Days 4, 5 and 6

And lo!  The merry campers have returned from the wilderness and they pursue their GOLD project back to Yerevan.  And I can accurately describe us as merry because we have showered and/or are showering now.    (I even shampooed TWICE.  I know!) Not that we weren't merry before, but it was difficult to tell under the dirt.

But I get ahead of myself.  I should tell the story in the order that it unfolds.  So in order to keep you in suspense over the next couple of days, I shall expand our tale gradually.  But so that there's not too much tension, remember that we are all merry so we must end safely.  So here goes...

We toddled to the Armenian Guiding HQ in couple of taxis and collected all the resources we would need.  There were lots of girls there waiting already and we all chucked our luggage into a van and boarded a bus.  We picked up some other girls on the way and several girls had brought older brothers along so the bus was pretty packed.  We trundled through the mountains and some wonderful scenery, stopping once for cherries, before we arrived at our campsite near Dilijan.

It was quite spectacular!  Armenia is much more green and mountainous than any of us expected I think.  But we didn't pause too long to admire the view as there were tents to put up.  We pitched our own pretty quickly and then set out to assist the others.  There were around 50 of us camping out but we made quite short work of it.  The only difficulty was that the ground was very hard and it was difficult to drive in the pegs more than an inch or two.

However, this problem was neatly solved by one of the boys producing an axe and bashing them in.  We left him to it: health and safety.

We were something of a novelty at camp.  It didn't take long for some of the girls to come over and chat to us.  They were incredibly friendly and really made an effort to include us which definitely helped us to settle in to our new temporary homes.  We did encounter some language issues but after a while discovered there's very little you can't communicate if you gesture wildly enough.  We did learn some Armenian and the Girl Scouts seemed to find our attempts to pronounce the unpronounceable amusing.  But they were quite adamant that we should learn.  Quite right too.

We spent the evening playing games and getting to know each other and we learned some great new ones to take back to our own units.  The ball-egg-and-nicknames game was definitely new to us and later on in the evening we learned the leg game.  Has to be seen to be believed.

By the by, I believe these games have proper names in Armenian but quite what is anybody's guess.  We passed the evening playing games, having dinner and singing round a campfire.  A couple of the boys had brought along guitars and could take requests - was sang a lot of the Beatles and disappointed our new friends with our lack of knowledge of old classic rock songs.

Then an evening cup of tea and bed an midnight and we settled down for the night.

We awoke next morning at around eight, gasping for breath as the sun was already up and rapidly turning our tents into greenhouses.  We got up and sorted and then the sound system sparked into life.  Yes, there was a sound system.  This is the cue for morning exercises.

Morning exercises involves an unreasonable amount of running around the field before breakfast as well as stretches and some aerobics.  But then as a reward, one is allowed breakfast and a cup of tea so all seems fine until the next morning when the devastating saga begins again.

We had an opening ceremony with some songs from both the Armenians and the GOLDies and them we split into groups to begin our activities.  We were preparing for an international night the following evening and Jade and I were in a group which picked India.  This was all fine and dandy until they asked us to learn by heart and sing a song in Hindi while they danced.  Now as everyone knows, a good girl Guide can turn her hand to just about anything, but this stumped us.  Plus we had to prepare for our own UK themed performance.

Once this was settled, we went en masse to collect wood.  The wood seemed to be half way up the mountain behind it and so we spent a couple of hours mooching up and down in the baking sun and dragging approximately 2.6 acres of forest to the campsite.  The hard part was balancing on the stepping stones across the stream.  I may have fallen down but as there is no photographic evidence, I deny it.

We had lunch  - but lunchtime at camp is anywhere between three and five - and spent the rest of the day practising our performances for International Evening.  And before bed we danced along to the music (camp is really like a big disco) and finished off with a cuppa and sing-song around the campfire.

The following morning, we again woke up gasping for air and were unprepared for morning exercises which began 15 minutes early.  We needed a little more time to prepare mentally (i.e. scoff Maoam sweeties) beforehand.  We breakfasted and finished off practising our performances for International Night which was due to start at 5:00 when the Scouts would join us from their camp.  Team Armenia shuffled self-consciously a little way out of camp to rehearse our vigorous Scottish dancing.  I definitely didn't fall down again.  That would be embarrassing.

We changed into our posh shirts and badge tabs for the occasion and when the scouts arrived, they did so in a flurry of chanting and a rhythmic stampede as they swept around our camp in formation.  We established where everyone should sit and we played some ice breaker games.  The scouts represented several countries outside Armenia, including Georgia and Iran, and all were very friendly and we have cheerfully promised to Facebook each other.

There followed an opening performance from the GOLDies and we explained a little bit about the UK, where we were from and some of our traditions and culture.  Then we performed our epic medley: the UK remix featuring Take That, the Beatles, the National Anthem, Land of Hope and Glory, "traditional" Scottish and Irish dancing, some Welsh singing and a rather savvy rendering of the Spice Girls.  Our Girl Scouts then performed their presentations of their countries of choice and the visiting scouts performed traditional Armenian singing and dancing.

We had a break during which there was a mad scramble for watermelon and then spent the remaining time dancing and taking group photos.  Like this!

It was a lovely evening and when the Scouts left, marching to the strain of a whistle, the atmosphere continued and we ended our second full day on camp dancing along to the music and having a cup of tea around the campfire.

Lots of GOLD love from Team Armenia xxx

P.S. Hello teams Malawi and Guyana!  We are reading your blogs (and we are not at all jealous of the swimming pool.  Obvs :D )