The First Baloo

Hi again guys, you must feel truly blessed to be inundated with so many updates... My pondering this week looks at how great it is to be compared to a beloved childhood character.

One of the perks of being a Cub Leader has been choosing my own name, although it's not been made as public as it eventually will be. For those of you who don't know, the tradition for Cub leaders is for them to take the name of a character from the Jungle Book. There is a long history behind this, but basically it stems from the friendship between Rudyard Kipling (the author of the Jungle Book) and Lord Baden Powell (founder of Scouts.) The idea behind leaders having names is, I think, to create the distance between the leaders and the children which would be suitable in such a situation. This is a similar way of doing things to how teachers are only known by "Mr" or "Mrs" at school, except less formal.

As I think I said on this blog about two years ago, I decided upon Baloo. This is almost entirely because he's good at singing, and is loveable in the Disney film of The Jungle Book. However, when I started my Assistant Leader training about this time last year, I decided that I should read the Jungle Book (as in, the actual book), in order to properly educate myself as to what it was really all about. I'm assuming that most of you haven't actually read the Jungle Book; it's really weird. It's split into shorter stories - some are about Mowgli and his adventures in the jungle, there's one about a mongoose called Rikki Tikki Tavi, and one about a seal called Sea Catch (I think - there's lots of seals.) For a children's book, I wouldn't really recommend it for children, to be honest.

I'm just glad they don't call me Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Having read the book now, I do agree that I made the right choice with Baloo. He's not as fun-loving and easygoing as he is in the Disney film, and I like that. I like that there's two sides of the character which work together or separately. It makes it seem more real, more... Like me. Maybe.

The first time one of my Cubs called me Baloo was at camp the other weekend. It was one of the best feelings I've ever had. Like, for once, I was more than just another person; I had a specific role in this child's life and it made me feel important. It made me feel grown up.

I guess that must be what being a parent feels like.