The Necker Swapping Begins...

First of all, can I please just say. Mexico. WHY ARE YOU SO HOT?! I thought I would be ok in the heat today, and it's fair to say that I didn't die, but oh my God! 38 degrees Celsius is no joke. But I made it, and - even better - Mauricio's mum (Mauricio is my host in Merida) has washed my clothes for me, so I won't run out of underpants tomorrow!

But that is not important right now. What is important is that I have now swapped two neckerchieves, and linked two UK scout groups with groups here in Mexico!

The first groups to be linked were SADnet, a Scout Network in the north of the UK, and Grupo Uno Cancun Clan de Rovers, with whom I spent my first weekend in Mexico camping.



Here I am, in my official scouting swimming shorts, exchanging
 the neckers with Jorge, one of the rovers, in his official sunglasses

As you will remember from my blog post about Mexican Scouting (you did read it, right?), the Clan de Rovers are aged 18-22, and get up to all sorts of cool scouting activities that any Scout Network would love to try in the UK (building and sleeping on your own sleeping platform, anyone?) For the non-UK readers, the Scout Network is the final section in UK Scouting, for ages 18-25, and they take part in many camps and activities. Many Network members are also Scouters, or Scout Leaders, with the younger sections.

The second necker I swapped was with 1st Fram Scout group, who are based in County Durham, again the north of England, with the Tropa of Grupo Uno Playa del Carmen. I met the leader, Victor, when on camp with the Rovers, and he very kindly agreed to host me for a few days, and was very excited by the chance to swap neckers and make contact with a UK Scout troop!

Here he is, proudly wearing his new necker! No uniform this time
as we weren't at an official scout meeting, but we did do the proper
handshake and salute, at least!

So the project is off to a flying start! I hope that it goes this well throughout the trip, and I hope that all the necker swapping is going to result in lots of international contacts, understanding, and friendship. I'll be honest - this project hasn't been done before as far as I know, so I don't know if it will work. But I really hope that it does, and with the support of the groups who are involved, I am pretty sure that this will be something special. Maybe I'll try to keep the blog going after the trip, to follow the progress of the groups.

Anyway, that's enough from me! We are thinking of swimming in more cenotes tomorrow (if you were too lazy to click the link, then cenotes are underground pools sacred to the Maya) before Scouts, so I had better get to bed! I think I will try sleeping in the hammock tonight, so that Mauricio can have his own bed back!