Jinja and the river Nile

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Sunday 28th February 2010
The day started with a 7.30 meet in the restaurant, for breakfast and a meeting about the day’s events. Looking around the table you could see that everybody was itching with excitement to start the coaching.
The coaching was meant to start at 9.00 but in Africa it seems nothing ever happens on time, so we started at nearly 10.00. The coaching was held nearby to the hotel at Jinja S.S cricket ground, it was only a 10 minute walk. When we arrived we were unsure of the number of children that would be participating, it later turned out to be an amazing seventy six. The children were from local primary schools - Budondo, Buyala St Pauls, Kivabuke and Buwagi. These four schools are part of the Soft Power Education (SPE) scheme, which is a local charity in Jinja. SPE help improve the lives of children by improving their local schools. They help in many ways from re building classrooms to training teachers.
At the ground, we got into our pairs and started to teach the children cricket. If I remember rightly only four children knew of cricket out of seventy six, so it was going to be a hard day teaching them the basics. The children rotated around the different “master classes” which included bowling, batting, catching/fielding and Kwik cricket. The weather was awful at the beginning and it seemed to rain for ages, the ground became very wet and it made it difficult for everybody. We worked through the rain and then it seemed to pass away and the play instantly got better as the balls and bats were easier to handle. At the end of the coaching session we had a tournament which Richard had devised. It was really good and the children enjoyed applying the skills they learnt from earlier in the day. Group 4 won the event, which was coached by Michael and Clare. It has been said that the reason they won was because Clare couldn’t add up, but no one would take away the win. The children in group 4 received a t-shirt each from CWB.
After the session we went back to the hotel for a well earned shower and some late lunch. Sharon project co-ordinator for SPE, joined us for lunch at the hotel to talk further about the charity and how CWB can help. She also knew a nice sandwich bar, which the CWB volunteers enjoyed.
After lunch, we headed off to the source of the Nile. Jinja is home to Lake Victoria and where the Nile starts. We took a boat ride up the Nile to where Lake Victoria and the Nile meet. At the beginning of the Nile there are local water sprigs, we sat on a little island gazing out into the lake. I decided to bang my head when we got back into the boat, to everyone’s amusement but definitely not mine! 
We then visited the local Bujagali Falls, which is home to some very impressive rapids. It has a code 6 and code 5 rapids, (I don’t know what that means but it looked good.) We then watched the sunset over the rapids, whilst enjoying a beer or two. I personally watched United win the League cup but that’s another story for another day.
To finish off an amazing day we had dinner at the Nile explorers, which had an amazing view of the Nile and the rapids. The pub seemed to be the back packers paradise and is worth a visit if your nearby.

Parry Moore

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