Today Colleen and I were paired up with a couple of teens who will be staying with us for three weeks in July. One is from Los Angeles; the other is from Azerbaijan. Both will be taking part in a a program of PH International , along with – oh I don’t know – a ‘bunch’ of other youth from the USA, Azerbaijan and Armenia. They are being hosted by families in our region.
Personally I love sharing our beautiful state of Vermont with people who aren’t from around here because it gives me a fresh way to look at things. And summer is my favorite time here. (We earn it, dammit!) Our guests are both socially-conscious, media-savvy young women, and I’m sure we’ll have a lot in common as we celebrate our differences and our similarities.
I had the opportunity at 16 to go on a foreign exchange “Schueleraustausch” trip to Hameln, in what was then West Germany. It opened my eyes and mind to the world and served to mold my world view, that as much as we are different from one another, we are all human beings first. We have the same basic needs for food, shelter and clothing. We sleep, we love, we laugh, we yearn…. well, you get the picture. It doesn’t matter where your corpus calls home, we humans share traits that are innately recognized by each other, and we can recognize each other’s inherent worth and dignity.
That trip of my youth was the precursor of a life that had me spending time working with people in Bosnia in 1997. My world view remained unchanged, even as I heard about the horrors of the then-recent years.
I hope that our young guests will go home after their stay having experienced this world view in all its splendor. As I look at their online bios, I am convinced that they already have their feet well grounded in this philosophy, even as their hearts soar for the great beyond.
It is our singular pleasure to help them live this experience.
