Day 1 on Thinadhoo - 8th July 

Thinadhoo was awaiting us, but we wouldn’t get there without getting over a few hurdles. The first came when traveling to the airport. We thought we were getting a 10 seater taxi, which would have comfortably fitted the 6 of us, Raza (our YL liaison) and all our luggage. However, a 6 seater turned up! Defiantly not big enough. So it was packed up with most of the bags and 4 of the team while Alyson, Lyndsay and Raza waited for another. But no taxis came. Raza phoned them up to see what was going on. We waited and still no taxis. Raza phone once again to find out that the taxi had been cancelled because her previous call cut out. Five minutes later (30 minutes after we originally set out) we were finally on our way to the airport finally! 

Check in did not go smoothly. Some of our bags had started their journey to the plane when we realised that metal cutlery was not allowed in cabin luggage. There was a mad scramble for everyone to get the metal straws (given to us as part of Rayya’s session ‘Keep the Scene Clean’) out of our hand luggage and put in the remaining hold luggage. 

The second hurdle was Lottie’s bag (I sense a recurring theme here). A little bit of back ground for you on the bag: it houses the camera, 5 lenses, go pro, power pack, other stationary and a laptop when traveling. The man behind the desk was happy with everyone’s hand luggage, except Lottie’s, which he wanted to weigh ... 19.3kg! Now, just to put this into perspective, that is the weight of some of our hold luggage for the full three weeks. When we were in London, Lottie was carrying this rucksack on her front, and one weighing 27kg on her back. Due to the size of the bag it had to be checked into the hold, but because of the specialist equipment, Lottie was keen to see it on and off the plane at a cost of $19 (we are still unsure if this is due additional manual handling or something else).

Our final hurdle was getting through security. Due to it being an internal flight we were able to take as much liquids as we wanted through, however we seemed to forget that scissors were prohibited. Racheal tried to take 2 pairs of scissors through and Lyndsay tried to take the scissors from the first aid kit. All three pairs were confiscated. 

We landed at the airport on an island that was a 10 minutes speed boat away from Thinadhoo. The airport was tiny. We disembarked the aeroplane and walked over the airfield to the terminal, which consisted of 3 rooms. We were met by Guide Leaders and the President of the Council of Thinadhoo, before boarding the speedboat. 

On arrival to at our destination we were greeted by a jetty full of Little Maids, Guides , Young Leaders and Leaders as well as some other island officials and were given a gift of dried flowered wrapped in hessian. We then loaded our bags into a taxi and took a short walk to our apartment (where the president of the Maldives stays when he visits). We unloaded the bags, had a quick refresh before heading out for lunch and the start of our sessions.

After our quick stop and refresh, we took a short taxi to Abookakuru school, where we were greeted by Little Maids who gave each of us a floral headdress. They then lead us into the center of a circle and preformed their ‘Little Maids are we’ song. We then had lunch accompanied by some traditional Maldivian dancing. 

After being well fed and feeling refreshed from our journey we were ready to start our session with around 60 excitable Little Maids. We started the session with a game of teapot tag, which they thoroughly enjoyed (especially when there Leaders were running). We played lots of games and sang lots of songs as well as doing the ‘Praise a Little Maid’ activity. This activity encouraged the girls to think about positive and negative traits of a person within a team and then something that they could be better at. They then wrote a compliment about everyone else in the group in secret, that was sealed with a sticker to be opened at home. We took lots of photos before a short juice break before we started the session with the Stars.

The stars session was full of songs with actions and games including: cut the cake, hokey-cokey, head shoulders knee and toes, there was a crocodile, down in the jungle and the beaver song. During the songs we heard the Call for Prayer, so stopped until this had finished. They all had a great time, and we think the leaders did too! Hopefully we were able to show them some new games and songs that that can do with them. 

When we had finished the session we went on a tour of the island. Adeola, Lottie and Rachael jumped on the back of mopeds, while Alyson, Lyndsay and Sophie piled into a car with all the bags and resources. The island was not very big, so it did not take much time, but we did drive past the Mosque and to the reclaimed land. We returned to the GDh Atoll Education Centre (E.C), across the road from our apartment to have some short eats and Bombay tea (sugary, milky, spiced tea) which went down well. 

We returned to the apartment for some rest and to get ready for dinner. After a busy last few days we were all exhausted, and most of us had a nap of sorts. The beds were big and comfy, to the point that three of us fell asleep on the bed. 

We were taken in the taxi for dinner. We weren’t told where we going to eat, but we could see we were heading out to the reclaimed land, where there were no buildings and no lights. We got out the taxi and were told to stand in two lines. We were lead away from the taxi by two women playing traditional drums. We walked through a channel of mopeds and the lights were turned on when we walked past. We were then treated to a feast of local food prepared by the leaders. To finish the evening each group of leaders and young leaders (YLs) performed a song. One group performed a native song, that the Young Leaders started dancing to, we were invited up to dance too. We had a go at the Maldivian style of dancing but we were not anywhere as good at it as the YL’s. The YL’s then performed ‘Linger’, which we all loved as we have been singing it a lot ourselves. They then asked us to perform a song. We decided to do Edelweiss as we think it is a lovely song with some nice actions to go along with it to finish the night. We all had an amazing, but busy day and were glad to get back to the apartment to prepare for the next day and sleep.

Day 2 on Thinadhoo – 9^thJuly

We had an early rise once again (5.45am) for some morning swimming. The Young Leaders came to get us from the apartment and walked with us to the sight for the swimming. This was on the other side of the island from the jetty. We clambered over some rocks to take the plunge. The YL’s had a couple of sets of masks and snorkels with them that we took in turns to use. Even Adeola dawned a mask to look down to the sea bed, after not previous putting her head under at the YL weekend. We saw loads of different fish, but did not venture too far due to the high tide and current.  After about 30 minutes of swimming we got back to the apartment via pick-up truck. 

Breakfast was back at GDh Atoll E.C. where we had roshi, beans, peanut butter and chocolate sandwiches and a fish and rice dish. We also had a coffee each, but not everyone likes coffee so Lottie and Lyndsay had them all! 

We then had a bit of down time back at the apartment where some of us napped and some of us tried to organise the 1000’s of photos and minutes of video that we had gathered so far. With our bags packed once again (but left in the apartment) we heading for lunch at Hoet Buffet with some of the teachers and leaders from the schools we had been at. 

Our final session in of the day was with 85 Little Maids at Thinadhoo School.  The school welcomed us with the ‘Little Maids Are We’ song and a crocheted flower bracelet. We took photos with the Little Maids and Leaders before starting our session in the main hall. 

We were kindly provided with a microphone, although it did not seem to be working well. Lyndsay was introducing the team, becoming louder due to the apparent faulty microphone. However, it was evident that the system had been working the full time as the speakers were wheeled in with the sound of her voice booming through. 

The session started with a game of teapot tag, before doing the starter to praise a Little Maid and compliment relay as well as a load of games and songs. We only had an hour for the session so tried to squeeze as much as possible. We were on a tight schedule so whizzed round all the girls giving them a sticker before saying our goodbyes. 

We only had 15 minutes to get back to the jetty to get the ferry to our next destination, so it was a mad rush to get back to the apartment, pick up our bags, go to the toilet and change clothes for those of us that needed to. We got to the ferry (speedboat with 22 seats) in the nick of time. We were the last to board and caused a bit of a scene getting our bags and ourselves to fit on. 

Finally we were all seated and we were on our way to our next adventure!