Uniformed and united

There was much hysteria last night when Deborah and Bec both thought that there was a snake in the downstairs bedroom. After a little bit of laughter and a lot of screaming we decided that the best course of action was to get the guy from the next door apartment to come and help remove the snake- we thought he would have the appropriate skills. Equipped with several torches, a walking stick, bug spray and a lot of courage, Bec and the very kind man ventured down the stairs to deal with the situation. The rest of us sat upstairs with our legs tucked up on our chairs because we were feeling a little bit apprehensive. After a short while we heard hysterical laughter coming from below. We were not sure whether this was a good or a bad sign. All was finally made clear when Bec cam back up and explained that the "snake" was actually a bit of rope that was just casually chilling on the floor. This made for one very relived GOLD team! After all of that drama we made some popcorn and settled down to watch our film. It was really good and very "feel good"- just what we needed :D.

Last night it rained a lot (story of the trip, I know) and so we were flooded again. Amelia and Bec dealt with the rising water levels very well and removed all of the important food items from the fridge so we would not have to wade to get them any time today. Because of the rain, we decided to get taxis to CHQ this morning. it was a good call because there was an awful lot of water on the roads. Once at CHQ we quickly changed into our smart linen trousers as today we were evaluating our trainings so far with the Guides. 

We started the session with some of the favourite games we have played over the last week and half. These included "cat and mouse" (both versions), "under and over", "don't sit next to Fred" and "Ninja". The girls had a lot of fun, although we were all feeling the heat after a good half an hour of physical activity. 

Next we split the group in half and were expertly instructed how to make origami boats and cranes by Clare and Jess. The Guides did really well and their focus was incredible. They wrote their favourite memories from the past week and a half on the origami pieces and decorated them with lots of colourful felt tip pens. It was a really nice reflective activity, both for us and for them. 

After a few more games and songs we rounded up the evaluation by splitting the girls into small focus groups with a leader in each. Each leader had a title- "songs and games", "advocacy training", "environment training" and "programme training"- and we asked the girls very specific questions about what they had enjoyed and what could have been improved about each set of trainings. The responses were very positive and we are going to sit and write them all up this evening so all the comments are fresh in our minds.

We finished by taking lots of photographs and singing taps. The girls had drawn some pictures for us all, which had really lovely messages of thanks on them. They made us all feel very happy and it feels like we have really made a difference in our time here :D.

We walked home so that we could change out of our formal uniform before Erin coming to pick us up and take us to where Berle, the Chief Commissioner, works. Here we discussed and planned camp with some of the members of the Guyanese GOLD team. We have come up with a theme and allocated responsibilities to all of the leaders attending the camp. It is going to be great and we are looking forward to it. 

Now we are sitting in the garden playing Monopoly Deal. Deborah, Bec, Amelia and Clare are shortly going to go and pay for their onwards travel and Miriam and Jess will probably get started on tea (stir fry I think). 

It is Emancipation Day tomorrow so we have a day off from training. However, we have lots of washing to do, and a little bit of planning to do in the morning before we can go off to the National Park to join in with the celebrations.

LOGL

Team Guyana

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Significantly more piratey!

Today our training theme was the Caribbean Link Programme. We were only given a copy of this yesterday evening and so we spent the evening swatting up on all of the ins and outs so we would know what we were talking about today. The programme is very chunky and so there was a lot of reading to do!

We were expecting a mixture of leaders and girls today, and so our plan was to split the group and discuss guidelines for implementing the programme with the leaders and do some of the activities from the programme with the Guides. Unfortunately, no leaders turned up so we quickly adapted our plans and did an all inclusive session instead.

We started by quickly explaining the four key areas that Guides part of the Caribbean link are expected to do. These are; Expression and Self Awareness, Environment and You, Service and Looking Ahead. The girls then had to hunt for jigsaw pieces (made out of Frostie packets) with the titles of these on. We asked them to write an activity that they would like to do at Guides that related to each of theses areas on the corresponding pieces. All of this was done whilst holding hands with their partner- just to make it a little bit more challenging.

We then focused on the Looking Ahead section, paying particular attention to time and money management. We played a game in which the girls had to guess how long a minute took to pass. We stopped the game after 3 minutes and some girls still hadn't put their hand up. It was quite amusing and a reminder of what "Island time" really is :D.

