As the opening act at the opening ceremony of the new National Cricket Stadium in Gahanga, we set off at 9am to ensure arrival through the thick Kigali traffic by ten. We arrived at 9:15! No traffic?Umuganda for one meant that traffic was light but as the President was also expected the army and police had effectively closed all roads to all traffic bar that heading for the stadium.
The team were simply awesome. Not only did we run a typical CWB session on an atypical surface we also led 50-plus children in a dance off around the ground for at least an hour while heavy rain delayed proceedings!
After two weeks on the road this team have spent the last two days dragging energy from the depths of their bodies to deliver and complete sessions. The energy and application on this rain sodden morning, no doubt enhanced by the words we heard at the orphanage earlier in the day, made this Project Lead very proud to be a part of all that CWB offers to both Rwandan children and our own volunteers.
Following the festivities of the previous day the CWB team returned to APECO, as promised for several highly enjoyable hours painting, gardening and doing odd jobs, under the direction of the kids.
The highlight was one CWB team member who took it on them selves to sweep the soil in the garden! Well, you know how mucky soil can get.
Sunday afternoon we went to a local school who’d had their first encounter with CWB and cricket just 3 years ago, and now fielded a strong team in a straight 10:10 match versus a CWB side. The match went to the last ball and was won by CWB with a smartly taken leg-bye. The school featured five excellent bowlers, two of them women, and a flamboyant wicket-keeper batsmen who will be pushing the likes of Johnny Bairstow before long. At the end of the day it was experience with the bat that made the difference, but next year we’ll need a stronger side if we’re to win again.
It was brilliant to have this match at the end of our coaching tour because it is a good proof of concept of the CWB model, and a tremendous testament to Tall Eric – the coach/ambassador paid for by CWB who followed up that first visit in 2014 with regular training sessions.
Needless to say, the players knew their ABC(T) by heart: Abstain, Be Faithful, always use a Condom, get Tested and know your status, so you can get Treatment if needed.
]]>As often happens, even when we did get to the school, part way through our games of rapid fire, break-time started so an extra hundred or so children tore straight for us and games had to be abandoned. This is a regular occurrence on CWB trips though so as smooth as clockwork we packed up the equipment (which has a habit of going missing during break-times) and started catching games with all the children to make sure everyone could be involved.
A barbed wire fence and ridiculously steep embankment didn’t deter the children from retrieving tennis balls following wild throws. The power of the tennis ball over here is phenomenal.
So after a slightly stuttering start, we headed off to LIFE, a private international school that CWB have never been to before, and what a treat it was. The children were incredibly polite and engaged and interested in asking us all sorts of questions in perfect English.
The ABCT message of HIV though wasn’t apparent in the students education. It’s always nice to be able to go into a school where these messages aren’t regularly taught and introduce the children to it. Blank faces at the start which by the end of the session turns amazingly into a good understanding of our work.
With this school, because the groups were small, we were able to have good conversations not only about the HIV message but also about other challenges in life that may arise and how they can respond when under pressure in any situation. There were some amazing young people there who we are certain will become the leaders of the future, and it was beautiful to watch them helping their friends, encouraging team spirit and discovering the joys of cricket.
Our last school of the day was EP Kacyiru. 200 smiling and cheeky characters who really enjoyed the games that we ran. As is usual the line of kids waiting to bat somehow grows exponentially and we seemed to spend most of the session identifying the culprits who were using ingenious methods to get an extra chance to bat!
Again, the kids understanding of the ABCT messages wasn’t great but by the wrap-up, wonderfully crafted by Rhino, we could see the messages getting through. And of course, there is nothing better when you are trying to drive away from a school, through the throngs of kids running after the bus, to hear the chants of ‘ABCT awooga’ drifting into the evening air.
Drinks at an event with the British High Commisioner gave us a chance to speak to lots of different people about the work of CWB and to share some of the funny, touching and sometimes faintly ridiculous stories from the project so far.
