Week Seven at IcFEM

On Monday morning we applied the finishing touches to our work in the IcFEM Nursery, by cleaning the windows and then arranging the furniture, before going home to carry on work on the trophy. Whilst doing this we watched a review of 2007 on CNN before it was stopped half way through in favor of a cartoon!

Monday was also New Years Eve, and our celebrations took place in the house, after dinner. The celebrations included playing Uno and then watching the highlights of the weekend’s football action.

I was a little late getting up on New Years Day, and then a little late in getting ready, so missed the New Years Day church service. Once ready, I instead played draughts with the guard, and also a new game that he seemed to make up as he went along. Despite this I managed to beat him, which was a first.

The afternoon was once again spent with work on the trophy, which we eventually managed to complete in time for the tournament on Thursday. We later had a bit of a do in the house, with Trevor and Leslie coming round and having a bit of a special dinner of chapatti, and Soloman’s sausages.

The next day we had a fair bit of work to do in our preparations for the tournament, preparations which had had a few set backs, with no petrol for the bus in the local area, and no credit to try and contact certain people.

Instead of the Dreamland school bus, we instead used the taxi driver, Jose, to pick up the team from Mishiku and from Kamkuywa. With limited space it, unfortunately, meant we had to leave some of the reserves behind and instead just take the team. Meanwhile I went to Temba Temba on Buda Buda, to pick up the Kibinge team, and walk the back to Kamusinga. But there was opposition to this and so we instead used Buda Budas back up to Kamusinga.

When I arrived back to Kamsinga Primary with the Kibinge team there was abit of a surprise waiting. I could see that some of the children were playing with some other equipment, other than ours, and I even saw some kids being taught proper forward defensive (for those of you who don’t know this is a proper cricket shot, when you are batting). I was told that this man was from Lugulu, and Mishiku had hired him to help them with some coaching. This was later found to be false info, he was in fact from the Western Province Cricket Association, and had come up with the Mishiku team when he heard about the tournament. He stayed to help out with umpiring and scoring throughout the day. He seemed encouraged by our work and said he would like to carry something similar on, but there is a problem of funding for equipment. He says there is also an older group he has that he would like to move onto hard ball, but they just don’t have the equipment.

The tournament was a good day. We decided to play a little different rules to normal, so that each person got a good chance to bat and bowl. We played 10 overs a side, with each member of the fielding team bowling one over, and batsmen batting in pairs, with each pair batting for 2 overs each, if they were out they lost runs instead of going off the field. It is a system we use with Under 11 teams back in England.

Each of the 3 teams played each other, so there we 3 games throughout the day. The fixtures turned out well, as the last game turned out to be abit of a final, with both teams on one win each, it was winner take all. This game was contested between Mishiku and Kibinge, with Kibinge coming out on top.

Earlier in the day there had been a little controversy when the scores were written down wrong on the scoreboard. When put correct it mean that Kamkuywa had lost both games, one of the leaders looked astonished, even they had obviously being poor, despite my prediction that they were the best team. In the first game alone they had been out 15 times in their 10 overs.
Once the games were over we all went back to the office for some rice and beans, and for the presentation. We had a certificate, t shirt and tennis ball, for the best player from each of the teams. We had the trophy and certificate for the first placed team, and a certificate for second. The winners were happy and I think everyone had a good day, I even think that it may be carrying on into the future, with maybe further tournaments taking place.

The leader of the winning team was so happy, and me and Mathew received an invite to his house for lunch the next day. It was a good afternoon, and a nice lunch. He was also saying that the kids were really pleased about the day before and that it had been a great day. I was also thinking that I don’t think that I had ever been to a day of cricket like that when I hadn’t heard people moaning about not batting or bowling like Thursday.

After lunch we went for a walk up to the local school for a bit of a kick about with the locals and then back to the guesthouse to begin preparations for my departure on Sunday. These included a lot of washing, which took me up until dark and then I woke up early the next morning to finish off.

This morning, Saturday, I went up to Dreamland to plant some trees, and then began saying my goodbyes.

So it has come to the end of my trip, I have really enjoyed my time here. Hopefully There will be one more blog with abit of a conclusion of my time here.
Thank you for reading,
Adam