Over the past month....if you travel around Germany's urbanized areas.....you tend to see a lot of Kindergarten groups being bused around for 'walks'. When I settled into the retirement situation in 2013....I started to notice this situation and questioned it. I'd be on a bus....we'd pull up to a point where three women would be escorting 30 kids, and they'd have the door open and the kids piling onto the city bus. You'd ride to some point, and the three escorts would jump off, and the kids would generally follow. But it was like a herd of cattle....without a border collie to manage them. I questioned this idea of mass transit with kids who are three and four years old.
Well....today, my worry came to realization. Local Hessen HR public TV is reporting this.....three kindergarten kids lost.
So the report goes....over in eastern Hessen....near Niederaula (an hours drive NE of Frankfurt)....three four-year old girls disappeared this morning on some woods trip. There were 23 kids on this 'hike' with two escorts. At some point around 9:40....the two escorts did some count, and noticed three kids short.
Cops and locals are out....searching for the three kids. Even the helicopters and dogs have been called in.
Nice weather....low chance of bumping into wild animals. The kids ought to be found. The two escorts? I'm guessing that they've pretty much freaked out and won't be doing this anymore.
But all of this leads back to what I saw in 2013, and almost yearly. Escorting a 'herd' of kids around with minimum help....isn't the wisest thing to do. I wouldn't volunteer for a job like that....not unless I had a border collie.
UPDATE: In the last hour....some local forest-meister (manager of the forest) found the three young girls....unharmed.
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