SI NEWS 2006 eng Servas Discussion
From SI Exco News
Expectations
“SERVAS is not Father Christmas,”
Jane Giffould reminded me in her gently prompting email sent to remind me I had promised this article. She does have a point, but there are some apparently obvious comparisons. After all, we expect Father Christmas to deliver presents for free and give to the deserving; SERVAS is also about freely giving of your hospitality to the deserving traveller. But unlike Father Christmas, the Host should hopefully receive much in return.
I have just joined SERVAS having encountered it through Jane as ambassador and listening to her experiences of SERVAS is enough to encourage even the most doubtful, jaded or world-withdrawn to reconsider the value of simple human contact as a source of both personal and inter-societal benefit. Living in a crowded house, I have offered myself in the first place as a Day Host and hope this may lead to at least some mutually profitable encounters with those from distant shores – or close.
But is this really the expectation I should hold? It reminds me of the classic Beauty Pageant entrant saying: “I want to travel the world and meet people.”. Well, who does not? But it is in the quality of the meeting that the value is found, not in the quantity. Who is to say I shall not shake hands with a dozen smiling folk, all bonhomie and goodwill and exchange conversation about the weather? It would certainly be ‘meeting people’, but would it be of value to either of us?
I think my hope is that the conversation might go beyond the weather - that the depth and breadth of it might somehow reach away from the parochial and the effervescent and find its way to more meaningful shores: the abode of true and valuable communication where one individual reaches out to another and says: “This is me.” In my view, if SERVAS is about anything, it is about that.
Eleanor Wilding, England
Languages
'Salaam'....... 'Pokoj' ....
'Kagiso' ......
'Paix' ...... 'Rauha' .....
'Shalom' ......
All these words have the same meaning - PEACE.
Some people are fluent in different languages, others are not. Yet language is essential to get meaning over to another person. How many languages do we speak between us, how many more could we speak? Look on www.siexco.org to find the Servas Monthly News. There is a language page each month. Help us extend our languages by offering to do the page in YOUR language(s), Or just send the word Peace, in your language for inclusion in SI News 2007. Send to: newsletter[at]servas.org
Thanks, merci, tak, xiexie, aferisto, danke schön, asante.
I wish you enough .........
At an airport, I overheard a father and his daughter in their last moments together. They had announced her plane's departure and standing near the door she said, 'Daddy, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough too, Daddy."
They kissed goodbye and she left. He walked over towards the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see he wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but he welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?"
"Yes, I have," I replied. Saying that brought back memories I had of expressing my love and appreciation for all my Dad had done for me. Recognizing that his days were limited, I took the time to tell him face to face how much he meant to me. So I knew what this man was experiencing.
"Forgive me for asking, but why is this forever goodbye?" I asked. "I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, her next trip back will be for my funeral," he said.
"When you were saying goodbye I heard you say, 'I wish you enough, may I ask what that means?"
He began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." He paused for a moment and, looking up as if trying to remember it in detail, he smiled even more. "When we said, 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them."
He continued and then, turning toward me, he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory:
I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough "Hellos" to get you through the final "Goodbye".
He then began to sob and walked away.
My friends and loved ones, I wish you enough. They say, "It takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but an entire lifetime to forget them."
L V Subramanian, Bangalore India
