The closing ceremonies have officially come and gone! The 23rd World Scout Jamboree is now over.
In the last two days of the Jamboree we finished swapping our gear from home, playing Ultimate Frisbee, spending time with our new friends, and of course, packing. We even ran into the grandson of Lord Baden Powell.
We also got a taste of celebrity status as local girls visiting the jamboree site literally stood in lines to take pictures with us. Burke has won our competition by a landslide, with over 75 pictures in a row!
The closing ceremony itself began with a bang. The General Secretary of the UN spoke, the jamboree flag was lowered and transferred to representatives from North America, and some spectacular videos built during the jamboree were shown.
Near the end, two bands took the stage. The first--some Japanese singers--was upbeat and enjoyable. The second band was a complete disgrace to the jamboree: the hard rock music (if one can call it music at all) was made worse by terrible singing and an overall dark atmosphere. To cap it all off, the lead singer shocked everyone by swearing while yelling for the crowd to make more noise.
Before the first song was over, almost all of our crew had fled the arena. Looking back as we walked to our campsite, we saw that we were in the first wave of a mass exodus. A reasonable estimate would say that around half of the 34,000 people stood up and left during the concert.
In spite of this unfortunate event, we ended the evening on a high note. Our best friends from the other camps joined us and we played games and talked long into the evening. As part of our devotional we sang God Be With You Till We Meet again to these friends, and shared some brief testimonies about the existence of God and our purpose as His children.
The spirit was present that night; it was the perfect way to part ways with the people we have met and to end the Jamboree focused on "WA: a spirit of unity."
As we prepare to leave, we have one final adventure: traveling home.
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ReplyDeleteI saw many of the same comments from other scouts at the jamboree. Thank you for upholding your principles and being a good example to those of us at home.
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