Topaz  Blog  Friday 14th October

The day started with a final planning and training session for our event at Gymnasium No4, A school we visited today to support Marina in her quest to set up new Girl Scouting units in Astrakhan.

Three of us had a bit of excitement on our erratic journey to the school when the taxi driver was pulled over by the police and following a heated argument taken off to the police vehicle, he eventually returned with his tail between his legs and deposited us at the school a few minutes later much to our relief!

We were welcomed by school staff and met 30 students aged around 16-18 years. Based in a classroom we presented an information session about WAGGGS and did team building activities and a question and answer session. Marina Interpreted for us as we discussed the ethos of girl Guiding / girl Scouting.  This session was designed to enthuse adults to become leaders of new units and younger people to become members of the association in Astrakhan.

The pupils participated enthusiastically in the activities and challenges and were a joy to work with.  It took us ages to get away as they all wanted photographs with the team.

After lunch with Marina we had a very intensive afternoon of planning for our next sessions in Saratov and Rovnoe.

During our stay we have been sharing the hotel with a number of Russian Gymnasts, here for their national championships, so we decided to visit them at the competitions and were enthralled by the skill and agility of the girls.  We did discuss trying it out as a new TG challenge!

Tomorrow we pack up again and head for Saratov by overnight train.

All for now.

The team