July 2021, Callings
If you had seen me as a 9-year old Girl Scout from hell, you might not have believed how my life would turn out. I wouldn’t have.
It should have been fine. I had spent hours leafing through an antique Girl Scout Handbook found in our attic, studying all the activities. You mean I could get badges for stuff I did anyway, like taking care of my dog and cat, helping my mom with cooking? You mean I could learn about photography, journalism, the outdoors, first aid, drama…?
I’d tasted some of their cookies, too, and wanted more. I must have begged my mother because before I knew it I was being dropped off at a house in our suburban DC neighborhood, a bit early, waiting for the other girls to arrive so the meeting could start. It didn’t go as I imagined. I knew no one in the chattering circle of fourth graders who all knew each other, maybe from their class at school? I didn’t know how to fit into a conversation with them or with the two adult women who seemed out of their depth. I couldn’t wait for my mom to pick me up.
Still I was excited when I got my uniform, even if it was boring green and scratchy. At the next meeting we were given boxes of cookies to sell and I was excited until I realized I had to ring doorbells on my street, show the boxes to adults and ask them for money. Returning the cookies was not an option. I procrastinated so long that my mom had to buy all the cookies herself, so I could hand in some money.
Then things went from iffy to bad… I attended another meeting where the leaders told us we were going to spend a day in the woods. They told us about poison ivy and bug bites and gave us instructions for individual home made camp stoves to heat our food in the outdoors. That was intriguing. We had to get a large flat, empty tunafish can, strips of torn cardboard to wind inside it, a piece of string to put in the center for a wick and fill it with melted paraffin wax. My mom was a good sport and helped me assemble all the ingredients. I couldn’t wait to cook outside!
I was dropped off again at a parking lot near a wooded area. From there our group took off for a long hot buggy hike on a path through underbrush to a shady clearing with a picnic table. I’m not sure what we were cooking, but I was thrilled to light my camp burner. I’ll never fully understand what I did next. I see myself lifting my right elbow and placing my bare right forearm directly on top of the scalding wax, then howling as I looked at the red concentric circles I had blistered into my own flesh. I don’t know how the adults got me out of the woods and called my mother or how I got home. Looking back as an adult, I think I started getting anxious when my mother’s car disappeared and I was led farther and farther away from the parking lot. Maybe I was afraid I’d never see my mother again? The leaders couldn’t have known that my father had just died in horrible circumstances, I was emotionally vulnerable, to put it mildly, and my mom was coping as best she could. Was self-harm a way to get back to her and not be separated again? In any case that was the end of my early scouting career, by unanimous decision. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I belong?
It was easy to wipe the incident from my memory when I became a teenager and scouting was not cool, anyway. I hadn’t missed anything, scouting was corny right? I even went so far as to raise my eyebrows disapprovingly when a close friend in college went on sailing trips with her old scout troop. (Forgive me, Janet!)
Fast forward to marriage and motherhood in Paris, France. After years of speaking only French with my partner and friends, I suddenly found I could only speak rusty English to my baby daughter. Far from my family with no English-speaking accomplices, I was completely isolated in my new role, very envious of the African mamas in their bright print dresses and turbans who gathered in our local parks to laugh and talk as their kids dug in the sandboxes and climbed on the playground equipment. Thank heavens a visitor from the US told me about an anglophone mothers’ support network that arranged playdates by area, even here in the 19th. It was a sanity-saver, meeting other moms and chatting while helping each other with the kids. Nevertheless, my daughter entered our local pre-school and came home everyday speaking only French. At one English-speaking mom meet-up, a new acquaintance mentioned USA Girl Scouts Overseas. Our little ones were now old enough to become “Daisies,” so we signed them up.
Things got off to an awkward start. We schlepped across the city to the American Cathedral where our troop was granted access to a window-less, airless basement room with a table and several rattling soda machines. Our troop leader had two children, was pregnant with her third, had never wanted to be leader in the first place and gradually disappeared. The rest of us did our best to fill in. No one wanted to take full responsibility for all the communication and get even more over-whelmed. We met there and in people’s homes over the year, teaching the girls songs, doing crafts, celebrating Halloween, Thanksgiving and Saint Patrick’s day, basking in Americana, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue. It was very time and energy-consuming, especially when I started back to work.
I kept going because the girls had a blast and got a standing ovation at the annual Songfest:
That Spring, when weather improved, an outdoor meeting was arranged by more advanced troops to prepare us newbies for the end of year apotheosis, “Camp Out.” Our little Daisies were mesmerised by the older girls demonstrating beginner camp skills and first aid, in English no less. They were only a few years farther along, but they seemed so grown up! We were all inspired and impressed. Excitement started to build.
On a bright and sunny Saturday in June, I drove two 6-year-olds, mine and her friend from the 19th, to Jambville, the French scouting center in a beautiful village about 45 minutes NW of Paris. We were entranced by the Chateau and its 100-acre wood (like in Winnie the Pooh).
There were wild flowers everywhere, the air was intoxicatingly sweet and fresh after months in the city. When we got to our camp site, we learned our troop leader was not coming and had sent her Iranian husband instead. She didn’t want to be there and he wanted to be there even less. Someone had borrowed an “8-man” tent. There were 13 of us: 5 adults and 8 kids. There was no fly sheet, but the sun was shining, so we should be OK if we squeezed our sleeping bags together inside? The campgrounds had real toilets and faucets with drinking water nearby, hurray! Back then ticks were unheard of in France so the girls could safely run and play in the woods and meadows, supervised by older scouts and their leaders, while some of us put up our tent and gathered logs for a roaring camp fire. We ate hotdogs and smores. I was in heaven. Then at about 9 pm when we were all zonked and ready to crash, it started raining. It poured, harder and harder, all night. The 13 of us crammed together in a not waterproof, too small tent. The girls passed out but I was literally in a puddle and got almost no shut-eye. It didn’t matter, I had fallen in love with the place and the rest is history.
