Greater than sex?

Playwright Harold Pinter once said that “I tend to think that cricket is the greatest thing that God ever created on earth – certainly greater than sex, though sex isn’t too bad either.”

Last Friday we witnessed what we think may have been the first ever instance on our compound (of cricket, that is).  As part of our Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the British Embassy players took on a team from British and Commonwealth Community from Shashemene – and, slightly to my surprise, won a limited overs match 87-52.

Though there is a degree of healthy controversy over some of the claims, we see the UK as the birthplace of some of the world’s most popular sports – including football, rugby, golf, tennis, field hockey, badminton and billiards. And in this case, cricket, the second most played game in the world; one which has been highly relevant to sporting diplomacy over the years, not least in South Asia; and one which binds much of the Commonwealth together.

So it seemed fitting to arrange what turned out to be an extremely enjoyable and hard fought match to mark Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – not least because there are many ardent supporters of Her Majesty within the Shashemene community.

For those unfamiliar with it, I should say something about Shashemene – a town in Central Ethiopia 250 kms from Addis Ababa. In 1948 Emperor Haile Selassie invited members of the Ethiopian World Federation, the Rastafarian movement and other people from Jamaica and the wider Caribbean to come to Ethiopia and gave them 500 acres of land at Shashemene to allow them to settle.

The main flow of immigrants was from the mid-1960’s, however, with the community reaching some 2000 at one stage (it is perhaps half of that now). The majority are Jamaican or British citizens and most live in Shashemene itself. But their legal status so far as Ethiopian citizenship is concerned remains unresolved and much of the land given them was confiscated by the Derg government.

This community have done a lot of good work in Shashemene, not just for themselves but for local ethnic Ethiopians too – for instance a project to collect rainwater; carpentry/metalwork training for unemployed young people; and youth cricket.

But they lack enough funds to meet local needs and aspirations. We will be supplying some youth cricket sets for them, but if anyone who is reading this feels they can help in other ways, please let me know and I can put you in touch with them.

In the meantime, everyone is in training for next year’s return cricket match!