Mexican Scouting part 2: My time with Grupo 88 Naucalpan

First, a correction: In Mexican Scouting, the term Manadas (Which you will notice I spelt wrong in my last post) refers to the cub pack as a whole. The kids themselves are referring to either as Lobatos or  Lobeznas for girls. Thanks to Alfonso Padilla, Manadas leader freshly paired with 28th Croydon Cub pack, for the update!

 This week, I was privileged to go along to Grupo 88’s Scout meeting. Grupo 88 operate in one of the suburbs of Mexico City, and while with them I learnt a lot more about Scouting in Mexico!

Firstly – I discovered that Beavers do exist in Mexico! The Castorres, literally beavers, are adorable little things that can actually start at age 5, one year earlier than our Beavers in the UK. They are not an official part of Scouting in Mexico, and they don’t exist everywhere, but that doesn’t stop them! Their uniform is pretty cool as well; white shirt with a brown waistcoat, and (best of all!) Little beaver hats! It might have been just because I had been hanging round with an all-girl rover crew for the day but I felt an urge to take one home with me.

He didn't seem as keen, but OH MY GOD LOOK AT THAT HAT

Speaking of – that’s right, a girls-only rover crew. In Grupo 88 all the official sections were split by gender. Officially this is no longer Scouts Mexico’s policy, and it was the first time I had seen groups split this way in Mexico, but Grupo 88 is huge, and so they decided to keep the historical split in place to keep the numbers manageable. It seems that, just as in the UK, larger groups with more history tend to stick by that history as they go forwards - and one of the girls I met from the head office was very surprised to hear that we have the same thing in the UK! For Grupo 88 it seems to work fine, as the two packs/troops/units/crews meet up fairly regularly, so they don’t work in isolation. I hung around with the girls rover crew for the day, as my host Mariana was a member, so it would have been a bit rude to head off and spend time with the boys! It was interesting to note that the gender split was not kept up with the Scouters; there were female scouters in charge of the boys’ Menadas, and vice versa.

Meanwhile, a Lobezna had stopped by to watch my negotiations on taking a Castorre home with me

Another difference between Grupo 88 and other groups I had seen was that 88 had their Tropa and their Caminantes together. I can’t remember if an official reason was given for this mix, but speaking to some of the scouters it seemed the thinking that the Caminantes were in a good position to act as Patrol Leaders or a Senior Patrol, lending some much needed maturity to the younger Tropa. Keeping them together also seemed to help bolster the numbers of Caminantes present, as there was less chance of them not coming to an activity because they thought it might be boring, which I know from personal experience can be a problem sometimes with our Explorer units in the UK!

I was very lucky to witness three different ceremonies while I was with Grupo 88. First up I saw one of the Caminantes joining the Clan de Rovers, which took place in a beautiful park setting. Then, back at the group’s Cabana, I got to see the equivalent of a “swimming up” ceremony where a Castorre joins the Menada; then I got to see some Lobatos joining the Tropa. The ceremonies were all relatively similar in that they consisted of three parts: saying goodbye, changing uniforms, and being welcomed into the new section.

For the Castorres, the uniform change took place in a brown velvet tube; they entered in their Castorre uniform, a leader helped them to change into their new Menada uniform, and they emerged a new scout! I couldn’t help but compare this with the UK, where if a leader was to climb into a tube with a Beaver scout there might be complaints made! As it was, there were rovers holding both ends of the tube open so you could see in to see what was going on. Once the Lobato/Lobenza had emerged, they were presented to the rest of the pack, and allocated a six (or Seisiesta as they are known over here).

