A piece of cake

***Check back for photos soon we are just waiting for training to finish for the day so that Jocelyn, our photographer, can download some photos for us***

We had a lovely high tea yesterday for Katharine’s birthday. It was great for us all to be treated to a lovely bit of cake and of course Katharine was treated to our wonderful singing voices!

Everyone seems much better today in the tiredness department after having a good 12 hours sleep last night. Lucky that happened as today has been absolutely packed!

Now is the time when all the volunteer staff are trained for the expedition. This is vital training which will ensure the expedition runs as smoothly and as fabulously as possible…which of course it will! Today we all learned about communications. During expedition, which will start in a couple of weeks, projects will be using mobile phones and satellite phones to communicate with field base. If you are going to be on a project site you will be in quite rural and remote areas. Every day each project will report back in to field base with a sitrep (situation report). If you are coming on expedition as a venturer the likelihood is that you will have to do this! Why not start learning the phonetic alphabet now and really impress the PMs when you get here!!

We also learned today about casevac (casualty evacuation) and medivac (medical evacuation) situations and how to manage them on project. It’s really important to be prepared for all kinds of situations and today has given all the PMs the confidence and skills to be able to do this.

The training that takes place over the next two weeks for the project managers will be passed on to the venturers. If you are a venturer you will be learning about what language to use to communicate with field base for your sitreps and you will also learn about casevac and medivac situations so that we are all as prepared as possible to be out on the project sites.

We also did quite a few name games and ice breakers today to get us all warmed up! These will be done quite a bit on project sites. Check out the below video of us all taking part in ‘Aroo-cha-cha’ which is a really fun way to all get together and just have a bit of a laugh.

At the moment the project managers are having a briefing on all of the different projects so the next blog post will have some more info about what the actual projects are. Exciting!!!!

Hasivu update: our little friendly silk worm is shrinking!!! Don’t worry though, this is normal! He is preparing himself for the next stage in the cycle which to spin his cocoon. Check back for Hasivu updates
(see earlier postings for when Hasivu came from).

Tonight we are going back to the palace and hopefully this time it won’t rain! It’s been very very sunny the last couple of days so if you are coming out bring a sun hat and sun cream BUT still bring your umbrella and waterproofs!!!