International Adventures in Scouting.

[Eagle92 110]

By request, I've spun off a story as to why my smokey bear has holes it it. It was shot at by German Scouts.

 

I did the European Camp Staff Program (ECSP) while in college. In a nut shell the ECSP is an exchange program where an American Venturer or Scouter, gotta be between the ages of 18 and 30 to do it, agrees to work at a Scout camp in Europe for a minimum of 6 weeks. You don't get paid, staff at the camps I was at were volunteers except the rangers called "wardens." But you do get free food, free shelter, and 1/2 your travel expenses paid up to $400 (although that may have increased). If you want to see Europe on the cheap it's one way to go. I spent 11.5 weeks there.

 

Anyway back to the story. One of my jobs was supervising the rifle range. they use air rifles in the UK. One day we had a German troop on the range, and they were shooting horribly. The metal container that you put the targets in and collects the spent rounds in fell off the mounting wall. I screamed cease fire, waited, and when I thought it was clear by looking and listening, went downrange to fix the problem. While remounting the target box, someone fires an air rifle downrange and thankfully hit my smokey bear and not my head. I've been told I'm hard headed, but I don't think It would have stopped the round. I turned around, used some choice, non-Scoutlike words, until I realized I was not on military range but a scout one, and calmed down. Warden had a little discussion with me about the language, but understood.

 

Another rifle range story. We had some Girl Guides at camp and they were the very first group I supervised on the range by myself. Anyway I was showing the ladies how to align the front and rear sights using my hands since I had no posters. So I stick out my left hand with the index finger raised and the backof the hand facing them to simulate the front sight. I then proceed to make a V with my right hand, also with the back of my hand facing them. That was when I heard a gasp of shock and saw a shocked look on everyone's faces. I didn't know what was up and kept on going.

 

About 30-40 minutes after they left the range, the camp warden shows up and we have a nice discussion. That's when I learned that i gave all the Girl Guides teh 'Two Finger Salute" that means "go forth and multiply."

 

It's also when I learned that our "One Finger Salute" is actually a politer version of the Two Finger Salute, and that Winston Churchil was not giving a V for Victory sign during WWII, but was actually trying to tell Hitler to..."go forth and multiply."

 

Any one else has international stories?

[Cambridgeskip 658]

A couple of years ago I took a group of scouts the shot hop across the North Sea to Amsterdam. We had arranged to stay in the HQ of a scout troop there. We had a map of how to get there and pictures of what the building looked like and had been told that when we arrived a group of cub scouts would be in there but were expecting us.

 

So we turned up, followed the map, found a building that looked exactly like what we were looking for with some cubs in, looks good to us. I went in and introduced myself to the leader who spoke next to no English. This should have been the first clue as we had been told that the leader there would speak English. After some pointing and attempts to explain I told the scouts to unpack their kit, make their packed lunches and be ready to move out again in half an hour. Dutch leader looks utterly confused and is next spotted outside on his phone clearly a bit agitated.

 

10 minutes later someone comes cycling up to the building and explains all! It seems that there are two scout groups in the area, both with identical buildings but just 100 meters apart in the same park! I can only imagine what was going through the head of the poor cub leader who suddenly had a bunch of scouts not speaking his language rocking up at his and start to unpack sleeping bags etc.

 

Was a fantastic trip though! At the time we live blogged it, the blog is still up here.... http://12thcambridge.wordpress.com/

 

[Eagle92 110]

Well you mentioned the Dutch, gotta tell my Dutch story. It's 9:30 or 10PM and the campfire is going strong. Singing, talking etc etc. Dutch leader pulls out a marijuana cigarette and starts smoking. I go over to the Warden's house and tell him what's up. Apparently it's a common challenge as marijuana is legal in Holland.

 

Conversation went like this between the Warden (W) and the Dutch Leader (DL)

 

W You know those cigarettes are not legal here in the UK,

 

DL NO?!?!?!

 

W No they are not you are going to have to give them to me.

 

DL Ok, ok. So what do yo do for fun>

 

W Oh we go to the pub.

 

DL Pub, Where is nearest pub?

 

W About 50 meters. When you leave camp, go about three meters and look to your right and you'll see a trail. Take the trail for about 30 meters and you'll hit the road. Turn right and go down the road about 20 meters and you'll hit the first one. Go down about 10 meters further and you hit the second one. And follwo the road to the beach and there is a third.

 

 

Dl OK, thank you. We gfot ot pub now.

 

[Cambridgeskip 658]

It's only when you go to a proper international jamboree that you begin to appreciate the diversity but also unity of scouting across the world. I took a group from my district to Eurojam in the UK in 2005. There were about 15,000 scouts from 68 different countries. The sub camps were arranged so that no two units from the same country were camped next to each other. On one side of us were Italians and the other side of them an Irish unit. The other side of us were Polish with Israeli the other side of them. Across the walk way from us were Dutch, Swiss, Portuguese and Ugandan units. Elsewhere on our sub camp were French, Australian, Mexican, Norwegian and more other nationalities than I can ever remember. And there were 7 other sub camps!

 

Communication was not always easy. Some times it meant gestures and sign language, other nations shamed us with their levels of English compared to our Hungarian or Spanish or German. But it's impossible to come away from something like that without feeling humbled or without your mind and perspectives being broadened. The Polish unit next to us spoke virtually no English but I can never forget the beautiful guitar playing that used to drift over from their camp in the evening. The Italians next to us gave us a real less on in cooking. Amazing people!

 

If you ever get to go to a world or world region jamboree then drop everything and go