The Menada ceremony involved the Lobato/Lobenza arriving at two wooden poles horizontally resting on some tyres; one lower, one higher. The Scouter for the Tropa stood past the taller pole. The Lobato stepped over the first pole, and at this point removed their yellow shirt for the green of the Tropa (in this case the shirt was hidden in one of the tyres). They then jumped over the second, higher pole, and they were into the group! All through this part the Scouter was talking to the Scout, explaining what was expected of them now that they were going to join the Tropa, and so forth. Once they had made it into the Tropa, they were allocated a patrol. Unlike the Menadas, who voted from a distance, in the Tropa the patrol leaders ran up to the scout in question (fairly towering over them in this case – must have been a bit scary!) and then decided. In Grupo 88’s case, this was then followed up by passing the new scout (or scouts – 3 graduated on Saturday) down a line made by the Tropa forming two parallel lines an linking hands; the new scout was passed down this line, with a little bit of throwing them up in the air for good measure!

The Clan de Rovers’ ceremony had the Caminante blindfolded, and walked from the rest of the unit to where the Clan were waiting (just like in Cancun). In this case, that involved going up a slope and across a suspension bridge to where the Clan waited. There were candles arrange on the floor, and various bits of paraphernalia to symbolise various aspects of their scouting lives (for example, a guitar to symbolise camping and campfire songs). The new rover was again talked through the change in section, and what it meant to them, and then they handed over their old uniform (note that at this point they were still blindfolded!) They were then handed their new uniform, and presented to one of the Rovers who would be their ‘teacher’ while they were new in the Clan. It works similar to a buddy system that we might use in Cubs or Scouts, in which the Aspirante (the new person) was shown what to do and had a person they could come to with problems and questions and the like. The buddy started by taking them aside and explaining to them about some of the symbolism in the Clan (and believe me, there is a LOT in this Clan!), and the ceremony was finished, bar the usual chanting and shouting that opens and closes most scout meetings in Mexico.

The Clan all gathered to meet their latest member. I am

actually a little surprised that sunglasses aren't an official

 part of the uniform

 

It was interesting to note that at all the ceremonies, the words spoken to the scout who was joining were spoken pretty quietly and to them alone. It seemed to make the ceremony that much more personal to each scout, which I’m sure made it a lot more personal for them. And, as before, the amount of symbolism, pageantry and meaning in the Mexican scouting traditions is far greater than I’ve seen in the UK. Everybody’s neckerchieves have meanings, from the colours down to the size of a line of colour. The Clan de Rovers in Grupo 88 even have secret bits sewn into the tabs they wear at their socks to symbolise the lifeblood of the group, and they wear different colour tabs depending on if they are an Aspirante or a regular rover. You can't move for meanings! And honoured as I was to be a part of their meeting on the Saturday, I was a little apprehensive when they asked me to run a meeting for them on the Tuesday evening.

 

"What kind of meeting do you want?" I asked.

"Oh, whatever you want to!" They said with big smiles.

 

"So guys, I'm here to talk to you about helping me out with a little project... can anyone dance?"

Thankfully, I had thought about this before I left the UK, and so yesterday evening we made tea, learnt some games, and I spoke a bit about Scouting in the UK and how it was different to Mexico. We also translate the rovers' prayer, which the clan use to open and close meetings. The first part is spoken by one person, and the part after the "/"

"Lord give me a valiant heart / that no vain thought turns me away from you

A noble heart / that no unworthy affection reduces

A righteous heart / that tolerates no evil

A kind heart / that no passion enslaves

And a generous heart / to serve"

At the end of the meeting I was surprised again when I was handed a red rose, and all the girls got a white rose. They each took it in turns to personally thank me for my meeting, and for visiting them, and to wish me well on my trip. Finally it was my turn to do the same (well I didn't wish myself well on my trip - well I DO wish myself well on the trip, but - oh never mind) and with that the meeting was finished. It was a beautiful little ceremony; I have a feeling it was just the girl rovers of Grupo 88, but it didn't really matter - I'm sure that as I go forwards and meet more scouts in Mexico I will find similar ways of showing appreciation for brother and sister scouts all over the world, which is basically what this whole trip is about!

Week 2: Did you order your Mexico with extra heat, sir?

