Blogs from South-East, Botswana, Africa - page 3

We elongate our greetings to you all (Mike G scribing) Will ‘the rebel MC’ is the team leader of our group here in Botswana on behalf of Cricket Without Boundaries, and he would have given you an insight into life here as we continue our adventures with the first episode of our blog. We have survived everything that Africa has thrown at us so far, although sadly this does not include Adrian Shankar’s luggage, which failed to make an appearance since he boarded at Heathrow a few days back. It’s official - with no fresh clothing or toiletries available he’s starting to honk somewhat, but there’s a lotta love among the team and a few random tee-shirts and shorts have been kindly donated on a temporary basis. Ade is a fashion junkie and he struggled to ... read more

Cricket Without Baggage At long last it was time for the Botswana nine to set off back to Gaborone full of expectation and enthusiasm following such a successful 2009 project. After Johannesburg baggage handlers and Botswana Customs had decided to withold most of our cricketing equipment last year, we were taking no chances this time round. All the paperwork was in order, all the authorities had been spoken to and all the rubber stamps had been issued. By 12 noon on Sunday 17th Ocotber we had 1, just 1 tennis ball to our name! Once more all of our cricket bags were impounded at Customs...happy days! Good start.....team leader must try harder! Four cricket bags down and Adrian’s bag somewhere between London and Nairobi, things had to get better! This false optimism was soon reduced further ... read more

Nine representatives of the charity Cricket Without Boundaries will be going to Botswana in mid October 2010 to carry on the work of raising the awareness of HIV / AIDS through coaching cricket to primary school teachers and children. Six of the team are returnees from the successful 2009 trip - Will McLaren-Clark, Allan Parker Reed, Veronique Cowan Goessant, Mike Griggs, Mike and Veronika Reeves. They will be joined by Adrian Shankar, Chris Bond and Michael Stratford. In conjunction with the Botswana Cricket Association, the CWB team will be based for a week in and around Gaborone before moving up to Francistown for the second week. In both centres, the mornings will be spent tutoring school teachers the basics of coaching before spending the afternoons teaching the children cricket whilst spreading the ABC message (abstinence, be ... read more

World Aids Day - CWB Botswana Postscript A month ago we returned from sunny Botswana - and it feels like it hasn’t stopped raining since ! Tuesday 1st December is 2009 World Aids Day so we thought it appropriate to record a few thoughts. The CWB BotsWanabees re-assembled at the Meerkat’s burrow to chat about the experience and attend the world premiere of the all the video footage that was shot during the trip. Well nearly all of us - regrettably Mikey G could not escape from darkest Dorset for evening. However he was present in his larger than life form on the big screen where his uncanny ability to ‘sense’ when the camera was on him was noted by all ! Mike and Veronika have been busy selecting and editing our own footage and assembling ... read more

As the Cricket Without Boundaries project in Botswana draws to a close, it's a great chance to reflect on the fortnight that we, as a group of intrepid cricket coaching volunteers from the UK, have experienced in this wonderful land. Despite the underlying sadness due to the high prevalence here of HIV/Aids and the obvious suffering that this causes among many families, hopes are high that in the future the HIV virus can be successfully managed and that the many children that we encountered on our short visit will be able to enjoy a positive future. Without exception the children that we coached were incredibly friendly, fun-loving, curious and very willing to give cricket a go (some had never played before). It was enormously surprising to all of us just how well-co-ordinated and naturally talened all ... read more