Have you ever sat watching houses and apartments flash past your coach or train window when travelling overseas, and wondered about the people living there? What do they eat for breakfast? What sort of furniture do they have? What they do on their weekends? And many other such questions.
To get inside and live as the locals live, now that would be a real travel experience.
Well it is easy to do if you travel with The Friendship Force. The what? I hear you ask. The Friendship Force is a non-political, non-religious and non-profit organisation with twenty-five clubs around Australia, including one on the Central Coast, and over three hundred and fifty scattered around the world. It is an international family-to-family home-stay exchange organisation with the objective of bringing people together on a personal basis. The way it works is that a group of ambassadors from one or more Australian clubs travel as a group to one or more clubs, usually overseas, and spend a week staying as guests of members of the host clubs.
You get to live in some of those houses like the ones you see zipping past your window. And there are obvious bonuses doing it this way. You learn a lot about the customs, culture and lifestyle of your hosts – and they learn a lot about our Australian way of life in the process. You will eat real home-cooked food. Your hosts will also take you to places you might never see on a regular tour or if you hire a car and drive yourself. They know what is worth seeing and doing, and you will appreciate their insights much more than glib tour-guide speak. As a group you will be involved in club-organised activities and sometimes even family events like you were visiting relatives. Ambassadors - what we call our travellers - have even attended weddings in the host's family! There have been many life-long friendships made through Friendship Force.
These are not stilted, fee-for-service relationships. The Friendship Force promotes an atmosphere of genuine friendship. The costs are minimal: a nominal fee is paid to the international body for planning and organising the complex exchange arrangements; a fee is paid to the hosting club to cover things like entrance fees to certain attractions, group dinners, and other group entertainment costs, although group discounts usually reduce the fees. The actual home stay is free, but ambassadors usually assist with paying for a share of the petrol expenses for driving around the area, and by buying drinks to take to a party, etc. Certainly a lot less than a week's accommodation in a hotel! Naturally, the cost of the air travel and any non-exchange related travel or accommodation is your responsibility, as it would be part of any trip overseas.
Geoff Robertson and wife Judith have been members of the Central Coast Friendship Force club for over four years, and have just returned from two Friendship Force exchanges to England. They have also been to Turkey and Ukraine, Derbyshire in the UK, the Lűbeck club in Germany, Lethbridge in Canada, and Lansing, Billings and Sacremento in the USA - all with Friendship Force.
"It's fantastic to be able to visit with people in other countries, live with them in their homes as welcome guests, and see their country through their eyes. You obviously learn so much more about their way of life, their attitudes, and their culture this way. And with friendship comes understanding - it blows away a lot of silly beliefs we have about people in other parts of the world."
It's a two-way process, Geoff says. "Our club sent a group to a Costa Rica club and two clubs in Brazil in 2006 - three week-long home stays in parts of the world that few Australians know about. In September 2007 we had twenty-six ambassadors from various Brazilian Friendship Force Clubs stay with our club. There is a sort of reciprocity; none of these visitors had hosted our members in Brazil. It just works out that way."
"You don't have to be able to speak the language - you get by, and many foreign hosts speak English to some extent."
The Central Coast Friendship Force club will be 23 years old in September 2009, and has visited every continent and received hundreds of ambassadors in return. The Central Coast club has seventy five members and welcomes anyone who would like to travel and enjoy the hospitality of a foreign country as a learning experience, and who would be willing to do the same for one or two visitors from overseas. The club is planning an exchange to Braunschweig-Peine and Chemnitz in the Germany in June 2010. Perhaps you’d like to come along?
Geoff is the immediate past-President of the Central Coast club and manages the web site www.friendshipforcecentralcoast.asn.au. The club meets every second month from February. You can find out more by telephoning (02) 4329 1948.
A
man practices the art of adventure when he heroically faces up to
life; When he has the daring to open doors to new experiences and to
step boldly forth to explore strange horizons. When he is unafraid of
new ideas, new theories and new philosophies. When he has the curiosity
to experiment--to test and try new ways of living and thinking. When he
has the flexibility to adjust and adapt himself to the changing patterns
of life. When he refuses to seek safe places and easy tasks and has,
instead, the courage to wrestle with the toughest problems. When he has
the moral stamina to be steadfast in the support of those men in whom he
has faith and those causes in which he believes. When he breaks the
chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books,
travelling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and
adopting new viewpoints. When he has the nerve to move out of life's
shallows and venture forth into the deep. When he keeps his heart young,
his expectations high and never allows his dreams to die. When he
concludes that a rut is only another name for the grave and that the
only way to stay out of the ruts is by living adventurously and staying
vitally alive every day of his life.
Wilfred A. Peterson
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