Helen's blog

February 2009

I spent the first 2 weeks of February at Plateau Mission Hospital in Kenya finishing off my month long stay volunteering in the hospital there. It was an amazing experience because its such a different way of life, much more laid back and friendly. I was allowed to give the babies immunisations (I have no medical experience but I did practice injections on an orange first!) and I watched several caesarean sections and got to cut the umbilical cord. I also went on a mini safari which was brilliant and we were lucky enough to see a leopard. I was very sad to leave Kenya but the week I came back I had my first briefing weekend for Chile.

Back from my first briefing weekend. WOW. I met the girls properly for the first time as we hadnt seen each other since INTOPS which was in October and theyre all brilliant. Im the baby of the group which is quite strange as Im normally the eldest and theyre all from the North of England and Scotland (Im from the South East) so Im sure that by the end of our time in Chile I will be speaking with a Northern accent! We were bombarded with useful information which will help us over the coming months and during our trip including fundraising and photography. We also had to allocate group roles and I have been nominated as the First Aider which could be interesting! I learnt loads of new games which I have taken back to my units- monkey football is a favourite and I tried eating Haribo tangfastics with humus, which doesnt actually taste as bad as it sounds. On the Saturday evening the trip leaders treated us to some valentines themed entertainment which was very funny. On Sunday afternoon after a busy weekend it was time to say goodbye but we have our first telephone briefing booked for 3 weeks time which sounds quite exciting, having never done one before Im sure itll be an experience.

My first week back at work this week so back to normality, its quite strange especially time keeping, everything happened when it happened in Kenya whereas here we seem to be governed by time. Back to Brownies as well, it was great seeing them all again although weve got a lot of new girls so I shall have to try and remember their names! We had our Thinking Day celebration at the weekend and it was slightly different to last year. A fellow guider and I were put on an activity point for a Guide walk which involved them crawling on the ground and getting Smarties from one cup to another. They got quite muddy and seemed to enjoy themselves, especially when they tried not to get too muddy and ended up being muddier than everyone else! It was very cold outside but luckily when we got back the Trefoil Guild had hot drinks and cakes at the ready.

Its my meeting at Brownies this week and I planned to make grass heads, unfortunately it didnt quite work out so I took in a few different board games for them to play with. It worked really well and they had great fun playing monopoly and jenga. First Brownie/Guide meeting back this week as well and it was good to see them all again too. Theyre just as loud and as boisterous as ever!