Thulhaadhoo 16/7/19
After a late night of food, songs and games with the Leaders of Eydhafushi, we had yet another early start to make our journey to Thulhaadhoo. We finished packing and were out the house by 6am, with bags on our fronts and backs, heading to the school for breakfast. We said our final farewells to the leaders before loading the tuk-tuk vehicle up with our bags. We gave gifts of shortbread, badges and tea towels, as well as a handwritten thank you post card.
As there were not enough people for the
ferry, we had to get a private launch to get us to Thulhaadhoo. We all wondered
if the choppy sea put the locals off traveling this day. Despite the large
movements of the boat we got the Thulhaadhoo in an uneventful 45 minutes.
We were welcomed by Girl Guides and
Leaders from every section, as well as parents. We said hello to all those that
had come to see us and received real flower lays, palm tree hats and wooden bracelets
(with our names carved into them) as gifts! We were given a cold facecloth to
cool our faces and a coconut to drink. 😊 We
took pictures with each guiding section before being led to the school where we
went over the schedule for the next few days.
We then walked a short distance to our
accommodation for the next two nights, where we ate our second breakfast of the
day! We were hosted by a local gentleman
(the apartment belonged to his aunty) who done a great job of keeping us fed
and watered. After breakfast we had some down time till lunch at 12.30pm. Most
of us caught up on sleep whilst Lottie caught up on reading.
After a filling lunch we headed to the
school to deliver our first session on the island, with 33 Little Maids. We
were outside for the session, under some trees for shade. In their sixes the
Little Maids set up some mats to sit on. We played parachute games, Me Too!
(with shoes to replace chairs) and were introduced to a game called mouse and
cheese. The activities we done were: Praise a Little Maid and This is Me! We
finished the session with songs including Crazy Moose and The Penguin
Song.
Before heading to the harbor area to run
a session with the Stars, we had a short break to change into our swimming
clothes for the sightseeing trip we were going on after the session. When we
arrived at the harbor there were 32 Stars ready for games and songs. We brought
the parachute out for the final time, played cut the cake and sang Head,
Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Hokey-Cokey, the banana song and more. After the
session each Star had an individual photo with us inside a picture frame that said,
‘Be My friend’. The Little Maids and Stars sections only started on Thulhaadhoo
this year and we were all really impressed by their enthusiasm.
As we were already at the harbor it did
not take us long to get to our next activity. The six of us, around eight
leaders and the photographer all piled into two speed boats. Lyndsay, Alyson
and Sophie were in the slightly smaller boat. One of the leaders was not too
keen on the speed boat so kept hold of Lyndsay’s hand for the duration. We headed towards an island but the other boat
with Rachael, Lottie and Adeola was not in sight. After a bit of scanning
across the choppy sea we spotted them on an Island. Originally, we were meant
to be going to the island that we were at, but the sea was too rough for the
other boat to get to, so we sped off to join the others.
When we got to the island of nothing but
sand, we tried to disembark the boat smoothly, but it wasn’t to be. One of the
Thulhaadhoo leaders fell into the water when getting off, getting herself and
her bag wet. Once on the island we took some photos, made sand castles and
turtles, played in the waves and took a walk round the island (which took two
minutes). We named the island Sand Island (unsure of its real name) due to
there being only sand on the island. We didn’t stay on the island for too long
and took the smaller speed boat for a bumpy ride back to the main island,
leaving some of the leaders there for the second pick up.
Back at the apartment, we got the sea
water out of our hair and settled down for another magnificent meal of fish,
rice, chili chicken and vegetables before heading back to the school to do a
session with the leaders. We had 16 leaders of different ages and experiences.
Some of them had only started in guiding this year, whereas other had been in
guiding since they were a guide themselves. The activities that we ran were:
I’m a leader because, what makes and good leader, the sweet game and lego
communication. We also played human knots and crosses as well as signing lots
of songs including Funky Chicken, Beaver Song, Singing in the Rain, Yogi Bear,
Boom-chicka-boom and Linger to finish. The Leaders gifted us with shell
earrings that were hand made by one of them. We ended the session with some
photos before wandering back to the apartment to get some much-needed rest
before counting the days back to the UK.
