SI MONTHLY NEWS APRIL 2007 Editorial
From SI Exco News
How do we treat each other?
I look at the news on the internet and it contains so much about people being nasty to each other. Some of it is due to no consideration of how another person feels. A lot of it is deliberate.
But we are Servas and we would not behave like that?
I look at organisations that I belong to and how people treat each other. A recent example was when I flew into a local airstrip. Chatting with the lovely couple who own it I was commenting how much I liked it. They said that a pilot who had been in earlier had been very scathing with a lot of negative comments. It turned out that I knew that pilot and know that he has a rather brusque exterior but this covers a nice person (who was actually a Servas member in his travelling past). So I assured the airfield owners that he was not actually being nasty. The same airfield has had others making comments because it is a basic facilities airfield (my preferred type) rather than a fancy one.
But we are Servas so we would not behave like that?
And then I was chatting with a Servas traveller. His host seemed very authoritarian towards him in that she had to be right and he was wrong. She comment, almost abusively, about how he was overweight and so she would not give him an evening meal. She expected him to do all sorts of jobs for her. He felt very uncomfortable. His comments are not the only ones. In reports that I get there is occasionally a comment about a host who has seemed to have a negative attitude towards their travellers. But I thought we were Servas and would not behave like that.
And so I look back at how I have been as a host. Have I always been exemplary? Ooops maybe not. What about the time when a family had come to stay even though I had pointed out that accommodation was very tight and they might be better else where. It turned out that they were only coming to go to a local concert. Whilst they were in the next room I made a comment about this to my son, but I must have made it too loudly as there was a sudden hush in the next room. I should have thought before speaking. Should I have pushed a recent traveller to pack all the boxes of SI News for the US? No I have not been perfect.
Consideration for others should be foremost in our minds.
But there is plenty good going on. Look at the Far East Asia meeting on page 2, superbly constructive. Look at al those forthcoming meetings. Look at the suggestions for Peace making. Keep it up.
We are Servas and we behave like that.
uploaded by Amelia
