Honduras Guide adventure

Nearly two years ago, when starting my gap year, I mentioned I would like to do some international travelling to my Girlguiding District Commissioner.

She suggested I went on an International selection weekend in Cardiff for some guiding trips abroad. I dutifully turned up for the weekend, complete with tent, guiding uniform and a few songs. I had assumed the weekend was going to be a light-hearted, guide style camp with a campfire and marshmallows.

What actually occurred was a process designed to push us out of our comfort zones; the toilets were 'broken', beef stew made an appearance on the menu for breakfast, lunch and tea and the hokey-kokey at four in the morning was not the most welcome idea. However, all of these (perhaps with the exception of the hokey-kokey) were situations that we could be faced with on our project.

Whilst in Cardiff, I learnt about GOLD; programmes run to improve guiding in developing countries. It stands for 'Guiding Overseas Linked with Development' and is open to everyone involved in guiding between 18 and 30 years of age.

SelectedIn mid December, I received a letter stating that I had been selected for the team going to Honduras. The project's aim was primarily educating people about HIV/AIDs, teenage pregnancy, self esteem, relationships and leadership skills. After discovering where Honduras actually was, I accepted, and Team Honduras 2009 was born.

As part of the training to go to Honduras, we had to attend two briefing weekends with the other 2009 projects (Armenia, Chile, Russia, Fiji, Tanzania and Egypt). These weekends were designed to teach us skills such as communicating through a translator and how to pack. It also gave us some much needed group time to start planning our workshops for when we went on project. We also had to make our own Saturday night entertainment which usually involved costumes and dancing, creating many great photo opportunities.

Our third briefing weekend was held at our leader's house in west London in June 2009, where we finalised plans, organised resources, and spent some quality group time together.

Crisis brewingShortly after this briefing weekend we began to hear of the political crisis brewing in Honduras; the President was attempting to rewrite the constitution and the country was divided in their opinions. Then, at the end of June, the President was removed from office by a political coup and a state of national emergency was declared.

Shortly after, and only weeks before we were due to travel, the Guias de Honduras (the Honduran Guides) decided it was unsafe for us to travel and the trip was postponed. Though we had been warned that GOLD expeditions often encountered logistical problems, we did not expect for the trip to be entirely called off.

We were told that, hopefully, the trip could be postponed for only a year and we could travel the next summer. It was decided that a final decision would be made on the 31st May 2010. In the meantime we continued to prepare, alter our plans and sort out resources. By that time the country's politics had settled enough for the Foreign Office to remove it's advice against travel and we were back on!

New itineraryThe two months that followed were spent adapting the programmes to cope with the new itinerary suggested by the Guias de Honduras; originally we had planned to conduct workshops with the guide leaders, but for 2010 this had to be extended to young girls as well.

By the time mid-July came we knew our plans inside out and were fully satisfied with them. The day before we were due to fly we met in London, pooled resources and made sure our bags didn't exceed the weight limit. We flew from Heathrow to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, via an overnight stop in Miami. Upon our arrival into Tegucigalpa we were greeted by the International Commissioner for Guiding in Honduras.

WelcomeAfter a quick stop in our first bed and breakfast, we were taken to the welcoming ceremony held in a local bank. When we arrived, we were ushered to a conference style table, complete with microphones. We were introduced to the Minister for Arts, the President of the Women's Institute, a Campaigner for Women's rights, the President and Vice President of the Guias de Honduras and numerous other figureheads.

It was announced that we were going to sing our countries' national anthems. We all stood, saluted and the Hondurans sang their anthem. We then prepared ourselves to sing our (rehearsed) national anthem with as much gusto as we could manage.

Then the music came on and alarm bells started to ring. Ten minutes later we were exceptionally relieved to sit down after the full 10 minute end-of-proms version of 'Land of Hope and Glory', which thankfully I knew the words to after many 'Proms on the Park' attendances. We quickly realised at this point not to assume anything on this trip!

We were given a day or two after arriving to buy any necessary resources, adjust to the climate, Honduran time (both the time zone and their horrendous time keeping ability) and the food! One of their common foods was 'refried beans'. These had the consistency of mash potato and tasted like strong baked beans without the tomato sauce. They were generally accompanied by fried rice, fried plantain, fried chicken, maize tortillas and/or Honduran cheese.

