SI NEWS 2005 en YouthViews
From SI Exco News
Why travel, Why Servas?
Hello. I’m Danish boy from Copenhagen. Not that it’s
unusual. And like so many other young people I wanted to
go travelling after high school. I joined forces with a good
friend, like so many others did. And just like everybody
else I spent a year making money for the trip. So what I
did was most normal. 'After end high school, go travel,
then further education' is a normal way in Denmark. Some
people do others things, but everybody seems to have a
desire to learn something, something you can’t learn in a
school. To learn to know themselves better, and the world
around them. The only way is the school of life. Where
you are on your own, making your own judgements and
are free to choose. There several ways to do it, but I
decided to go travelling. Not to the Far East or America,
not by agency or charter. That’s where I chose differently.
Why’s that different? Normally young Danes go far away,
with a backpack, Lonely Planet, and an idea about getting
close to the nature and the native. But end up meeting only
other travellers (Europeans or Americans mostly) and all
the nature you can see from a car or train window. If you
ask them if it was a good trip, if they saw some beautiful
nature and met interesting people, they would say 'yes of
course'. That’s expected; it’s always exciting meeting
someone so different from yourself. For all the pictures I
have seen of my (two) older brothers trips, the nature is
beautiful. It’s all very different, maybe too different.
My philosophy is “You learn a lot about you self, by being
with others”. Everywhere we go we reflect on what we
see. “Do his trousers look good on me? Am I also that
fat?” By meeting other people you can relate with, you
learn about yourself. I don’t think I have much in common
with a fisher salesman in Vietnam. The only way I could
possibly get know him, is to stay and talk with him. I
don’t think you can get really close to people that far
away, it takes something more when you are so different
from each other. You need something in common, like
Servas. I think it is very difficult when you are travelling
on your own. It’s the way (or lack) of meeting people, as
with backpackers. I find the way of backpack travelling
very well told in the book “Are you experienced?” by
William Sutcliffe from 1999. It shall be no secret that I’m
very fond of the Servas way to meet people.
My friend and I decided to go round Western Europe in an
(very) old car, visiting Servas hosts. That called for a lot
of questions. “Why not Asia? Visiting what? What car?”
etc. I guess there is no point telling about Servas here. We
chose Europe partly because of the price of a trip to
America or Asia and we wanted to meet people with
whom we had something in common. Europe is more and
more homogenized. Laws and rules in Denmark are under
influence of the rest EU and Denmark does also mark the
rest of EU. These laws don’t come out of nowhere, so to
understand the EU we chose to see it for ourselves.
It’s not like I don’t care about the rest of the world, but
that doesn’t affect my daily life in the same way. At that
particular time in my life I needed to see Europe and some
other time I would like to see the rest of your world.
Greetings from a Danish boy from Copenhagen.
Tejs Knudsen.
...and a as a Servas host s host, Scotland
, For me, Servas is an extremely good way of meeting new
people. Through Servas, many people have entered my
home and fitted into our way of life. I have learnt to
accept different cultures, different languages and a wide
range of different personalities. My confidence has been
built up over the years as I have participated in hosting our
guests, and it has let me discover ways of communicating,
other than verbal. One night when a teenager from France,
who spoke little English, was staying with us, instead of
talking to him, we played instruments. This was a very
special night.
Spending two nights, three days with a variety of guests
has given me stories and news from foreign countries
which have added to my awareness of the rest of the
world. As we have a big house, I am glad it is put to good
use by welcoming travelers into our home. I enjoy
spending time with people that find it interesting to learn
about our family and way of life and I am very pleased
that we are part of Servas. I have become much more
confident communicating to, and accepting, a spectrum of
ages, races and cultures.
Iona Morrison, Scotland
(Ed: Sorry, a picture of Iona's father - Joe - playing the bagpipes as a delightful breakfast wake up call got lost from my camera)
... a young person from Tunisia
. In discovering Servas in my travels in Scandinavia, I
discovered different cultures and different natural
environments which were far from mine; a different
cuisine; a nordic way of life, astonishing for someone
coming from Africa and used to the Magreb traditions.
In our discussions we learnt how strangers accepted us
and created in us an acceptance of strangers. We learnt
about different religions and their styles such as a prayer
before a meal.; about different foods such as the dark rye
bread in Denmark and unusual cheeses in Sweden; about
the history and development of cultures. We learnt about
how both adults and young people live and enjoy
themselves. We appreciated a barbeque with Danish
young people where my elderly (56!) aunt was accepted as
just one of the company. We then delighted in the tour of
the local very Danish village getting the feel of its history.
In Servas I was starting to learn other languages. But even
if there was very little common language we could still
find solutions for communication. That is how Servas
works.
Sheherazade Laribi, Tunisia
