Friday - Dust Bowl Tournament

This morning I awoke from my pit at 06.21 to a beautiful African sunrise and the gracious face of Sami Azem and then I rushed out of bed and had breakfast at 06.30. I had a majestic bowl of Coco-Pops and a lovely hot chocolate, on the other hand ....... 

I, Ben, woke myself up and my bearded room-mate George, just in time for a breakfast of rusks and tea. 

We set off in the minivan where we picked up James from the side of the road. We arrived at the dusty ground after 5 minutes and began setting up the pitches with colour co-ordinated cones and clearing it of rocks and debris. Ben even managed to find an old Nuke shoe which had gone on a walk from it's owner. 

At this point, schools began to arrive in busloads, we were sent out to give each team coloured tags and check them in for a day's rugby. Unfortunately, 3 schools didn't turn up, sending our organisers in to a frenzy to remove 20 teams from the games table. 

Before we got under way the kids that were playing sang the National Anthem. Following the collection of the teams, the games started on Mr Sylvia's whistle. 

On my pitch, pitch 5, I, Ben, was working in tandem with Cassie as my Pitch Manager. Every two or so games, we would switch jobs and help each other watch the pitch. We played a total of 12 games on our pitch where I reffed 8 games and Cassie reffed 6. The children were very friendly and I even exchanged emails with one James' friends and his son who was helping me throughout the day. 

I, Dylan, only had a couple of games to do and after that kept the children entertained and not bored by playing games and some rugby with them. We got back to Eureka and played England v Zambia football against the Young Leaders. 

ps Ciara and Ethan say Hi!

Ben and Dylan