WorkshopOur first workshop was in a school and we had 55 girls, ranging in age from 8-12. Due to their age, we concentrated more on self esteem and relationship issues, but also played balloon games (eg. Over and Under) with blown up condoms purely to introduce the idea. The girls absolutely loved it and were exceptionally receptive.

We then travelled to Copan, which is situated on the west border very close to Guatamela. This area is famous for its Mayan ruins. We managed to visit these, and it was fantastic to see temples and sacrifice stones that had been there for hundreds of years. Whilst there we also saw a few wild Macaws, which are the National bird for Honduras and truly stunning creatures.

After leaving Copan we stayed in a place called La Entrada, where we held a workshop for leaders. We had about 20 girls (and a couple of boys!) aged 14-20, for a two day period. We started with self esteem, relationships and leadership and then progressed onto sexual health. It was rewarding to see the girls develop their confidence.

Throughout these workshops we had a team from the Guias de Honduras with us, consisting of a leader, translators and the International Commissioner. Throughout the time spent with them we formed friendships and were able to share guiding experiences and activities, even finding that we sang the same songs in two different languages, 5000 miles apart. This really shows the power of the Guiding movement.

We had two more workshops following this; one was for 25 girls aged 14+, and one for 40 girls aged 9-12. Again, both these workshops were a success and provided fantastic photos of their excitement and amazing memories for us of their enthusiasm and interest.

CampAfter these workshops we had planned to run a camp with the leaders in the south of the country, in a place called Choluteca. Just before camp we were informed that we were not allowed to camp due to the high mosquito count and recent Dengue fever outbreak, but they reassured us that we would be adequately provided for in 'barracks'.

We all assumed that we would be staying in some old Guiding facilities, and so were a little taken aback as we drove onto a working army base. We were then shown to the Officers barracks and sat and watched as they had to remove their things to make room for us. One even took his full length mirror in an act of defiance! For the camp we were expecting about 40 leaders.

However, by the end of the first day we only had about 15. It later transpired that after the problems of the year before, many husbands were not happy about letting their wives spend time on the army site and so stopped them from attending. We therefore made do with the 15 we had and ran a shortened 3 day camp whilst the Guias de Honduras sorted out extra trainings to make up for it.

For this workshop we were outside and as well as the language barrier, we also had to compete against a herd of cows, couple of rogue ducks and a very noisy man with a strimmer! We also had the experience of army base food, which amongst other things consisted of juice served from a bin with a ladle and fresh cows milk, still with bits of the cow in it. We also had a visitor to our room, in the form of a fully grown Iguana, and then realised why the Colonel had been talking about the resident 'dinosaurs'.

TegucigalpaFrom camp, we returned to the capital, Tegucigalpa, where we were informed that we had been offered a place on a breakfast television show. Early the next morning, we put on our smart shirts and were taken to the studio. Here we were introduced to the host and shown where it would be filmed. We have some fantastic photos taken of the five of us being interviewed, live, on the Honduran equivalent of 'This Morning'.

In the final week, we had two workshops at a children's home just outside of Tegucigalpa. Each day we had 25 girls, ranging from 8-12 on the first day, and 12-25 on the second. The girls absolutely loved the sessions and the games and when it came for us to leave there were plenty of autographs and exchanges of mementos.

They also enjoyed the novelty of our digital cameras and so each member of the GOLD team left with about 100 extra photos. On the final day, they put on a performance where they showed us dances that they could do, invited us to join in, and then promptly switched the lights off!

EvaluationThe end of the trip was signified by an evaluation day, discussing the aspects of the project over the five years, with a closing ceremony. The closing ceremony consisted of a meal but shortly after sitting down to eat, the torrential rains set in and the power failed. We persisted however and with the candles, the fork lightning and the constant pounding of the rain, it was made even more special.

GOLD was such a fantastic experience and I would encourage as many girls as possible to push themselves with international guiding, as there are such amazing experiences to be had. On the 20/10/2010 at 20:10, all the Girlguiding members in the UK remade their promise to celebrate the finale of the centenary year.

One of the aims set out for this past year, was for every girl to have a 'Mountain Top Moment', whether this be a trip to the zoo for the little Rainbows, or a Brownie activity day. I feel this trip truly was my mountain-top moment and the memories will stay with me for the rest of my life.

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