Arepa, Butterflies and (Ice) Cream

27th to 30th August

After a fabulous evaluation with the board, we had a few days to ourselves to explore the island and complete the training plans for next weekend based on the feedback.

On Tuesday and the early mornings, we worked through training plans, which you can hear about in our next blog.

Wednesday, we visited the Butterly Farm - 35 different species (plus one moth). It was very relaxing and various Butterflies landed on us. Find out in next weeks blog post if we make it to the 7:30am meditation session at the other end of the Island!

Later, we had movie night - those that had seen it before didn’t realise how corny ‘Walking on Sunshine’ was! Stargazing followed, with Aruba’s newly formed Science and Nature Foundation. All of us ‘earning’ one of the old Brownie programme stargazer badges.

Thursday, Hannah and Sophie met the Prime Minister of Aruba to share Guiding experiences of the GOLD team and the APG.

“It was an eye opening opportunity to meet a leader in another country, particularly as she is the first female prime minister of Aruba. She was very receptive to understanding Girlguiding and the values of the organisation” -  Hannah

The obligatory Aruba sign photo opportunity was visited

Encouraged by the APG, beaches have recently become a theme through “Sunset beyond the bush” as there was a bush in the way of a previous sunset. We’ve also been swimming at Baby Beach!

Throughout we’ve had a feast - Arepa, made by Heather; a trip to the Dutch Pancake House (Sophie’s favourite location) and a few stops at the different Ice Cream places!

First Training Weekend and Shark Attacks!

22nd - 26th August

We kicked off the first of our GOLD trainings with a meeting and session with the Arubaanese Padvinster Gilde (APG) National Board on the WAGGGS Leadership Mindset; we presented each of the mindsets with an interactive activity. For some of the team, this was their first experience of training and we all agreed that the session went well. Since being in Aruba, we have been given a very warm welcome by the APG who are keen to ensure that GOLD helps the organisation to develop as well as the individuals within it.

One of the objectives of our project is to facilitate the formation of a new programme for the APG and we worked hard to ensure that our weekend sessions met this objective. On Saturday, we each delivered our own training sessions on the WAGGGS five essentials, our current UK programme, UN global goals, international opportunities, WAGGGS resources, planning a session and what girls want. The sessions were broken up with fun energisers which the leaders can take away to run with their girls. There was lots of brainpower used throughout the day, fueled by a delicious lunch and the leaders all agreed that they gained lots of new knowledge and ideas to take away. Sunday saw us up early, alive, alert, awake and enthusiastic to work together towards developing a new programme for the APG, based on what the leaders had learnt on the Saturday. 

Its not been all training since we have been in Aruba, the team enjoyed an interesting meal where we waited in line for over an hour (amusing ourselves by playing a game of course) then had ‘Wow’ fish, chips and shrimps which we ate in the dark, bobbing on a jetty over the Aruban sea, while we faced a constant battle with the wind to keep our food on our plates!!

Jos and Heather have also enjoyed learning to 'drive like an Aruban’ to ensure we fit in with the locals, despite our ‘visitor’ plate and get from A to B in our van - nicknamed Bow - Box on Wheels!!

On Monday we had a great day being toured around the North side of Aruba in Bow by Nika, a member of the APG. We climbed the lighthouse, visited the Alto Vista church and reflected in the peace labyrinth. We then explored the beach, cove, gold mine ruins and natural bridge. It was a great day out and with our windswept hair and slightly pink skin we rushed off to meet the National Board and APG GOLD committee to plan for the rest of the project, in Starbucks!

The day ended with mermaids being eaten in a shark attack………….cocktail!!!

The Adventure so Far

The Project so Far
We met and stayed at the Heathrow Travelodge overnight before flying to Aruba via Miami. Naturally, we told our GOLD story to border control, but also to the Guiding District Commissioner in the lift, a man handing out free gum and multiple people in the toilets (amongst others)!

There was only one piece of luggage missing on arrival! This wasn't much of a problem as we'd got a lot of luggage overall! The APG met us very warmly and gave us a lift to our accommodation, which we'll be staying in for three weeks.

After being awake for nearly 24 hours we had a well earned rest! 
Car collection, Grocery shopping and Lunch occupied the morning, before reviewing our training plans in detail for the Thursday board meeting as well as the Friday, Saturday and Sunday wider training.

Discovering if a pool noodle be used as a stick in training
on the WAGGGS Leadership Mindsets - Collaborative Mindset

How did we end up in Aruba?!

We've been active on social media for the last few months, but if reading this blog for the first time...what are we doing here? The team were selected in September 2019 during a weekend where we met each other for the first time, our Leader Sophie made up the team.

After first and second briefing to learn about training, facilitation, songs and WAGGGS with the seven other GOLD teams, we held a third briefing weekend in Birmingham to develop more as a team and focus on our Arubaanese Padvinster Gilde aims and objectives and develop training plans to meet the training needs.