Day 10 – Saturday 28th July

Today started with a bit of a shock, as I discovered that Kathy had moved to Afghanistan (the team, not the country!) where they wanted English-speakers.  Following this, Shernaz also moved, this time to Jordan, for a similar reason, meaning we were down from 6 people to 4 (3 during a day off!).  The rest of us were, obviously, saddened by this news as we’d all become really good friends over the last week.  It also meant that I had to work alone this afternoon.

I decided to put my efforts into finding a driver for tomorrow, on Artemio’s request, finding a new team-member and getting hold of the keys I mentioned on Thursday.  So, a busy day.

The first task was fine – the NOC Assistants desk had a procedure in place for needed.  Surrounded by posters congratulating us for our efforts last night, I filled in a spread-sheet requesting extra help tomorrow and then asked the leader team for more assistants.  With promises of at least one more assistant, I went to the Resident Office.  The staff, as always, were so helpful and sent an email to the key place instead, returning to me with the promise that we would have the keys in the following 24 hours, much to the delight of Yamelys who had asked me to order the keys in  the first place.

Because of this, I opted to stay a little later than usual to wait for the phonecall to tell me they were ready, even though there wasn’t much for me to do.  It was great to watch sports like fencing with people who knew what they were watching and talking about.  There were conversations as to whether electronic scoring is better than the past where it was up to judges to notice hits.  The best conversation, by far, was on the pronunciation of first Chariots of Fire (the theme tune for the victory ceremonies) and then Stonehenge, much to my amusement.  None of them were anywhere near close, but I helped them, and then looked up train times for one of them to go.  I gave them the option of taking me with them if they go, and I really hope they take it up.

I love feeling like I’m getting something done and the key saga is coming to a close, which is so positive.  And to take athletes, coaches or anyone to anywhere in my beautiful country would be a wonderful honour for me.  I hope they ask me to do it!