Rugby Trip To Mauritius

A week back after half term and then I was off on a rugby tour to Mauritius the Tanzanian team. I know how absurd does it sound. So on the Saturday we set off from Arusha to catch a plane from Nairobi to Mauritius. The first couple of days were spent training as we had not trained together. The team was made up of guys from Dar, Arusha and Moshi. Some of the boys had come back to Tz for Uni holidays and quite a few had just stepped out of the bush. We stayed at a hotel with three other visiting teams in a town in the west midlands of the small Island. The competition was the Confederation of Africa Rugby Junior tournament and we were competing in the Eastern pool.
Our first game was against Reunion which we narrowly lost 25 – 19. They played like I guess the French are famous for, with arms and boots flailing at the breakdown and willing to throw it around blindly out wide. The second game was against Mayotte which was little more successful as we end up winning 35 – 10. The winner of our final game against Mauritius would have taken second place. Unfortunately we were lacking troops by the last game with quite a few injuries. I played every minute at fly half for all three games but had to train as jumper in the lineout previous to the Mauritius game. One more injury and I would have had to ruin my good looks and put my head in a scrum. We were presented to the President of Mauritius before the game but unfortunately could not step up to plate and lost 23 -18, was really tight in the final stages though. The standard of rugby was pretty good but after three games in five days our bodies were well and truly battered.

On the off days we sampled numerous beaches around the Island and generally just did it tough. The hotel was quite a bit of fun with Reunion and Mayotte staying there also. The Mayotte boys in particular had a good party with us after we played. Mauritius itself was very surprising to me. It was very developed with amazing infrastructure, developed beach fronts and every plot of land that does not have a building has sugar cane. The population is mainly of Indian and Sri Lankan decent. I guess they speak Creole French mainly, despite English being a national language it is not widely spoken. A young Irish guy on the tour who grew up in Tz, was the only one in the team who could speak French so he was the designated translator for the week. Jake White was at the drinks after the last game and actually came and talked to the Tanzanian team before our last game as one of the boys had a connection with him and he happened to in Mauritius at the same time.

For the final two days before we flew out we moved down to the South East Coast, not far from the airport and did some snorkeling, ate seafood and sampled the local beer and ‘Green Island Rum’. It was an awesome ten days, quite a ridicules opportunity when I think about it really.
The one down side about going was that I missed out on the opening of the new campus at Usa River. By all reports it was a great success. I did not miss out on it all though managing to go straight from my returning bus to the restaurant where the Australian High Commissioner from Nairobi was hosting a function after the opening. With her she brought quite a bit of Australian wine which we did our best to drink.

Unfortuaately upon return I was told of Darren Stratti’s death. I knew of but had not met Darren but some vollies’ at St Judes had quite a close relationship with him and other people from the Food Water Shelter project. There are an Australian couple staying at the school currently who were in the Air on the way over to work for FWS when it all happened and are now some what in limbo as the project as not been halted but the volunteers and management have all gone home.

I hope all is well at home with everybody at home, I hope to speak to you all soon.