Saturday 30th July 2022

 Written by Jake

Hello family and others.  Today we woke up at 6.30am to get ready for a filling breakfast of scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of toast with butter and marmalade and 2 sausages.  Then we set off for a ten minute walk to the local Rugby Club down the road, to host a tournament for the local schools in Livingstone.  Due to technical errors we had quite a late start.  However, we kept ourselves entertained and waited patiently for the tournament to start.  Once it started I was refereeing for the children under 1.5m.  The first game went well but the children made a few mistakes, like forward passes and one handed pass, but I corrected them on it.

Second game went really well because there was little to no mistakes from both sides.  Then, because our pitch only had a few games in total we sorted out the donation bags to give out to the schools whilst the other pitches finished their games.

I was picked to be the lines-person for the finals of the over 1.5m game, then we gave 3rd place water bottles, 2nd place got Esher High t-shirts and 1st place got Teddington rugby tops and medals.  Then we packed up and left to go back to the hostel in time for pancakes at 3pm. 

 
After that we went to the shops and lots of people brought ice cream and drinks from the local shop.  Then we chilled for a bit before getting ready for dinner, we are going to a local restaurant (Cafe Zambezi) where I am having crocodile ribs for the second time. 
That probably sums it up for today.

P.S.
Happy Birthday Mum and lots of love to everyone. Can't wait to see you!
From Jake K

Written by Seb

As the sun rises over the Zambezi, our last tournament day dawns : to you parents at home this may be meaningless but to us it's as if we have finally reached Mount Doom (Lord of the Rings reference).

We woke up to an unusually cold Zambian morning, so the warmth and comfort of our new familiar breakfast was stabilising.  Two weeks of training, coaching and curious visits to what now felt like 1000 schools would be completed today.  I quickly packed my bag whilst wolfing down my marmalade toast and piping hot tea and headed out of flawless Fawlty Towers (noticeably I was not late today!).

Once we arrived at the Rhinos Rugby pitch, we took our kit bags and started setting up pitches.  It must be said our pitch marking skills were slightly questionable with endless shifting, rearranging and faces in palms.  However we pulled together and reset as the first keen wave of Livingstone's finest Tag Rugby players enter the fray.

I was assigned 1 team - Zambezi Community Overs team - as we put wristbands on our players, the morning haze morphed into a clear blue sky, joined gingerly by the beaming sun.  Rather conveniently, I was to referee on the same pitch my team played on, removing the inter-pitch commute I was used to from the Chilanga tournament.

As it struck 11.30 play began on all emerald pitches.  My team were on third in two back to back games so I made sure to keep us busy and motivated to win.  Zambezi won a stunning first victory, winning 3-0, however we unluckily lost our second game 3-1, which disheartened us all. I made sure to thank all of Zambia and to reassure them the fight was not lost. I refereed a game, the play from both sides was fantastic, however a few forward passes needed correcting. Our third game was nail biting, both teams evenly matched, with many close calls; leaving us with a score of 1-1.

I was able to ref the penultimate game on my pitch. The tension was palpable and some controversial calls were made, all in good faith and practice. Therefore after the game was finished a whole team game over to me to discuss the final score. I had to stand my ground and tell them my decisions are final.

The final game saw a somewhat anxious Zambezi side play our last match (I had made sure not to ref my own teams games to avoid being biased). We got off to a nervous start, scoring a one handed try which was correctly disallowed. We somehow repeated this mistake twice more, before scoring a stress relieving try - The entire school erupting into celebration. This was followed by a second screamer of a try - and another!- The excitement, praise and ecstatic joy could not be understated. Once the game ended, Zaibeu and I started chanting and dancing as we enjoyed our collective victory, ZAMBEZI!

The day turned into night, we headed for dinner at the ironically named Zambezi cafe, I ordered Mbuzi which is marinated goat pieces- a stark contrast to the comfortably mundane English food I am used to. The goat was delicious and fell off the bone.

 I want to wish Happy 5th Birthday to my amazing sister Bella, I hope you had a good day. Love you lots!

I look forward now and I know that time will fly by, and soon enough, we will be meeting the beautiful London sky as our plane touches down at Heathrow.

Goodbye, I hope to see you all soon! Much love everybody.

From Chris H

Possibly the craziest 'try celebration' - bare foot contact rugby on rock hard ground: