SI NEWS 2006 eng Travel Report Asia
From SI Exco News
Visit of Mr Peter Postel From Hamburg Germany May 2005
I have been hosting travellers from Germany / France / Switzerland but I would like to narrate my family’s experience of hosting Mr Peter from Hamburg Germany who came for a period of 2 nights and stayed at my place almost for a week understanding our culture, way of living and our family value systems.
I got an email from Mr Peter aged 52 of Hamburg and he wanted to know whether he could stay with me for a couple of nights. I explained that I was having my aged mother (who could not move about much for opening the door etc ) and my daughter who was school going. He confirmed back that he would adjust to our family schedule and he would not be a hindrance to us. I reconfirmed with an welcome invitation that he could spend the two nights at our place. He arrived at our place and understood our family relations. He showed us his credentials and photos of his family. He valued respected and adopted Gandhian values and was a strict vegetarian and teetotaler and fitted in perfectly with our family.
He was a computer programmer working for the University and had taken a year off from his work to be in India and understand the diverse cultures prevailing here. He had travelled all parts of India and stayed with different families and enjoyed his stay with all.
He was keen to know about our customs, how we did pujas. I took him to temple and also to the shops and made him familiar with the bus numbers and bus stops. I thought he will have difficulty but he could manage to travel and reach home well in time. He would help me while preparing dinner and soon learnt the art of making rasam and sambhar during his stay at our place.
He helped my mother with the little household chores and also spent a lot of time speaking to her in English and understanding our culture. He saw the goodness of our joint family and asked me about why I keep my mother with me. I told him about our Hindu philosophy as to how children take care of their aged parents. He became very emotional and said “ I am in Hamburg and my mother at the outskirts village all alone but after having seen you take care of your mother, I will also take her with me to Hamburg to the place where I stay.” And this he confirmed after reaching Hamburg that he has brought his mother. This gave me and my mother lot of happiness since we could impart some of our valuable Hindu value based advice to him which he accepted willingly.
He is regularly in contact with me and has sent us photographs of his family and children and also invited us all to visit Germany and stay at his place.
We found this association a wonderful experience and do look forward to similar ones in the near future.
L V Subramanian,Bangalore, Servas India Newsletter
A window reopens... Turkey
This was my first trip to Turkey. With great joy I received an invitation from a Servas member. Dorothea Schelch had answered my email: "Sure you can stay with me." She would be there at the airport. That was a comforting thought because I was travelling alone.
For two days I toured Istanbul following the advice of my host, busy with her teaching job. She told me she would invite Servas members for a party on the third night. They came with guitar and singing. What a wonderful evening that was in a living room with a view! What a view! The Bosphorus with all the boats travelling the world.
"What brings you to Turkey?" asked Ömer. - "I have always wanted to visit Turkey, see, when I was 16 years old I had a Turkish pen pal. He sent me postcards and I dreamed of visiting all these places. We corresponded for 15 years then something happened, we lost track of each other". –"Give me his name, I will find him on the Internet." -"Erol Karatekin, he worked in Ankara for the Agriculture ministry". I had tried so many times to find Erol in vain…
I had no definite plans for my travel in Turkey. I left for Bursa. I knew the name of the city; Erol and his family had lived there for a while. I visited a Servas couple in an old house on the hill overlooking the city. We were having a wonderful visit. On the second day when I came back from sightseeing they announced that I had a phone message: Erol had been found! I looked at the phone number completely amazed. I was shaking with emotions when I called: "Erol?" the voice said "Mireille?" It was a voice calling me from so long ago, from 1961. He invited me to visit his family. My journey was taking shape. I was on the road to Ankara to meet that young man of long ago.
The road from Bursa to Ankara was a journey of reverie back to my school days in Dol de Bretagne when I was a prisoner in the boarding school. Having a pen pal in Turkey was a window to the world. We shared ideas and stories. Later I married and he did also, we had children. We shared more stories then one day we lost contact. "I will meet you at the bus" he had said on the phone. It was hard for me to believe this was really going to happen. I was reconnecting with myself, the sixteen-year old girl waiting to open a letter from Erol. This friend had resurrected in my life.
There he was, standing at the bus stop. "Hello Mireille!" –"Hello Erol!" People watching never could guess the story behind the reunion of the gray hair friends. He took out a picture from his pocket and showed me the picture I received long ago. Yes! He really was the lost friend! We laughed… Then, I met his family, his wife Muzeyyen, his daughter, his grandson, his son and his wife and friends. It was like meeting a family I knew long ago.
"Do you remember the gift you sent me from Brittany? I still have it." I looked at the antique bookends with the carved wooden shoes. I never dreamed I would see them again! "We must have a picture, this is a memorable event!" I held the precious gift and sat between Muzeyyen and Erol who always signed his letters: "Your friend in Turkey ever…"
That evening there was music in the garden across the street. People were dancing the dances to music so similar to the Breton music I knew. I was home…
Much later I found more meaning reflecting on this event. I had gone to Turkey in time and space and I reclaimed the bookends; my wooden shoes from Brittany carried me and I was holding the book of my life…the journey.
Mireille Perrotte, France