Next up was Clare's amazing market money management game. The girls were split into groups and were given a task sheet. Completion of each challenge on the task sheet resulted in the team earning paper money which they could use to buy equipment to complete other challenges. The UK GOLD team formed a group and became very competitive- they got stuck in straight away with a campfire song. However, Clare was feeling very mean and decided to disallow their efforts, making them sing a Guyanese song instead. This was very interesting!  The other groups took a lot longer to organise themselves and needed a little bit of input from Miriam to help them get started, but soon they were really involved and having a great time. The tasks included cutting out the alphabet from a newspaper, and making a pirate hat. This is when the phrase- "you look significantly more piratey" was exclaimed; Jess took several attempts at making a substantial enough pirate hat for Clare's high standards. When the hat was finally deemed good enough, there was much excitement :D The GOLD team had a lot of fun but it was really lovely to see the girls grow in confidence as the challenge went on. Their team work skills improved and in all of the evaluations from this morning, the girls identified it as a highlight from all the training that we have done so far. This made us all very happy :D

We finished the morning session with concentration games and activities. We chose this topic because the girls had completed a survey before we arrived which, after analysis by Bec, showed that the Guides wanted help with study skills. "Hi Harry" was a great game to get the girls to focus (although some of them were pretty terrible at it).

This afternoon more girls turned up- 16 in total, with 4 new ones. This was really positive and makes us feel like the girls are having a good time because they come back day after day! Our focus in this session was Awareness and Expression of Self. We discussed healthy eating and food groups, the importance of good personal hygiene, particularly brushing your teeth, and emotions and feelings. All of this was done through the medium of fun games. This kept the girls moving and engaged; we had lots of younger girls this afternoon. We did however have to keep stopping for water breaks because Guyana has been very hot today!

The session ended with the girls coming up with plays that dealt with some of the topics that we had talked about. The twist was that they had to incorporate some random objects and words into their performance, such as Carrie-Anne, our team mascot, a glue stick and an umbrella. The girls all practiced really hard and the plays were very entertaining, if a little off topic at times!

The evaluation comments have been really positive, although we are not quite sure how many more games and songs we can sing to meet the expectations of some of the girls. They just love all of our silliness!

This evening we are all very excited because we have already finished our planning for tomorrow (it is only 5.30) and we are definitely going to be watching a film because it has finally finished downloading! We are also having Fajitas for tea because we found some wraps in Nigel's. They are going to be soooooo good!

LOGL

Team Guyana
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Hello Guide friend!

After a fairly restful night's sleep (although Miriam's mosquito net fell down four times), we were all up early ready for the start of a new week of training. After a quick trip to buy some fruit from the fruit man up road- we got some apples (very exotic!)- we headed off to Guiding CHQ. Unfortunately, when we arrived it was all locked up and we had to wait outside until someone came with the keys. It has been very hot today and so we all adopted our Caribbean stance- hands on hips and legs a good distance apart- to keep as cool as possible.

Once we were able to get inside the building we were a little disappointed to discover that no girls had turned up in time. We waited for an hour, which gave us time to prepare all of our resources and do a bit more planning. Eventually a few Guides arrived, which made us very excited because we were able to get started.

Today's focus has been on Advocacy. This is a challenging topic, especially when we are training girls who are aged between 10 and 22. We did not have enough girls to split up the group and so we got creative with our training methods instead.

Amelia started the session with a letter hunt of the letters in the word "advocacy". The girls then had to spell out the word and think about its meaning. However, we did not reveal what the word we wanted them to spell was and so the task was a little bit more challenging than the girls were initially expecting. With a little bit of leader input everyone finally spelt the correct word. The rest of the session was spent explaining advocacy and ways in which the girls can successfully advocate.

Miriam, Clare and Jess did some rather hilarious role play of different scenarios which displayed good and bad advocacy skills. These involved Miriam and Jess shouting at Clare for dropping litter on the floor and some conversations which started- "Hello Guide friend"- when Jess and Miriam were displaying some better advocacy skills by putting up posters and writing letters to the Guyanese government. The girls responded really well in the following discussions and we all really felt that they learnt a lot! Communication games, including an epic game of human knot, took us up to lunch.

We continued with the advocacy theme after lunch. We had to recap some of the things we had covered in the morning because lots more Guides arrived. We are not complaining; it was really great to have a bigger group! :D We covered methods of advocacy by playing some fun games and then went onto some small group work. Deborah discussed with the girls 8 areas that the government could spend money on in Guyana, including health, education, infrastructure and welfare. They then had to allocate 100 million Guyanese dollars to the eight different areas and explain why they had made the decisions they had. The girls were very eloquent and it was really interesting to see the different opinions of the girls.


