By Anthony H, Troop Historian
Every year, Troop 42 embarks on a Special Games Trip, where scouts compete for valuable patrol points. Every game mattered on this outing. The first game was tug-of-war; it was pretty obvious how it worked. Patrols pulled as hard as they could to get a piece of cloth from the opposing side to their own.
Next, the game required four scouts to tie their inner legs together to create a five-footed chain. This event included five stations, one of which was Ddakji—a game featured in Squid Game. There was a piece of thick, folded paper on the ground, and scouts had to throw another folded piece to try to flip it over. A lot of groups struggled with this. Another mini-station was a scout knowledge test where the “masters of the game” asked questions. My group had to answer when scouting was founded, which was a pretty hard question, while another group only had to repeat the scout slogan.
The third game took place in a big meadow where small puddles had formed due to light rain a couple of days before. I tried and tried to hide the best way I could, from climbing up a tree into the foliage to hiding under a big pile of jackets scouts left behind as they scampered around. But every time, I would make a mistake or be spotted and tagged.
Lastly was the cooking competition, where we used the money we earned earlier that day to bid on food for dinner. We bid on rice cakes and kimchi for some reason, and then got some corn and cheese. The task was to carefully craft a plate for the judges; we made a nice Korean kimchi/rice cake bowl with cheesy corn (which was the best). We presented our masterpiece and the judges gave it a fair rating, but it was not enough to beat the other team, who had chicken breast and assorted vegetables.
Additionally, we had a campfire where I roasted corn .
Mmmmmmm
It tasted delicious with butter, salt, and pepper! And what would a campfire be without a skit competition? The top skit mocked the Canadian at the Winter Olympics who kept pushing his finger after he had clearly let go of the stone. We used a large stick for the brooms, a volleyball for the stone, and a scout narrating as if their life depended on it. The skit worked perfectly, as the crowd of scouts and adult leaders loved it!