Neckers swapped: 4
Bags of recycling sorted: 8
Cenotes swum in: 1
Mayan ruins seen: 4 cities
Miles travelled: 723.5
Habanero chiles eaten: 1/5
Species of monkey observed: 2

As I sit in Luis' office, fan in the corner and classical music wafting through the air, I am reminded that Mexico is a place of contrasts. I have gone from Playa Del Carmen, where I was staying with Victor in his very nice bungalow in a gated community, to staying with Mauricio Vidales in his two storey house, and now Luis Aguayo's house which also has his office built into it for the pest control business he runs, three storeys with two garages (and one mental little dog who I am thinking of stealing!), and it's fair to say that I have been very lucky with the people I have met and the kindness they have shown me thus far on my trip. However, as my bus to Tuxtla drove down mountain roads that no bus should ever attempt (which, due to my pitifully small bladder, I had to try to go to the loo in. Possibly the most dangerous thing I've done yet in this country), I saw houses that really were no more than sticks with some corrugated iron over them. The people weren't starving - they had luscious jungle in the lowlands, beautiful mountain forests in the highlands, and had plots of land to grow food in. But their lives were totally different to the lives of the people whose houses I have stayed in over the last few days; I doubt you could find such a massive difference in way of life in the UK!

The places have been extraordinarily different, too. Playa del Carmen, and Merida, on the Yucatan plain, have been hot, with palm trees, sand, and quite dry heat. In Playa, I visited Tulum, my first ancient Mayan city, set on the edge of the Caribbean sea; if was spectacular, and an afternoon on the beach at the local resort of Akumal, eating at the beachside café, transported me in one instant from ancient ruins to a very typical - but enjoyable - tourist experience. I even saw a couple of turtles, chillin' on the sea floor, when I went snorkelling.



It was just like this documentary I watched

Eventually, though, it was time to wave goodbye to Victor, his wife, his son Pablo and daughter Rohita, and get on a bus to Merida, on the opposite coast of the Yucatan. Merida was similar to Playa Del Carmen, but hotter. Rather than the paltry 35 degrees in Playa del Carmen, in Merida we were looking at 38 degrees during the hottest part of the day. Nobody told me that May was the hottest month of the year for Mexico, so I suppose that this is the hottest I will be on this trip! There I met up with Gabriel Gongora, a Scouter in charge of national opportunities for international experiences, and Mauricio Vidales, a local rover who had agreed to host me. I had an incredible time in Merida, seeing more ruins (Chichen Itza, which is the one with the famous snake shadow pyramid thingy, and Ek Balam, a smaller ruin but one that you can actually climb on, to get the real Indiana Jones Experience!) and swimming in the underground cenote; possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

I believe the word you are looking for is "oooooooooh"

I also got to see some more scouts! In Mexico, every scout troop meets on a Saturday afternoon, rather than in the evenings in the week, and on this Saturday I got to watch (and participate in!) an Aro Indio tournament between two units (for more details on this, see this post about the game) and at which I swapped another two neckers, linking Cockermouth Explorers with Grupo 11 San Jorge Caminantes, and Purley & Pangbourne Explorers with Grupo 17 Caminantes. Hurrah! I also got to talk to the rovers about what I was doing, and why I was taking this trip, which was great and gave them all practice at playing the role of translator! One of the Caminantes was also very keen to work at Kandersteg International Scout Centre, so hopefully he will keep in touch and let me know how he gets on with that.

My two groups in Merida, and world champion Aro Indio players as well!

Time, however, waits for no man (or Scout) and so it felt like no time at all before I was packing my bag (complete with new hammock!) to get the overnight bus to Palenque. And when I got off the bus, bleary-eyed and half asleep... well I didn't see much, because I was half asleep. But when I had woken up, and taken the collectivo (a collectivo is like a little bus service run by minibuses) to the ruins of Palenque...

