Youth Exchange Team Visit

Lunch today was a particularly pleasant experience as we had as our guests four delightful young ladies aged between 15 and 17.

Zuzanna (Zuza) Bartkowska, from near Gdansk in Poland who wants to be a doctor (lekarza) one day.

Manon David Henriet, from somewhere near St Tropez in France – David W knows where. Manon didn’t reveal her ambicion.

Andrea Maeztn Rediu, (can’t do the twiddly bits over the e and the i), from Pamplona in Northern Spain. She aspires to be a teacher.

Terken Gurei, from Ankara in Turkey of course, who intends one day – heaven knows the EU need some good ones - to be an economist!

Rod and Ann Stokes are hosting two of them and John and Sue Meadows the other two. (2+2=4) Trust the club auditor. All are on a Youth Exchange Summer Camp and each of them is sponsored by their local Rotary Club. They are spending time in our District and in District 1280.

Imagine being a 15/16-year-old girl in a foreign country, speaking in a foreign language to 30+ mostly grumpy old men – oh and one cheerful youngish lady. Quite a scary prospect but dexterously handled by these young people.

With the perfect combination of humility, demureness and confidence they each told us a little about themselves and their families. All of them had studied and are continuing to study English and this showed in their delivery. Hopefully, conversing with the natives here will be a considerable help to them and boost their confidence even further. They answered questions put to them adroitly and competently and this short presentation certainly increased my feel-good factor somewhat.

In the absence of a "laid low by a virus" President Tony, President Elect Rod performed almost as well as our charming and pretty guests although clearly he was not as pleasing on the eye!

I vote that we have more young people visit the Club to lift the spirits of some of us Granddad types. Amen to that!

Peter, Piotr, Pierre, Pedro, Mascarenhas aged 75 (so just aged) from Lahore, formerly India, who once wanted to be Pope.