Finally, we ran an election. The girls split up into different groups and had to come up with a party name and logo, three policies that they would implement if they were elected to the government and a speech to explain their choices to everyone else. Some of the girls really came out of their shells and got very passionate about their campaigns. We were all so impressed!!! We got everyone to fill out a ballot paper and then we counted the results and announced the winner. The winners were ecstatic :D.

Deborah, Miriam and Amelia went to Nigel's supermarket and did a BIG shop. Hopefully we will not have to shop for several days now as we have plenty of supplies. The highlight of the evening was Eileen, Mrs P's friend, teaching us all how to make Roti. She was so helpful and the results tasted great with our curry tonight.

We are just planning for tomorrow's programme training session and then we will probably play some Monopoly Deal.

LOGL

Team Guyana
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Front seat in an aeroplane!

Our first ever Roti Hut meal (apart from Jess) was sooooo lovely. Roti is our new favourite and we cannot wait to have it again. Unfortunately we were unable to watch the film because it took longer than expected to download. Instead, we entertained ourselves by playing cards and games of eye spy. One of Deborah's was very hard to guess and so the rest of the team got very creative; the object began with "m" and we were guessing things like "mmmmblender" (a Miriam special) and "mmmmpiano" (Amelia following her lead). It was very entertaining!

We went to bed fairly early because we knew that we had to get up to be out of the house by 6 am to catch the bus to the airport. Miriam and Amelia got up ridiculously early-4.30 am to be precise- so that they could have a shower. Everyone else had time to do it last night. We hurried through breakfast and we were soon ready to leave. We were very surprised to see so many people out in Georgetown so early on a Sunday morning. We got a very different impression of the city than we had when we have been out in the middle of the day.

Our lovely bus driver took us to the airport via his house so he could drop some shopping off for his wife. The music he played certainly woke us all up and we became increasingly excited about the prospect of our visit to Kaieteur Falls. :D

When we arrived at the airport we were ushered through security and into the executive lounge. It was very posh and air conditioned, to the team's delight. There was also free food- amazing! We met the other people on our flight- a family of three from Trinidad. They were lovely and wanted to know all about our trip to Guyana.

Our plane was very very small- space for 9 passengers and 1 pilot. We crammed ourselves in with our bags and Amelia had to sit next to the pilot! We were all a little bit jealous. Deborah had a moment of concern when she realised that her seat belt did not buckle properly. thankfully the pilot just happened to have a pair of pliers in his pocket and he fixed the problem within seconds. This was to the relief of everyone, especially Deborah.

The take off was quite bumpy but really fun! It was amazing to see the rainforest stretching out as far as we could see below us. Amelia's considered opinion was that the trees looked like broccoli! The rivers snaked through the green landscape and we could see small communities dotted about. It was crazy to think that the people that lived there were so far from civilisation. Eventually we saw Kaieteur. It was truly breathtaking!!! The pilot circled above it so that we could take it all in and take some great photos before he landed the plane on the teeny tiny strip at the top of the hill. It was a little bit hair-raising but it was over very quickly.

We met our guide for the morning- an Amerindian called Leroy who had been working in Kaieteur National Park for 8 years. He lives near the visitor centre in a community of 10 people, 3 of whom are his wife and children. He was really nice and answered all of our (many, many) questions.

We set off for a walk through the rainforest to visit different viewpoints of the waterfall. It was a surreal experience for us all; we couldn't quite believe we lived on the same planet and their were several moments when we thought we were in the Eden project. We saw some beautiful flowers and lots of bird life, including a bright orange bird that is apparently very rare. We are not quite sure what it is yet, but we are asking around and seeing if anyone knows. There were also some rather unexpected guests including a stingy thing that stung Amelia and a very poisonous snake which that Leroy was quite concerned about. He dealt with it very swiftly and we were soon as close to the waterfall as we could possibly get!





The noise was incredible and it was one of the most awesome things we have all ever seen. We took lots of photos and asked Leroy to take lots of us as a group too. Clare, Miriam and Jess were feeling very brave and climbed down onto a small ledge right next to the water with Leroy. Deborah was feeling concerned about us, but Jess assured her that last year's Gold team did a similar thing when they went. The girls on the ledge had to scramble back up, which involved clinging onto some little trees and using brute strength. It was a lot of effort but something they would all do again if given the opportunity!