Gone was the flat. Gone were the palm trees. Gone was the sandy, dusty  earth. In its place, there were luscious jungles, crowning hills and mountains in which sat the ruins of Palenque. The air was alive with the sounds of insects and birds, and the air felt close and humid. As I walked through the ruins of the main temple (you could actually walk through hallways in the dark and emerge at the top of the structure!) a roaring in the distance made me look up at the higher half of the site, where three temples sat. My guide book said that it was Howler Monkeys, which is pretty cool on its own, but in that place it was so easy to believe that they were dragons. I spent the whole morning gawping at the ruins, and slowly saturating my clothes with sweat - the humidity in the jungle more than made up for the (slightly) lesser temperature.

Yeah I did the big arms pose. What are you gonna do about it?

Tell me you wouldn't want to get yourself a whip and a leather jacket if you were here

 



Alas, my bus to Tuxtla was leaving at 12, so I had to tear myself away from the ruins to walk to the museum. Even more unfortunately, the museum was closed because it was Monday, so I had to settle for reading my book for a  few minutes while I waited for a Collectivo back to town. I managed to get my postcard to my old work posted, though I had to put the stamps over some of the writing (sorry guys!) and then I made it back to the bus station, where I accidentally tried to pay the lady in the secure luggage storage in apples, and got on my bus, which took off up and down more insane roads that made me think I should have travelled by helicopter.

After another 6 hours of isolated mountain villages, farms and corrugated shacks, we pulled into Tuxtla. I was sat texting my latest contact when he walked right up to me, and in a blur we had loaded my bag into his truck, had a quick bite to eat in a restaurant, and I had been taken to his massive house to get settled before a quick jaunt round the town. Luis is a wonderful man, and his wife Miriam is the state chief for Scouts in Chiapas (an equivalent of County Commissioner here), and I met him through his daughter, who works for the Scouts Mexico HQ. His son, Luis Antonio, is also going to the World Scout Moot, as is one of the rovers I met last night when we went to a restaurant which featured traditional folk dances, and a bizarre ritual where any takers can sit in a chair and be blessed by the dancers with a floral wreath. Of course, I was volunteered to participate!

"Don't act like you're not impressed"

While I have been in Tuxtla, I have visited San Cristobel, a mountain village with lots of churches, and been on a river trip to see some crocodiles (we only saw one, but we made up for it by seeing a family of Spider Monkeys). Tonight I will meet up with more rovers, and apparently teach them some English songs, before hopping on my overnight bus to Puebla. What will I see there? Who knows. But I have been assured that it WILL be cooler than here (we were still had 38 degrees on the river, though in San Cristobel it was a chilly 28!), so maybe I can finally actually wear the trousers that I packed for this trip!

Aro Indio

It's morning in Tuxtla, and I am slightly nervous that we have made it to nearly 8.30 am without someone coming to tell me we have to get up to go and do something today! However, I will take advantage of the opportunity to jot down the rules of a game I have learnt while I have been out here in Mexico. It's a great game and I intend to teach it to as many scouts as possible when I get home! So read up on the rules here, and then when I come to see you in the UK we can play!

The game is called "Aro Indio", meaning (as far as I remember, since Google Translate won't play today), "Indian Ring". The game is played on a court that should be roughly the size of a basketball court, but in practice can be any old stretch of grass. Standard teams are 5: four on the pitch, and one goalkeeper. The goalkeeper is armed with a stick, about 4 feet long, and the players play with a ring. The idea is for each team to try and get the ring onto their goalkeeper's pole to score a point. Simple! In all the games I have seen the ring has actually been made from an old car's fan belt, wrapped around with twine/thin rope and then gaffa taped in place. This shouldn't be too hard for scout groups to get hold of, and a fun part of the activity can be making the playing pieces, but if you are short for time then any ring will do!

Play starts in the centre, with a referee tossing the ring up and two players making a grab for it as in Basketball. Players cannot run with the hoop, though they can slide it along the floor, run to it and pick it up again. Passing obviously happens by throwing the ring to another player. Players of the opposing team can intercept the ring and pass to their own team members when the ring is in the air. If a ring is caught by two members of different teams, then play stops, and the referee throws the ring up at the point where the two players are standing, as at the beginning of the game. If both players catch the ring, then the process is repeated. The referee can choose to throw the ring high or low, so players have to be ready for a big jump, small jump, or even to crouch down to win the ring!