Friday began with a walk to the old stadium at IPRC to host our final cricket festival of the project. It was 9:30am and we were greeted by Sara who had landed an hour or so earlier from Tanzania and was already netting with four locals!
As the schools began turning up so did Gary, fresh off the plane from London! and the festival got underway in good spirit, a wonderful scene of six games of rapid fire spread around the ground.
Kids all storming round their respective pitches it all came down to two finals, one primary, one secondary. The latter a massive victory for Gahanga 1 by 153 to 88.
We headed off to freshen up before a visit to the Kigali genocide memorial, which was an emotional experience. The memorial is set in beautiful grounds and the exhibits although very sombre are incredibly informative. You cannot but help think about all the lovely people and children we have met over the course of the trip and not relate back to events 23 years ago.
We left in Eddie’s van without a word being spoken all the way home.
]]>We woke up to a beautiful morning on our first full day back in Kigali. Rwanda truly is a land of a thousand mountains!
The naive amongst us assumed that the four schools scheduled for the day would be in and around the city? Never assume anything in Rwanda! The first school, Rugiseri, was a ninety minute drive away! It was a scenic drive, entertained as always with the teams wit, humour and Lee’s searchingly inane questions! The drive was worth it, however with a primary school of over 130 children, including a nursery section (“I am catching”) who were extremely focused and who enjoyed the cricket coaching and ABCT messages.
After leaving on a high we were quickly forced into adaptability mode when the district education administrator decided, upon arrival at our next stop, that we would not be permitted to set foot in the next two schools!
With fleet of foot we quickly arranged to visit two other schools back in Kigali, where we could coach and give the lifestyle and health messaging.
These schools, Kicukiro and Gahanga 1, proved to be both receptive and challenging to us and with great commitment and energy the team finished a potentially frustrating day on a high by being cheered out of our last school, with the students clearly understanding our message!
Our second day in the capital began with a charming visit to Ecole St Agnes, a primary school with a long narrow flat area. 100 children, skill stations and four adjacent games of rapid fire cricket later with consistent ABCTs our 2 hours just flew by.
Our second stop at SOS was severely rain affected and the 15 minutes we were allocated by the teacher turned unit 40 minutes of ad hoc, largely unstructured groupings catching high hit balls!
It must be noted that at before our final stop of the day the team managed to find Kigali’s newest and best pizza and fried chicken outlet for lunch.
The final stop, and one which has become a firm favourite of CWB and the volunteers who visit was to the MEG Foundation. Superbly trained by Tall Eric over the past year the skills development and HIV/AIDS awareness here is positively unrecognisable from our first visit in 2016.
Wednesday, and we find ourselves in Bugesera, 20 minutes outside of Kigali, and after lively negotiation with the principlal(s) at Nyamata two contrasting games got underway with a large group of sophisticated secondary students.
One game was highly competitive and required the umpiring abilities of our own Dickie Bird to settle the result. The other, a bit more relaxed, needed a good kick up to get moving. Everything came together with a great wrap-up where the students own concise and thoughtful messages on HIV and health were simply read out.
I (Jon) have to admit to being slightly skeptical that quite conceptual messages could effectively be delivered in a cricketing context – but now I’m certain that they can.
When the students already have some familiarity with the messages, then reminding them in a fun context clearly re-enforces; and when the familiarity is not there then the introduction prepares the ground for later work.
Anyway, a dust storm and an enormous threatening black cloud welcomed us to GS Ngoma and as we set up it seemed certain that all we would get was wet and dirty.
But yet again this inspirational team pushed on and were rewarded by the storm doing a last minute body-swerve to avoid us.
We were given 60 children which rapidly became 200 and a good solid round of constructive mayhem kicked off, finishing with more sensitive hammering home of the healthy living HIV awareness messages.
By the time got to GS Ntarama we were joined by fellow volunteers from Coutts Bank who gamely joined in helping to coach several hundred primary and secondary school students.
