SI MONTHLY NEWS May 2007 Travel and host reports
From SI Exco News
Servas Belgium meets Servas Mexico - April 2007
Some years ago I retired as a teacher and started a new career as a ‘student’, Spanish was the language I wanted to learn! Our teacher of Spanish felt in love with Mexico and left Belgium to live in her favourite country. After living two years in Chiapas she wanted to show her students her ‘new’ country in another way than tour operators are doing it. It was a great opportunity for us to discover Mexico this way, above all Chiapas, a region far away from Mexico City, close to the border of Guatemala and often forgotten by the Central government, I think!
Our program was very charged, we wanted to take advantage of every moment, visited cities, archaeological Maya sites, ‘la selva Lacandona’, ‘los pueblos indios” and so much more; names as Oaxaca, Monte Albán, San Cristóbal de las Casas, San Juan Chamula, Yaxchilán, Bonampak, Palenque are in our mind for ever.
We had one free day, the last one, in Mexico DF and this day became a real Servas day. Travelling without meeting Servas members, I’m not used to… Isabel & William who visited us last year wanted to bring us to the pyramids of Teotihuacan. Unfortunately they were ill and couldn’t join us in DF, but no problem, Valentina , Isabel’s sister, her husband, her son, and her nephew took us to Teotihuacan, one of the world's most impressive archaeological sites.
In the evening we had a dinner with a group of Servas friends in the restaurant of Sanborns, a visit at ‘La casa de los Azulejos’ is a must when you are in DF. Thank you Hector and Fabian for organizing this meeting and for giving us the opportunity to meet you and Mario, Laura, Susana, Annie, Darleana, Rodolfo… We really enjoyed the company of all these members of Servas Mexicio.
And… we will never forget the night after the meeting… Mexico City “moved”… “We first didn’t realize what was happening!”… We didn’t drink too much tequila…!!! An earthquake...6.3 on the scale of Richter… we stayed for the night in a park close to our hotel...waiting till four o’clock in the morning...time to go to the airport and to fly back to Belgium. The next day...we were on the front page of the newspaper….
Our trip to Mexico couldn’t be more complete!
Gracias Servas México! Bienvenido a Bélgica!
Rita Dessauvage, National Secretary Belgium & Luxemburg
Change of address
Scotland to Switzerland
Birgit Schuback who was host 07/480 in Edinburgh, Scotland has now moved back to Switzerland where she is host 144 in Lausanne. As she is in the 2007 list for Britain she would like everyone to know about her move and visit her in Switzerland instead.
Another Servas Blogger
This seems to be the link: www.thevirtualwire.com/2007/05/walking_towards.html
Your readers interested in blogs like these can subscribe to the new blog search engine on the new Servas.org website [qv]. Link sent by Gary Sealey, Canada
uploaded by Amelia