A point is scored when the ring is caught by the goalkeeper; the goalkeeper cannot move from their spot (in one version of the game they stood in a tyre), though they can reach out on one foot if they want to. If they put a foot down outside their area then no point is scored. Also, if the ring falls off the stick then no point is scored! There is also an area in front of the goalkeeper which nobody is allowed into, to stop people from getting too close to the goalkeeper (so they have to throw the ring to score), and if you cross this line the other team gets a penalty. The line is the 'D' in a Basketball court, or whatever semicircle you agree on in your Scout Hall (so you can make it shorter for Cubs and longer for Explorers!)

Once a point has been scored, the ring is given to the team who lost the point and they start from either side of the goal (like a goal kick in Football), and if the ring goes out of play at the side or at the end of the pitch then play continues like in football (the team who threw the ring have to give it to the other team, who then throw it in from the point it left the court). To take a penalty, one team gets a straight shot at their goalkeeper from behind the halfway line.

So those are the rules! I have put up a video of the Caminantes playing, which you can see here to get an idea of how the game is played. If anyone has any questions about the rules then ask away, and if I can't answer then I'm sure one of my Mexican friends can answer for me. And if you give the game a go then be sure to tell me how it went on the blog or on Facebook! 

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!

Mexican Scouting - a brief introdction

I've now had the pleasure of meeting quite a lot of Mexican Scouts from the Quintana Roo region of Mexico, (on the Yucatan Peninsula, including Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Merida), so I think I can start to let you know about how they work and what they are like compared to us back in the UK. Of course, some of the details might be different in other regions, but if they are then I'll let you know in a subsequent post. Of course, this does mean that you will need to keep reading to find out if anything changes!

First - the sections. split down quite similar lines to the UK sections, but the first section pretty much incorporates beavers and cubs together. So from 6-10 years old is the Menadas, the equivalent of our cub scouts (Menada means cub in espanol).The next section up is the Tropa , or Troop, from ages 11-14, pretty much the same as our Scouts. Up next is the equivalent of our Explorer Scouts, the Caminantes, or Pioneers, ages 14-18. Once you graduate from the Caminantes, you have the Clan de Rovers, (the Rover Clan) who correspond with our Scout Network, but only go from ages 18-22. After the ages of 22 you become a Scouter, or a Scout Leader. This means that, at 23, I should technically be a scouter.



It was just a bit unfortunate that the rovers adopted me first!

The sections, as in the UK, are easily identifiable by the colours of their shirts; Yellow for the Memadas, Green for the Tropa, Dark Blue for the Caminantes, Red for the Clan de Rovers, and Scouters wear a light blue/grey shirt. The shirts are all the same style, so it's only the colours that differ; unlike the UK, the Menadas wear full shirts instead of jumpers. The official scout trousers in Mexico are also far cooler than the UK Scout trousers, and the model they took the sizing from seems to have actually been a genuine human being instead of whatever it was they based the UK trouser sizes on! They zip off to make shorts, which I suppose is necessary given the weather, and for the girls there is an option very similar to the old Girlguiding Culottes, only more hardwearing - shorts with fabric over the front and back so they resemble a skirt.

There's quite a bit more pageantry surrounding the scouts that I've seen so far; on the camp, each group had their own banner to mark their area, and the individual patrols in the different Tropas all had made their own flags, so when they all formed up they really looked quite good! Each section also has their own chants (which I won't pretend to have remembered or understood), which made it quite hard for the county commissioner to get everyone's attention when trying to close the camp! Its something that I think we could do a bit more in the UK, it was quite apparent that the kids were getting into the spirit of things quite a lot more thanks to all the chanting and the jumping and the flags. In fact, especially with the Menadas, the leaders really struck me as being tremendously excited about what they were doing there; they were certainly jumping around enough!