All to quickly our Kaieteur adventure was over and it was time to get back onto the plane. This time Miriam sat in the front and the other girls rearranged themselves so that everyone could experience sitting directly by a window. The plane journey was a bit more bumpy this time because we had to fly through lots of clouds. There was a little bit of alarm when the pilot opened his window and started driving the plane with his arm hanging out. However, we soon realised that it did not affect his piloting skills- thankfully! It was quite sad to see the effects of deforestation and mining on the Rainforest on the return flight.

We landed safely and had a picnic lunch on the way back to 253 Foreshaw Street. Some of us tried to have a sleep but the nature of the driving made this a little bit difficult!

This afternoon we have done yet more washing and chilling in the garden. It has been very hot today and so it was nice to just sit and do pretty much nothing. We need to plan for tomorrow and cook tea. At the moment, the Chief Commissioner for the Guyana Guides Association, Berle, is confirming plans for the rest of the project with Jess. We are looking forward to hearing what else is in store for us. We have a feeling it is going to be a very busy week...

LOGL

Team Guyana
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Guyana's Got Talent!

Yesterday I blogged about something lovely being made for tea, possibly mashed potato. Unfortunately  Nigel's had no potatoes and so the girls bought back some very odd looking, giant vegetables. We had no idea what they were or what they would taste like. Bec and Miriam did their best but the results were a little bit grim! The potato like substance was grey/ purple/ brown and the random green vegetable was the most disgusting thing most people have ever eaten. Luckily Miriam and Bec established this before they served the meal and so they spent 15 minutes picking it out from the source that they had made. In future, we possibly might not go for "potatoes" again!!! We had biscuits to keep us going in the evening and a bar of chocolate- so much excitement :D

This morning Clare and Amelia made pancakes for us all. They were so yummy, although we did not have any lemon juice to the disappointment of a few members of the team. Clare was so distraught about the no lemons situation that we went to the lovely fruit man on the way to CHQ so we are now prepared for pancake situations.

We arrived at CHQ to find a couple of girls eager and ready to go. Unfortunately there were no other leaders in sight and the room with all the resources in was locked. We waited for a while and played some games to keep everyone occupied. Soon someone arrived with some keys and more girls followed. This meant we could start properly- yay!!!


The theme today was camp skills. We started by talking about kit lists and what is appropriate to take on camp. To make the training as much fun as possible, we incorporated relay races, a "Kim's game" using camp items and a game of Giant's House (the girls had to mime camp items, e.g. toilet, fire, tent, in small groups.

We were then meant to practice pitching tents but unfortunately that resource was not available and we had to change our plans very quickly. The new plans involved knot tying and first aid skills. The girls were really focused and receptive, which was lovely to see. We all feel like they have learnt a lot today! A camp style talent show also proved very popular. We heard songs, laughed at skits, and clapped through some fantastic dances. Obviously we felt like we needed to get involved too! We repeated our successful 2nd briefing "If I were not a GOLDie..." routine to the delight of the girls. This time Miriam was able to actually speak properly and was hit in the face by back- bonus!

We ended the training session with some games and songs. The Polynesian duck dance is becoming very popular, although the action make us all very hot!

This afternoon everyone did their washing. There is so much washing that we have had to rig extra lines and we have run out of pegs. But this is GOLD and we can cope! Bec, Deborah, Amelia and Clare have been to book their onwards travel to Arrowpoint- a nature reserve 2 hours from Georgetown. It sounds so exciting and Miriam and Jess are feeling a little bit jealous.

We are getting take out Roti Hut tonight. Jess is sooooo excited and the rest of the team are looking forward to trying it because Jess had been on at us all year about how awesome it is!! We then might watch a film if it ever finishes downloading onto Bec's computer.

Tomorrow we have to get up super early because we are going to Kaieteur Falls. It is going to be incredible and we can not wait! :D

LOGL

Team Guyana
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"I say pick it, you say up- Pick it up!"

This morning we were back on Frosties and fig bananas for breakfast. A few of the girls had wet uniform tops because we only had the opportunity yesterday to wash them all. Therefore, we were frantically wafting and Febreezing tops just before we left for CHQ.

Amelia, Clare and Miriam went to Nigel's supermarket to pick up lots of bin bags for our training session this afternoon, water (mainly so that we could have the bottles) and bread roles for lunch time. We were very impressed that we all managed to get to CHQ on time and before lots of the girls.