Our days in Kigali are usually rounded off, after dinner, with motorbike taxi returns to base, preferably when they get the destination wrong so you get another ride – but never for more than a quid!
]]>Our final couple of days in Muhanga began with a trip to a secondary school and an uncharacteristically flat playing field but a more usual mix of girls and boys.
As ever some of the boys looked to be designed more for rugby than cricket but it wasn’t too long before we had two games of cricket going on and lots of shouting, cheering and smiling. A real highlight was the ball getting whacked over the fence and the children playing outside chasing it down the street and throwing it back to us.
We headed off that afternoon to coach education where we had 13 teachers developing their skills, asking questions and getting stuck in for over 4 hours! Special mention must go to Khush who led the session and kept everyone engaged all afternoon.
The session was split between classroom based and practical activities and only finished when it got too dark to see the ball! These sessions are crucial to helping with the sustainability of CWB’s work.
Children at every school ask us about how they can keep playing cricket and helping ensure their teachers are skilled up to coach is a big part of making this happen.
Before we moved on to Kigali we still had a festival to go….and what a festival! We got our pitches set up and as the children were congregating to get things started we were given a 2 minute rain warning by one of the teachers.
A large scale dash to a nearby maize drying barn ensued and 2 minutes later all our team and 100 children were huddled together watching a terrific downpour.
The rain was short lived and we soon had everyone back on the field and the games were underway. The festival was fantastic and children, teachers and coaches were all soon having fun and as ever we were treated to some huge hits, great throws and my game saw the catch of the tournament!
Muhanga has been fantastic. A ‘Splendid’ hotel, great schools and lots of fun. We’ve seen girls and boys playing together at every school and met some teachers who were enthusiastic and loved their cricket. I think we all left feeling that the coaches will keep playing cricket in their schools and delivering the messages that it’s a game for everyone.
Next stop Kigali for more schools, real cricket, motorbike taxis and the Plus 250 club but that’s a story for another day and another blog….
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What.A.Day!!
Too many fantastic things to write about so I have decided to pick the top 5!
1. We have had the pleasure of the company of Livingston again, the teacher from GS Giterama, assisting and delivering sessions all day today. It is so helpful to have the support of both he and Jackson, our RCA representative, who can translate our English into Kinyarwanda for the kids. Livingston will be ‘officially’ trained at the CWB coaching course for teachers on Saturday and it is great to know there will be someone with his passion and enthusiasm to continue spreading cricket in Muhanga.
2. It was raining very heavily (and very cold!) when we arrived at our second school of the day but we still ran an hour of games for the Primary children.
Prior to starting the rain was so heavy we sheltered under cover in front of a classroom. Adrian, Providence and I decided to investigate what the pupils were studying and found a mixture of biology (genetics), chemistry (Potassium Manganate) and maths (simultaneous equations). After a while they decided it would be amusing to test us and wrote on the blackboard…
Solve: 2x + 4 – 3x = 0
Solution? There isn’t one!
Rwanda 1-0 CWB
It was also at this school that Pete met a boy who was deaf and mute, who spoke to us using a small chalkboard. He told us he had placed a bet on Arsenal the previous day; who subsequently lost! His serious written comment; rather amusing for most of us, was;
‘I need Wenger out’.
3. After our soaking we headed back to the hotel for a change of clothes and lunch. The waitress in our hotel has quickly picked up on my hot chocolate addiction so just put a jug of hot milk and tub of chocolate powder on my table! Meanwhile Livingston gave us a lesson in how a buffet plate should look. We are still unsure if he could see over his plate of food!
4. Our final school: Rosa Mystica; was my favourite of the trip so far. We were met at the gates by a sign that said ‘Inclusion’ and that is what we got! 150 primary school girls and boys, all in identical pale blue, individually numbered t-shirts, were marched singing, dancing and clapping (obviously) into the ground for our session.
