Week Four at IcFEM

This week has seemed really long, just thinking back on it now. Also looking back, its been one of those weeks that has been really enjoyable, and hopefully we have achieved a fair bit, but during the week and as it has gone on it has felt really hard work and stressful to a certain extent. We really have seen and introduced a lot of people to cricket.

The week began at Sosio Primary School, introducing cricket to Kamkuya unit. This first day was really funny. It started with kids just coming from everywhere, into the school. We started off with about 50 or 60 kids again, when we were really only equipped for 30 ish. Then, we had only just began when it began to rain, just as would be seen back in England. So we had a brief break under some shelter. Although, unlike England, we began again after about 10 minutes, with the bare areas of ground full of water, and with some of the sawdust we had used for the boundary washed away.

With so many players we had to send some away and just gave them a football to play with, but as the afternoon went on we found that people were finding a way to join in the game anyway.
This is hard because it is great that we have so many coming along and wanting to play, because we don’t just want 20 or 30 people knowing about cricket, but it is really hard to get all these players playing, with only 2 of us and a limited amount of equipment. We could have loads of players on both teams but there is only a certain amount of things to do in the game so some would inevitably get bored, we didn’t really want this to happen.

On this first day we had one helper with us to help control, interpret etc for the kids, but he had never seen cricket either, and so we were also showing him. But he couldn’t understand what I was saying, and in the end Mathew would also have to interpret what I was saying for him before he would pass it on to the kids. It was also good that, with him not knowing anything about the game, he had a fresh view of it, and some new ideas. Well one of these was that, instead of the batsman being “out”, they would get a “red card” as in football, and that is how being out is now known in Kamkuya Unit.

At the end of the day we had to walk back to the office in the unit to drop the bags, and some of the kids off, so we got a hand with the bags from the kids. We had a great precession on the way, and the bag was being carried as if it was a coffin, with kids even just trying to get a touch of it. On our arrival at the office we had a bit of the left overs from the days IcFEM event.
Although I enjoyed the day I believe Mathew found it stressful and not very enjoyable, especially with one of the bigger lads, who shouldn’t really have been there smashing one of the younger kids round the head with the bat.

This was in contrast to the next day, which I didn’t really enjoy, but Mathew did. Although overall the day was a success. We had moved the times from the afternoon to the morning, because of a warning that the afternoon rain could be regular throughout the week, and I was maybe hoping that we may have a few less kids; in fact I think we probably had more. But we did have one more helper, Robert, who has turned out to be a regular and a real help throughout the week, who even began teaching kids how to bowl properly, even though he had never seen cricket before, I think his group were better at it than mine.

We started with a few warm up activities that had been popular at holiday club, and then we split them into 3 groups to teach them a little more about the game and the roles of the different players. This didn’t really go to plan, as they didn’t really understand the concept of a straight arm when I was teaching some bowling. We even had one lad whose arm was going the wrong way, as if he was bowling underarm, and then stopping and just throwing it. I really don’t know where he had got that technique from; he must have a great imagination. Neither did the groups stick to their roles, so we ended up with 2 groups of bowlers and a group of batters, so that they couldn’t rotate, as intended.

The last day, Thursday, was left to teaching the group further rules, so that they could understand real cricket, or at least what they will be playing on tournament day, on January 3rd. We amazingly managed to get them seated and they listened to what we had to say, and understood, it was good to see them later playing a proper game.

Looking back at the end of this 3 days with the unit, we had achieved a lot and the kids had learnt a lot, to say that they could now have a game of proper cricket, with bowlers even bowling properly, some bowlers even had run ups, and they were really enjoying it at the end I think.
At the end of Thursday we chose the 10 players for the tournament, but this number gradually increased to 18. Choosing was really hard work with kids following you round and saying “what about us,” we even had on lad crying that he wasn’t on the team, and he somehow ended up on the list of reserves, and kids trying to get in the queue to write their name on the final teamsheet and others trying to write others’ names on it. Saying that it was hard work to actually do, taking a lot of time, it was not particularly difficult, with some players standing out; with others still looking at us with the same “no idea” look they had had on day 1.

Wednesday was a National Holiday, and so I spent the day making a trophy for the winners of the tournament. So it is made of a water bottle filled with rice, a margarine tub and a tennis ball on top, all covered in papier-mâché. It is good, but as mark says, “it is good for nursery kids.” We then spent the afternoon watching a fair few episodes of “Prison Break.”

On Friday morning we carried on with the painting we had begun on Thursday afternoon, the work which was meant to start on Monday. But we eventually received some help from the painter on Friday morning, about half an hour before it was time to go, after he turned up at least an hour late and then forgot his overalls, which took him an hour to retrieve. But time keeping and attitude to work is quite comical over here in Kenya.

Then in the afternoon we began the cricket training with the Kibinge unit. This was weird because of the work we had already done in the week, and the progress we had made, with Kamkuya and then we have to start again with a new group who once again didn’t have much of a clue, but took to it fairly quickly. Also, impressively, when we arrived, an hour before the scheduled start, there was already a group of about 40 waiting. This was good, but put us in a bit of a rush to set up. Also some of these were actually fully grown men, or at least not the 10- 15 age group we had originally asked for, so once again we had to split up the group and send the bigger ones over to play football, and volleyball.

This seemed to be a successful start, and we had many spectators also, both on the pitch and a fair few buda buda riders and people waiting for matatu’s over the fence.

I spent Saturday finishing off some washing, and then making a football out of sponge, plastic bags and string with Chris, as Mathew went to Eldoret to pick some people up and then get some colored paper so we could finish off the trophy. But the ball is great, I love it.

Then today, Sunday, I have been to church this morning, then returned and had a little kick about on the lawn, and in a little while I m going to go into town, to Mount Crest, to watch the Man U v Liverpool game.

"Nice Time"

Thank You