Founder’s Day

Scouting Trivia:  Baden Powell is buried in Kenya.

This past weekend there was a camp out a few kilometers from his grave.  I went with 12 of the scouts from my school.  We camped together, cooked together, hiked, and did community service together.  It was the first time that they had ever been on a scout camp out – and probably the furthest that most of them have ever been from their homes.  It rained and they got wet and cold, but they survived and they did not even complain once!

In Kenya, the principal activity of scouts is marching and raising the flag at school assemblies.  Most scouts and scout leaders do not know about all of the other components of scouting.  While at the camp out I met a few Kenyan scout leaders that are trying to teach them.  They are sponsored by an NGO from Denmark to train scout troops.  They told me how to get a Kenyan Scouting Association handbook for the scouts, where to buy merit badges, and how to encourage the scouts to continue on their own.

I met a lot of inspired Kenyans on the trip, to which I am grateful.  For instance, on Sunday we were planning on remaining at our camp site and then going the next morning. At noon I was informed that we had to leave that day.  My scouts mobilized quickly and were able to take down our camp, making it cleaner than the surrounding camp sites, in about half of an hour.  Then, as they were finishing, I went to figure out how to get back to school.  The public bus that we took to the camp left town at around 12:30, and it was the only direct bus from Maua to the camp, a journey which took us around 6 hours.  As I was trying to find a private school bus that could squeeze us and take us I came across a scout by the name of Jean (the first French name that I have seen in Kenya).  He spent over half of an hour with me helping me to track down a bus.  After all that help I offered him a soda and he told me to buy my own scouts a soda before I considered buying him one.  This might well have been the first time in Kenya when someone helped me so much and refused compensation. 

Jean’s actions radiated the image of Baden Powell that is ingrained into scouts.  My own scouts had never heard the story of the young scout that inspired Baden Powell to spread the scouting movement.  I wonder if Jean had, or if even without hearing it, his involvement in scouts helped to shape the same ideology.  Either way, I hope that through scouting, and outside of scouting, Jean, myself, and every other citizen can help to mold the younger generation into such enlightened beings. 

The bus that we found was for a private boarding primary school.  The primary students were trained in all sorts of scouting cheers and songs, and my students loved it.  Once we finally arrived back at our school I was exhausted, but the scouts continued to sing the new songs that they had learned.

And some pictures:

The first one shows the scouts’ tent.  It is made out of maize bags that have been cut and sewn together into a plastic sheet.  There was a lot of rain, and they were soaked.  This is scouting in Kenya though.  You also notice that they do not have uniforms, which is because a uniform costs almost as much as school fees for a term. 

As you can tell, they were super excited about all my nifty American camping gear.  Here they are showing us how to use my water filter and MSR dromedary.

On the last day of the camp out all of the scouts go to Baden Powell’s grave, which is located at he outskirts of Nyeri.