For the next 12 years, Girl Scouts took over our life. A tour of the Paris Opera, a weekend in London, the Lafayette Squadron memorial, camping, workshops, bake sales, jumble sales for tsunami and hurricane relief, ice skating, dancing, improv, music recording, art, crafts, songfests. No cookie selling due to French import laws! Best of all the girls received constant recognition and encouragement for their accomplishments and talents, in a country where the school system doesn’t provide much validation.
Along the way I was asked to be a co-leader and then became leader by default when the other woman moved on. Out of the blue, a more experienced mom offered to team-up with me and we became inseparable. Our troop went all the way to the top, earning their Gold Awards working with handicapped children and their families, and received personal congratulations from President Obama and the First Lady on embossed White House stationary.
Of course there were glitches and tensions now and then as in every organization. It was frustrating dealing with hierarchy in NYC and all the reams of admin stuff. The payoff: many life-long friendships formed among these fascinating women from the US, the UK, Australia, France and the world: a pilot, a bio-engineer, a journalist, a school principal, a doctor, a nurse practitioner, financial managers, a psychologist, a civil engineer turned pro photographer, professors, teachers, OPEC staff, female powerhouses taking time off to be homemakers, and me, a rock singer experiencing delayed motherhood…. I’d never considered myself a great team player, but now discovered hidden talents, organizing events for 100–200 people with these other women and our daughters as they acquired more and more leadership skills. To make things even more festive, our partners were welcome to participate and formed their own bonds. It was invaluable in terms of networking and support for parenting, citizenship and health issues, bilingual schools, work opportunities, future college applications, and eventually my family’s adoption.
One of our first outings with our son when he arrived from Russia was a Girl Scout camp out, at Jambville, where everyone had been waiting for his arrival and took him under their wings as he ran from campsite to campsite through the woods, marvelling at everything he saw.
So of course, when he was old enough we signed up for Cubs and got to relive the experience from a new angle. Pinewood Derby hand made car races, kayaking, canoeing, hiking, camping, rock climbing, Mont St. Michel, Normandy D-Day ceremonies, museums, music, photography, cooking, first aid, swimming, sustainability, 4th of July at the US Embassy, photo op with the Ambassador… This time I was a Merit Badge counselor.
People often ask me to compare the two programs, which one do I prefer? That’s a tough question. I would say that BSA (now accepting girls, gay and trans kids) is more outdoor-oriented, more focused on survival skills and less on self-esteem, creativity and communication, but both are wonderful and both are evolving. Everything depends on who’s leading, which depends on parental involvement. One of the outstanding aspects of scouting in Paris is that adults are very involved. Most of them don’t use it as a drop-off activity, rather attending the events and helping with logistics. BSA Paris Troop 112 is chartered by the Transatlantic Council, administratively independent of the US organization, so not sponsored by the NRA and not in the bankruptcy whirlwind following the pedophilia cases in the US.* FWIW I’ve never heard of a single incident of inappropriate adult behavior here. Both groups forbid adults to be alone with any kids at any time, unless they are family, and at BSA all adults are required to take Youth Protection training, know how to recognize and report abuses.
Both groups mention God in their pledges, both are non-denominational. There is no catechism. Both provide inspiring adult and older kid role models, opportunities to talk about values and serve the community, training in project management, practice speaking with authority figures…To give you an idea: the national average of scouts reaching the exalted Eagle rank is 2% in the US, 30% in Paris, thanks to the commitment and support of this international and diverse community, where we met people we probably would not have known otherwise: a car designer, a male film director, a female film distributor, a petrol engineer, artists, a pilot, embassy and UNESCO staff, French and American military personnel, a Secret Service guy, male and female chefs and lawyers, male professionals taking time off to be homemakers…
I took the picture at the top at Jambville in late June of this year. One of the scouts was organizing his Eagle service project: taking inner city kids who are not scouts camping and teaching them outdoor skills. I was asked to share my fire-starting and safety expertise (learned at a GSA outdoor training weekend for leaders years ago). The boy pictured was one of the guests and because it’s a close-up, I’ve disguised him with stars in his eyes to respect his privacy. You can see from his smile how ecstatic he was.
Here’s a picture taken the same weekend. The Eagle candidate and his family had asked us to bring our guitars and sing campfire songs.
It wasn’t rap or Tiktok, but the kids knew and sang along with some of the golden oldies: “Halleluiah,” “I Feel Good” and “Stand By Me” were big hits. Later they said “they felt like they were living in a typical American movie around the fire!” and “they now think they can compete in Kolanta (a French survival TV show) with all the cool skills they learned.”
I came home from Jambville feeling absolutely complete, absolutely belonging. Family, friends, nature, music, sharing. Being with these kids and adults, watching the young ones grow up contributing to the world around them is something I wouldn’t have missed for anything. It’s been a fantastic ride, mentoring other people’s kids while their parents mentored mine.
So I got to be a scout after all and better than I could have hoped.
I’m amazed how unanswered questions and unfulfilled wishes can become our callings and the architecture of our lives.
XXXXX To be continued…
Aliss
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PS
*I’ve just received an email form the Transatlantic Council:
“ Transatlantic Council (TAC) is not part of the Chapter 11 filing but has been requested to contribute to a Settlement Trust providing compensation for the victims of historic sexual abuse…
TAC formed a Task Force months ago to follow this issue. This week, it unanimously recommended the council’s participation in the global settlement by contributing $447,137.87 and assigning its rights under insurance policies covering historical abuse liabilities.”
Originally published at http://thankyouparis.wordpress.com on July 26, 2021.