What made this school all the more rewarding was the inclusion, and in contrast to other schools we had been to, many children with a wide range of physical, learning and sensory impairments. We later found out from a conversation that Ryan had with a 16yr old senior school girl, that the Sister who runs the school does not turn away any child – those whose parents cannot afford or are not willing to pay for them to attend are still welcomed.
5. Rwandan schoolchildren seem to love singing and there is one song in particular I had enjoyed so much I asked Livingston to teach us it on the bus! There is a video of us all practicing which will make it to YouTube one day!
“Yaravuze, Yaravuze, Yaravuze
mutoza wikirenga yaravuze
Ntore z’u rwanda duhaguruke
Twese dukomeze kwesa imihigo”
Our final session of the day finished with us all singing this together with the kids.
Truly memorable.
The day started with a delay, but in true CWB style the team soon rallied to a game of kwik cricket across three spaces in the hotel car park with Eddie, our driver, as a reliable umpire!
When we got to our first school, GS Gitarama, we were greeted with a Bibical reference to Romans 10:9 on one of the teachers tee shirts, that set the tone of the school.
Once we had descended approximately 200 metres down a rocky slope to a flat playing area we coached 400 students, primary and secondary, in drill stations and finished with games of Rapid Fire!
Pete Lamb departed on public transport to Kigali, to assist Lee in the further coaching development of RCA Development Officers, we departed for our afternoon session.
We drove for over an hour to Kirwa School. The tired and the wise amongst us questioned the planning of such a rural venture, in the development of Rwandan Cricket and discussed, with vivid descriptions of how it could have been planned and organised more efficiently.
The only mishap? A large arthropod flying into Thom’s eye, expertly removed by Ryan and Jackson with a blade of grass with 80+ children looking on!
The undoubted highlight of the day was Livingston; a teacher from the morning school who without coach ed picked up our methodology and ran with it. He was brilliant. He then accompanied us to the afternoon venue to learn more and will accompany us on Friday to learn more again. A fine example of truly sustainable coaching!
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Wednesday was our first festival of the trip which also signalled the end of our time in Karongi. The day would start however with a visit to two more schools to continue spreading our messages as far and wide as possible.
The initiative shown a day earlier, with a school cancellation leading to re-visits to others in the area, would be required again throughout the day regardless of only having one team member who’d ever been to a festival before. It turns out the team do initiative very well.
Coaching 280 children before 10 in the morning may sound a slightly daunting prospect, but it seems this is now being taken into everyone’s stride as sessions become more seamless by the hour. It’s clear to see why everybody is enjoying the experience, once aboard the bus en route to the next school conversation is rife about individual stories that really held onto coaches, each sharing what happened during their activity. ‘They throw the ball hard!’, ‘How do they pick it up so quickly’, ‘She really led the way’ all part of conversations as the Muzungu bus rides on.
“We can use this space” said the teacher as he took a man a sock and slider combo back along the path towards the community gates to show him the area the school regularly use for physical activity.
The reaction from Spav was similar to that of the children around him who group by group were spotting the footwear situation he had going on. “It’s basically a quarry” was the analysis of the offered playing area, which turned out to be a hugely accurate description.
Sometimes situations scream opportunity, and the chance to throw cricket balls through enourmous worn truck tyres was one of these moments.
Onto Karongi festival which saw 10 teams take part in a primary and a secondary event, both producing some incredible hitting, fielding and teamwork practiced in the day’s leading up to this. Play, learn, celebrate, commiserate, galvanise, laugh, organise and enjoy. All clear to see throughout the afternoon by our tired team.
CWB’s debut in Karongi will be remembered for the children’s willingness to embrace a sport they had never played before so quickly and with so much passion, the incredible views through the hills and over Lake Kivu, and the positive approach of many teachers to get involved in sessions where possible with the intention of making cricket more sustainable in the region – something that cannot be achieved by us alone. It’s seems we must be doing something right.