As for the programme, the only section I can talk about is the Clan de Rovers; while on camp I attended a four hour forum about their community service projects (surprisingly, it wasn't boring, despite being in Espanol!) It seems that the rovers here include, as part of their programme, various service projects which they conceive of, organise and run. Suggestions at the forum included beach cleaning, painting the bottoms of trees to prevent ants from destroying them, and other things which I didn't get time to ask about as I was whisked away by an avid badge collector to talk about badges. But the idea struck me as one that we could use in the UK - how big a part of community service is Scouting, these days? We have our resurrected version of bob a job week, but certainly for groups in my area, this is about it. And it’s certainly true that one of the reasons Network doesn’t work that well in many places is a lack of focus. What if we incorporated these service projects into our programme for network, and so gave them something to base their programme around? Of course they would do other things, but making a difference in their local community might give them a bit of focus – and, of course, help the community, which is one of the things Scouting was originally built around! Because the planning and organising are all part of the process too, you can try literally any project you want – arranging it with the local council, getting paperwork; all these are part of the challenge!

So there you have it. No doubt I will add more as I go, but right now I need to send some more couchsurfing requests and pack for Merida and the 38 degree heat they were talking about on the TV earlier. Wish me luck!

Week 1: Finding my feet, Cancun, and The Quintana Roo Camp

As this blog might have people reading it from other countries now, I am going to have to try and use simpler English! However, there is a translate button at the top of the page, for if you get stuck, so I hope there are no problems with anyone reading this!

The first week has been, to put it mildly, brilliant.

Landing in Cancun, I was a bit disappointed to see that it was raining! It was only a brief shower though, and in no time at all I had met up with Monica, who I met through Couchsurfing.com! She and her friend Alfonso picked me up and took me to the local shopping centre, where we ended up sitting in a McDonalds, enjoying the free Internet. Monica was meeting some students at university to get some studies done (her final project was in on Friday) and I was trying to stay awake, as although it was 4pm in Cancun, it was 10pm in my head; I had got up at 5am that morning so to say I was a bit tired would be an understatement! I also met Adriana, a friend of Monica's who is in a rover crew here in Cancun.

Monica on the left, Adriana on the right - my first friends in Cancun!

We went for some pizza, and then met up with Armando, another friend, and saw a popular local hangout, complete with stands selling corn in all its glorious forms, some of which are nice and some of which are not so nice! By now I was getting a bit delirious from the lack of sleep, so Adriana drove me and Monica home for the night. Now I thought that I was going to stay with Monica in her house, so I got very confused when she got out of the car and started asking directions! It turns out that she had a friend who rents out apartments, and he had one free for a few days, so I was staying there! It was a bit scary when they closed the door and left me on my own for my first night, but I was so tired I didn't care!

For the next few days I saw some of the touristy side of Cancun, like the Mayan ruins and the museum (in the rain; it's so hot here that sometimes you get sunshine in the morning, and then rain in the afternoon after all the moisture has been evaporated. Finally my Geography A Level is worth something!) and the aquarium, with a dolphin show to finish it off. I also saw some of the other side of Cancun with Adriana; she took me with her to help with her university work, taking pictures of places in the city that they want to improve, and also going to a high school orchestra recital with Montse, another rover. For some reason, I also went to a salsa club, despite not knowing how to salsa and having decided to go to bed half an hour beforehand!

This is harder than it looks, especially after you have been bullied into eating lots of Tacos!

 

And then I went camping. The camp was the equivalent of a county camp in the UK, as it had all the Scouts from the Quintana Roo state of Mexico. This was good news for me because it meant that I could talk to Scouts from Playa del Carmen, my next destination, to try and find somewhere to stay! The camp was incredible, and lots of people wanted to get a photo with me because I was from the UK; it was like being a Scouting version of Robbie Williams! We did plenty of cool stuff, including a camp fire, making traditional Mexican food, building a sleeping platform (unfortunately I didn't get to sleep on it because there wasn't room but it was still good to help!) and I was honoured to help invest a new rover scout after the camp fire on the Saturday evening. It was great to see what they got up to on the camp, and I will put that in another blog post - this one is already long enough!

