teachers, who came last year were asking after Clare, our wildlife spotter from the previous project. How nice to be remembered!
Czech version for my parents and other Czechs: Dneska jsme trenovali v Mbale na stadionu. Rano jsme meli sto deset deti a ucitelu a odpoledne osmdesat jedna. Slunicko parilo a bylo jako v peci, nez kolem treti hodiny dorazilo par kapek deste a prachova vlna. Krome Mika jsme tou dobou uz vsichni skoncili, takze byl jediny uprostred hriste… Dneska nam taky prijela posledni clenka tymu Helen, tak uz je tady a uzivame si studeneho piva Club.