Straight off to Nyegabo School and playing area was even tighter. A bowling and a catching relay station plus a station of ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Cows’ for the Primary children included two of the games taking place on a road! With a session of secondary children too and some significant monitoring and evaluation questionnaires completed, another 200 children had been introduced to cricket, and the team set off for a spot of lunch before the afternoon schools.
St Marie is a girls boarding school with a nun for a principal. (Every trip I’ve been on involves a nun!). She said there were 400 students and we could ‘have them all’. So much for a sedate late afternoon shift! Playing games on two areas of concrete and a classroom corridor, around 250 (of the 400) girls spent 2 hours honing their skills, and after 10 hours in the field the team had successfully and masterfully completed Day 1.
Words by Thom Manning
]]>After a leisurely breakfast the team minus Lee (much to his disappointment) set off on a boat trip to an island somewhere in the middle of Lake Kivu. The journey out to the island was surprisingly calm and gave Pete (Spav) a chance to spot some wildlife through his ‘bins’ (binoculars)… even though there wasn’t much other than cormorants.
The trip out to the island also gave the team an opportunity to tackle important issues such as which Club biscuit is the best; mint or orange were the obvious choices; but also to see the outstanding scenery around us. Rwanda is certainly living up to its name of ‘the land of a thousand hills’.
Once we reached the island, the boat was expertly parked by our guide, and it became apparent that some of us had inappropriate footwear on as we were confronted by another massive hill. Our guide promptly jumped off the boat and started trekking up the hill with little regard for whether we were behind him or not.
I managed to keep up, picking up a big stick proved to come in handy, as the team spread out behind us and on the way to the top we were greeted by hundreds of fruit bats and some cows who strangely seemed to enjoy the altitude. The cows also prompted some interesting conversation such as ‘can cows swim?’ which entertained the team on the way down, as well as the added challenge of dodging the cow poo.
The views were definitely worth the climb, and for me allowed time for reflection on how lucky we are to be in such an amazing part of the world.
The next stop was another, smaller island which had, as promised, a monkey which turned out to be one of four on the island. To my delight there was more time to explore on this island, with a few good trees to climb and some strange fruit to pick…and also some slippery rocks by the water which almost proved to be my downfall. The way back felt considerably shorter, but there was still lots of wildlife to see including a ‘penguin’ (according to Khush), some more birds and an otter. All round a great morning.
My first new friend in Rwanda is Lawrence and we met on the bus from Kigali to Karongi, on the shores of Lake Kivu. With so much cricket kit donated, the team minibus was full so four of us adventured on public transport.
‘Do we know when a bus is scheduled?’ I naively thought. But as we reached the organised chaos of Kigali’s equivalent of Victoria Coach station, it was clear that such concerns were largely irrelevant. Imagine a thousand people looking for a bus and another thousand trying to sell their particular ride, and you get the idea. Tall Eric, the CWB Ambassador in Kigali, quickly sorted us out for tickets – flung through the window as we drove off – and we were on our way.
It was certainly cozy and a great way to meet new people which brings me back to Lawrence, who looked (stared) at us with great fascination. Without any formal language in common, but with a bit of help from others, we established that he considered me (54) as the same age as him (66) and Jo (<30) as probably my sister. All very flattering for me, and the basis of a firm comradeship.
When we came to his stop he invited us to meet his family – but Lee was having none of it. ‘We’re here to coach’ he said firmly as we said our goodbyes. Lawrence said we were very welcome to his country, and it was a great start to the tour.
The team bus arrived at the Bethanie Hotel only minutes ahead having been forced to stop when the spare wheel cradle suddenly decided to unhinge itself. Even with Ryan lying on his back bench pressing the rear of the bus didn’t quite fix it, however All was not lost. Stephen, our driver for the day, removed his crucifix from the rear window and used the string to secure the cradle – Divine engineering. Rounding off the day spotting cormorants over the lake, a Rwandan buffet sent us to bed replete.
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