Suffice to say that on the Camp, Victor Torras very kindly invited me to stay in his house, so here I am! I had a fun coach trip with the Tropa and the Manada (more on those in another post, but basically other sections) home, and then we went out for Tacos with one of the Scout leaders (we had to wait for Victor because he was taking another leader to the hospital with a broken ankle), and I started taking my antimalarial tablets. So far, no bad side effects, and today I went swimming in a cenote (sacred Mayan pool, good for snorkeling and with a nice little ledge to jump in from), so all in all I am off to a great start! The people I have met have been so kind and willing to help me out, and have been very forgiving of my terrible Spanish! I will try to make the blog posts shorter in future, but thanks for reading and speak to you all soon!

Some thoughts as I sit in the departure lounge

There are times when the world feels huge. As I woke up this morning, the walls of my room seemed a million miles away, and the journey I was planning to take infinitely more so. The shower wasn’t warm enough, for some reason, and as I sat there shivering in the morning light at 5:15am, I will confess I had a moment of doubt. Well, I’ll confess that that moment of doubt was the latest in a few I had been experiencing over the last couple of days as the start date of my trip hurtled towards me like an out of control cement truck. Wouldn’t it be easier to spend the summer at home, with friends? After all, I had gone through a break up relatively recently, and I wasn’t sure that I was entirely over it yet. My friends and family had been a lifeline for me in the first part of this year, and now I was planning on leaving them for a third of a year. I felt like a helicopter with intermittent power failure, dipping down only to stutter back into life and ride up on another wave of positivity and enthusiasm for the trip, leaving a trail of smoke in my wake. Was I ready for this trip?

The answer, really, is no.

We are never ready, really. We can try to prepare, to brace ourselves for what’s about to happen, and we can try to reason away what is happening, but we are never truly ready for life. Now obviously I’m not talking about the small stuff, though I’m sure those of you with kids jumped immediately to thoughts of the school run when I said that. I’m talking about big life events: first day of school, first kiss with someone special, leaving your job, death of a love one. You can never be truly prepared for what you will feel, or think, or say (I’m not prepared for half the things I say), and you certainly can’t be prepared for what other people are going to do and say. There is no brace position that protects you from what life will do to you, either. Life changes you, and sure – you can try and prepare for that, but what will it change you into? Will you like what it does to you? Will other people? Life washes over us as sure as the tides, and it we aren’t drowning then we’re really doing quite well.

So what do you do? Is there any way, as Baden-Powell loved to say, to “be prepared” when it’s almost impossible? My answer would be, in this instance, don’t. To prepare yourself emotionally, spiritually even, for events like this can all too easily become the equivalent of making sure you can stem the impact of what life does to you. It’s like making a backup copy of your psyche, to be preserved against what is going to happen to you and what those things will do to you. To use the swimming metaphor, it’s the equivalent of putting on your diving suit, or getting in your submarine. But what do you miss from inside that cocoon? What glorious sights are you missing as you walk the floor of life’s ocean, safe inside your suit of armour? I feel like, at times, I have walked along my own ocean floor, insulating myself against the damage life might do to me, telling myself that I was really swimming.

That’s partially what this trip is about; this is me taking off my diving suit, and giving swimming a go. That’s what the anxiety is about; right now I am in the troughs and swells of the waves, gasping for air, with my diving suit tied to my back in case it all gets too much. But of course, the suit is weighing me down. So my first mission on this journey is to let that suit go. Because once the weight of that is gone, I will be able to swim with that tide. It won’t matter what life throws at me, because I won’t be busy trying to protect myself against it. The wave will swell, and I will be there at the forefront. And life, let me tell you something: not only am I going to swim with you, but I am going to conjure a surf board out of nowhere and ride the waves for as long as I can. If anyone wants to try surfing with me, just give me a call. Because that’s also what this trip is about; if I can free myself up and embrace life’s changes, then you sure as hell can to.

Now, where’s the Dixons? I forgot to buy a travel adaptor for the Surface.