Girl Scouts

We’re starting after school activities at ISK next term. We got to pick our own activities, so drum roll please….I’m starting a Girl Scout troop! Those of you who know me well know that I was a “Girl Scout Overseas” at HKIS and that being a brownie was a highlight of my young life. So I’m really quite excited.

I’m going to be running the troop with my friend Emily, who as it happens is a highly qualified Girl Scout—she has her “Gold Award”, the Girl Scout equivalent of being an Eagle Scout. We are the first troop in Rwanda, so our troop number is 51601, 516 being the number they’ve assigned to Rwanda and 01 being our troop. Quite cool. Hopefully you'll soon see us listed here on the Girl Scouts USA website: http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/global/overseas/committees/africa.asp
I was very impressed by how helpful Girl Scouts USA was in getting us started. They have a whole office devoted to Girl Scouts Overseas and they’re incredibly responsive and helpful.

One of the funniest parts of organizing all of this has been talking to Bridget and Kersti, my fellow British citizens, about Brownies in the UK. They were both Brownies when they were little and seem to have quite a different sense than Emily and I do of what Brownies are supposed to do at their meetings. I’m still not sure I understand it fully, but they are quite set on the necessity of a lot of skipping and dancing around (imaginary?) mushrooms, walking in straight lines of six (always six!) and on the fact that there are not “troop leaders” but rather The Brown Owl and The Tawny Owl who rule over the Brownies. Of course, The Brown Owl wears only brown clothing and The Tawny Owl only tawny clothing. Much to their dismay, Emily and I are reluctant to commit to a future of making owl noises and wearing only brown clothing. We’ll start our meetings in April, when we get back from spring vacation.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with two girl scouting fun facts:
-Girl Scouts USA is currently in its 98th year. It was founded on March 12th, 1912.
-One of the activities for earning the “Girl Scout Ways” Brownie Try-it is learning to make a s’more. Tragically there are no graham crackers or big marshmallows in Rwanda…