The whole scouts thing began for me in Sept 2001. My best friend (Raphie) left the high school we were in cause her parents made her repeat a year in a private school (though she was totally good enough to pass in the next class -sigh- ah parents !). We had been friend for long & didn't want to lose track so since we both liked the idea, we decided to enter the Scouts' movement so that we would be able to see each other at least once a week. I looked for a secular movement but in the one I found there were no one of our age. So finally, we entered the catholic movement. We were for one year into the branch of the 14-17 year old teens (which is called "pioneer"). We made lots of friends & met Jérémie, Jean-Yves & Nicolas (all are guys). The year after, the 3 above, Raphie & I have been kinda "pushed" to pass into the 17-22 year old branch, because we were 17. This branch is called Compagnon. So the 5 of us began in Sept 2002 to work as Compagnon must. We have 2 adults to advise us, to tell us what sounded good or not, but they were not the ones making the decisions. We began to look for a destination, Burkina Faso, Mauritania… we didn't know where to go. We've worked a lot as well, & made money cause if we didn't know yet where to go we knew we would need money. Selling cakes, roses, chestnuts, calendars… we really did a good job at least on that point. In July 2003 we had a one-week-camp & we restored a house, painting & stuff. Then came Sept 2003, & two of the guys went in the same school where I'm in now but in the scientific section (a kind of college but said to be very hard -which is kinda true I admit-) & they decided it was too hard to go on both school & Scouts. So they left & our team reduced to 3 : Jérémie (a guy), Raphie & I, the 3 Dalton somehow, lol.
Jérémie (pronounce jay-ray-mee) : 18 year old (at the date of our departure in August 2004) the tallest. He is in High School. This guy is really nice. We call him "tuft" sometimes, cause he's got tons of black curly hair. Since we reduced to 3, he got really more involved, cause the 2 who left where kind of patronizing, & since they were good in school, they acted as if they were superiors & treated Jéré & us, the 2 girls, as sh*t.
Jéré cared about calling people, organizing our jobs planning, helped by his father who is the leader of the whole group of scout of the town (from 6 to 22 years old).
In the beginning, Jéré wanted to find another guy cause, well, he felt a bit alone, he he he. We looked for a guy who would join us but found no one, & finally, Jéré had to accept the idea of being alone with two fantastic girls, ha ha ha
Raphie (pronounce ra-fee) : 18 years old (at the date of the departure in August 2004), just a lil smaller than Jéré. She just finished High school this year & she succeeded in a test to enter army (the navy) in January 2005. My best friend for 10 years now. She is the bookkepper of our group (money is her speciality) & cares about sending letters to ask grant (or subsidies?) to shop or regional organization. Oh, a little story about this is funny: She send a letter to… Jensen Ackles !!! The actor in Dark Angel who plays Max's "brother". Lol, unfortunately, she never got answer. BUT she did the same with J.J Golman, a famous french singer who also write lyrics of Céline Dion's songs. Ok, there was an answer, which is already a good thing, lol, even tho the answer was that he wouldn't give us money, lol.
Me (pronounce "me" lol) : 19 years old (in August 2004, I'm older only with 4 months, lol). The smaller of the 3 (I'm not that small, I'm 5"5' lol). I'm in the "kind of" college. I'm the only one not living in the same town anymore. Since I'm far, it's a bit difficult to follow. Sometimes I felt a bit excluded but hopefully Jéré sent me emails quite often. I'm the one who sent emails to everyone. To the Father in Niger, to the Scouts in Niger, to the people of the "National" as we call them. I often got no answer but hopefully, Father Nicolas answered me & he helped us a lot.
Pierre-Jean & Chantale Huescar : they are what we call our "anirel" means they are adults, who help us the best they can. But they made clear in the beginning of last year that they were NOT to do out job, to ask for us to meet not telling us it's time to do this & that. They just assist us & since they've done this "job" for quite long they can answer our questions & they know what we have to do to achieve our project. They are a couple with a 22years old daughter who went into Mauritania last year within the same movement.
They helped us a lot actually. Sometimes they did more than what they should have by asking us to have a meeting to tell them what we were up & so on. Without them, it's clear we would have not manage to do everything! I want to say thanks to them, really, because they were nice all the time & they helped us to deal with our numerous problems.
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