This morning's session was on programme development again and it was lovely to see three new girls there. We started with lots of fun songs and games as we waited for all of the girls that we were expecting to arrive. We then put the girls into two patrols and asked them to independently plan an interactive training session for everyone else in the group. One group selected the theme of transport, and the other group chose the theme of Guyana. Their efforts were really well thought out and very entertaining. They then all successfully evaluated their own sessions using the "two star and a wish" method. A lot of very positive comments were made and the girls were very reflective and honest.

We then decided to focus the girls' attention and thoughts towards "treasuring and trashing" all aspects of the Guyana Guides Association. All their thoughts were written down and posted anonymously into boxes. The GOLD team then gathered all the girls back together and discussed their opinions and thoughts, enabling us to determine whether the issues raised, both negative and positive, were individual or shared. Our plan now is for our team leader, Jess, to share this with the Chief Commissioner tomorrow.

Fun and games then took us right up until lunch time, including a game from one of the girls which she made up at home last night. She is a new Guide and it was really lovely to see her so motivated and inspired.

After lunch it was time for our last environmental session with the Guides from the school, as well as some of the girls from this morning that had so much fun that they wanted to spend the whole day with us. This made Team Guyana very happy :D

Our theme for today was "Reduce, Re-use, Recycle". We did a variety of activities including brainstorming ways in which the girls can reduce, reuse and recycle, a relay race, which involved the girls running to place pieces of rubbish (sorry garbage- the girls only understand this term) in the correct bins at the other end of the room, and creating stomp inspired music routines with bits of rubbish.

A definite highlight from this session was the creative adaptation of the game ladders by Jess. She made up a story (on the spot may I hasten to add) about recycling, and the girls had to run when their item of rubbish (cans, glass etc.) was called out. Whenever the word "recycling" was called out all of the girls had to run. This caused a lot of chaos, but it was a lot of fun.

Our bin bag fashion show was also a big hit with everyone. The girls loved dressing up and creating wonderful shoes, headbands, hats and dresses. They all strutted their stuff down our make shift catwalk and it was great to see how much everyone's confidence has improved over the course of the week. The girls also did a talent each in teams. This was when the inspired "Pick it up" rap was discovered. We all thought it was very appropriate for our theme.

We had to evaluate quickly because a party was literally just about to start in the hall and they were all slowly encroaching on our space.

Bec, Amelia and Clare have just popped out to the shops and Jess, Miriam and Deborah are going to rustle up something lovely for tea. This will probably involve mashed potato- very exciting after eating rice and pasta pretty much constantly. All of our planning for tomorrow is done and so we can real and play cards this evening. Hopefully not too many cockroaches will come out to play close to us tonight!

LOGL

Team Guyana
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The rain came down and the floods came up

After having to deal with a lot of cockroaches before bed yesterday we were all feeling very tired (too much energy was put into removing the cockroaches). It was a disturbed night's sleep because it rained a lot last night in Georgetown. Bec and Clare slept downstairs and their bed this morning was a little bit like a ship on the ocean. However the situation was much improved by vast quantities of eggy bread for breakfast.

We had a damp walk to headquarters because we were not always able to dodge the puddles. On arrival we discovered that the the gates to CHQ were locked so we waited outside. Thankfully Ochelle (one of the Girlguiding Office Staff) arrived after 10 minutes and we were able to get in!

This morning the young leaders we had trained earlier in the week were responsible for the session with the Guides. They had planned yesterday with a little bit of help from us. Their theme was friendship, so we played lots of Guyanese games, some of which we will definitely all use in our meetings back in the UK. We could not believe how competitive all of the girls were with some of the games, but we cannot fault their enthusiasm! The Guides also made photo frames with some lovely ribbon and photos they had bought in from home.

After a quick picnic lunch we got cracking on this afternoon's climate change themed session. More girls turned up than yesterday, which is extremely positive, and they all started to talk to each other and ourselves more. 

They love singing action songs and so this is how we began. "Bananas" and "Get Loose, Get Funky" are now firm favourites :D We did a variety of activities including craft, interactive information sharing and all inclusive games. The key messages that the girls took home with them today are how to reduce carbon emissions, how climate change may affect their everyday lives and the importance of caring for each other and the environment. The dramatic highlight of the afternoon session was watching the girls perform, in groups, a weather forecast using props and the Georgetown map that we have had on the wall all week. 

We have had a lovely lazy evening involving a bit of washing, frog and snake spotting, and watching the flood waters go down. 

Time for dinner now. More news tomorrow...

LOGL

Team Guyana

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