AMERICAN CUB SCOUT DEN IN PERU
By Mrs. A. R. MerzLa Oroya, Peru
By Mrs. A. R. MerzLa Oroya, Peru
By Mrs. A. R. MerzLa Oroya, Peru
◆“Gee, mother, all the Cubs are wearing their new uniforms to school and there’s four—let me see, how many Cubs are there now? I guess five, Cub caps in a row in the cloakroom, and now the two Scout caps, and, gee, they look nice!”
It was Boy Scout Week and the five Cub Scouts and two Boy Scouts, whose uniform accessories had just arrived from BSA Headquarters in New York were 100% thrilled at the privilege of wearing their new gear every day to school. The boys are members of Den One and Patrol One, the only officially registered Scout groups in the Sierra of Peru, and doubtless the highest in all the world—for the altitude where we live is 12,500 feet.
On January 7, 1947, the parents of the only four boys then eligible to join any Scout group met and decided that even with so few it would be worth everyone’s effort to start a Cub Den. We were all members of the small mining camp (about 50 “gringo” families) of the extensive Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation called La Oroya.
Since then, four new boys of Cub Scout age have come to camp and been admitted, and four of the original five have attained their twelfth birthdays and are now enjoying their first meetings as a Boy Scout Neighborhood Patrol. Without exception, the younger boys are all looking forward to their ninth birthdays so that they may join the envied group of Cub Scouts.
Our first month was dedicated to getting acquainted with Scouting literature, its history and intent, and fixing up the gravel-floored garage loaned to us as meeting place by the Cubmaster. We borrowed the unused school workbench, decorated walls with Cub Scout plaques, American and Den Flags, and the framed Den Charter. With the help of local men, often not themselves fathers of Cub Scouts, we made many things of wood, tin, and copper during the year. But the regular meetings are held at the Den Mother’s home, or at the homes of all the boys in rotation when the Den Mother is out of town.
Our theme for the second month was “Books,” when we learned how to care for books and specialized in the Reading Achievement. Now the company-sponsored Inca Club has a children’s book-shelf for the first time in its thirty years.
During April and May we made musical instruments and practiced using them—I can hardly say playing them—for a minstrel act that was part of a five-part program we gave at the end of the school term in June.
In July we had our first “Pack” meeting—the same few boys, but with their parents and the general manager and his wife as guests. Each boy personally prepared one dish to be served, and each mother another, so we had a generous banquet that night in the Golf club.
In December, with “Service” as our theme, we collected odds and ends of broken or non-used toys and outgrown clothing. By mid-month the garage was overflowing, and with the mothers we managed to get the hopeless looking pile reduced to gifts in acceptable condition to distribute to the poverty-stricken Indian children of Old Oroya.
Now, even as you, we are planning a minstrel show.