6th March – day nine (Mike’s birthday)

Helen “Mzungu” Whitehall here and as the new arrival I have got blogging duty for the day. Not much time to recover from the trip for me as we were up and at ‘em early this morning, arriving at the ground for 8 (ish!) a.m. As everyone keeps reminding me whilst they have been working hard I’ve just been sitting around on planes, trains and automobiles. The group’s hard work was in evidence this morning however as over 150 kids and about a dozen teachers turned out. All of them missing Sunday, which is the traditional family day, for the tournament.
We arrived a soldier down as Chris has managed to pick up a dicky tum so the teams were split out evenly and we each got a little around robin going with Rich keeping us all in check. I was a bit taken aback at the sheer competiveness of it all. The tears, the tantrums and the traumas…and that was just the teachers. I did genuinely make about seven children cry when I announced the winners following one game. Funnily enough they did win their next one but it was close so tricky to fix.
Another first for me was to see an event start and finish on time in Africa. We did have stragglers turning up as the day went on but more or less everything went to plan. We drew things to a close at midday and gathered around looking slightly mucky from the sticky dust to work out the winners. Five school teams were outstanding and so we decided t-shirts for them and wristbands for the rest.
All the schools got together in the stands for the presentation. We had some lovely warm words from the local organiser and a rousing chorus of the national anthem. This was followed by another song about being the children being the future of Uganda which was made all the more pertinent as Mike had just finished delivering a great rundown of the ABCs. I can’t wait to see Veronika’s footage as the song included lots of marching which we all tried to join in with.
Today was even more special for one member of the group and much to Mike’s surprise the kids finished off with “Happy Birthday” just for him. It was lovely and a memory to treasure.
Just dinner tonight and then back on the road again tomorrow. The place we are planning to eat at tonight boasts real British food but I’ll leave it to tomorrow’s blogger to reveal what they mean by that. It could be anything!

Czech: Nedele, posledni den v Mbale. Dneska jsme meli turnaje s detmi a uciteli, ktere jsme trenovali za posledni dva dny. Meli jsme asi 150 deti a kazdy z nas, dobrovolniku, organizoval 5 zapasu pro 2 az 3 skoly. Na konci jsme jim predali vyhru – tricka, naramky a certifikaty a vsechny deti a ucitele pak zpivali narodni hymnu a hlavne ‘Happy Birthday’ pro Michaela! Zbytek dne mame volno, balime se a chystame na dlouhou 9.5 hodinovou cestu do Mweya safari parku.