Cover Photo: Robbert van der Gaag
Text: Francisca Dias and Sophia Auer
Edit: Mike Dent and Sophie Spickenbom
If you passed the Contingent tents on 29 July, you would have seen that there was a lot going on. On International Day, every country represented their culture and Guiding and Scouting movement by presenting it at the Plaza. There, all the Guides and Scouts were able to collect stamps on little paper passports, by taking part in the prepared activities.
Filling the pages would grant them the chance to send a lost Viking back to his time. The energy was electrifying as Rovers did all they could to complete the challenge, as well as fulfil their own trading goals, by swapping badges and neckers! During the whole day, you could see people trading everywhere: neckers, badges and shirts were being swapped left and right.
A Full Day of International Activities
Arts and crafts are a great way to share a piece of culture with others. In the Slovakian Contingent Tent, Rovers could stamp white fabric neckers with traditional Slovakian stamps, while sipping on a Slovakian herbal drink called Kofola.
Meanwhile on the Greek Contingent Tent, Rovers made a bunch of friendship bracelets with beads that had the evil eye on them. The symbol is believed to protect you from the evil and jealous glare of others.
Quizzes are great to put your knowledge to the test. The Norwegian Contingent for example, was asking the Rovers questions like “What is the most northern Guides and Scouts group in Norway?”
For everyone wondering how Swedish they are, the Swedish Contingent made a quiz in which Rovers had the chance to categorise their Swedishness. If you are shopping at a certain furniture shop (guess which one) pretty often, that is a great sign that you are on a good path to be one of them.
When walking into the UK Girlguiding Tent, Guides and Scouts were greeted by nice ladies who were giving out badges for everyone to enjoy. Behind the pavilion, they had set up activities that are normally done to earn badges. Some of those included preparing s’mores using little candles, and also building structures with spaghetti and marshmallows. After completing at least six out of 12 of the activities, the Rovers could get a sticker for their passport.
At the Slovenian Contingent Tent you’d be able to, arguably, collect the cutest stamp of them all: a little duck with Slovenia written next to it, the “love” section highlighted with a heart. They also had set up a small four person theatre with headphones, where Guides and Scouts had the chance to watch a documentary. It was about the first concert of a foreign band from Slovenia, performing in North Korea.
In order to get the stamp at the Czech Contingent Tent, you’d have to face a real challenge with their metal puzzle games. They were sure to give you a hard time, unless you paid just enough attention to notice that one of the spaces between the bars was larger than the others! Once you saw it, all you had to do was gently rotate the spiky sphere inside, and with a bit of luck, it’d fall right into your hands!
If you’re a true International Day fan and are in it for the long run, no need for despair! The Spanish Contingent Tent has their own Spanish passport that you can keep filling out for the rest of the week. Each day you will have a different game to play, each challenge with a stamp of its own: yesterday’s game was a “heads up” kind of game, with traditional Spanish cities, dances and landmarks. Go and find out what’s going on there today!
You could hear a lot of giggling and enthusiastic conversations coming from the Australian Contingent Tent. They had prepared many Australian slang phrases and words for Rovers to guess. The fan favourite was “dog’s breakfast”. Can you guess what it means?
The best fun fact award of the day goes to the guy printing T-shirts at the Portuguese Contingent Tent! He shared that on the 1st ever Roverway, which happened in Portugal back in 2003, he was also doing that exact same thing: printing T-shirts the traditional way, with a screen frame and paint!
In Germany they say: “Love goes through the stomach”
For those of you whose tummies are constantly rumbling and whose minds crave new flavour experiences, this is the part of the article that will rile you up!
Besides all the more “hands-on” experiences mentioned above, many Contingent Tents provided some mouth-watering delights!
At the Taiwanese Contingent tent they served glutinous rice balls or Tang Yuan (which in Chinese means “balls in soup”). This is a very traditional food in Taiwanese culture and usually people get together to enjoy them!
What seemed to really hit the spot for many was all the different appetisers the Slovenians had! From different types of salty cured meats to bread and honey, and even cereal bars and tons of candy, everything seemed to be disappearing really quickly, as the Rovers got to them!
Disappearing just as fast were the Italian dishes (namely, pasta and even bruschetta). They spent the whole afternoon cooking more and more batches of pasta!
The Greek Contingent Tent offered a good assortment of sweet snacks! There were these candies with a blue wrapping: they were labelled as candy with ouzo, a traditional Greek black licorice-flavoured liqueur. Next to them, you could also see pasteli! Basically, sesame bars with honey!
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: the three Baltic countries were sharing a tent, which was just so beautifully decorated, with all their various neckers and also pictures from camps from all the three different countries! We were told that one of the things they absolutely excel at is making tea out of any herb, including pine tree needles! While camping, they find themselves gathering different types of herbs to use for tea. At their shared tent, they served tea made from the herbs they had collected themselves. All the different teas there had very hypnotizingly delicious smells.
Ending with Music: A Roverway concert
Though you could argue the Rovers would be very tired after such a full day, being present at the International Day Party to close the day would absolutely change your mind. The ceremony started with our extraOrdinary Rovers sending our friend Sven, the Viking, back to his time. After that, the “Nordinaries” (Roverway’s band!) really hyped everyone up. If there was still any trace of hesitation in the crowd, it quickly went away as people started a couple of mosh-pits, did the Macarena with the stage security guard, sang along or simply bobbed their heads to the music. This was pretty noticeable when Roverway’s unofficial song played: “Shut Up and Dance” by WALK THE MOON. The vibe was truly immaculate.
Was your International Day as fun as ours? Were you able to fully fill out your passport? If you post pictures of it, do tag the Roverway account! And don’t forget to tell us about your favourite moments of the day through this link!
