The four previous participants interviewed for this article are unanimous in their assessment of the value of Rotary Friendship Exchanges. It’s an experience worth having.
“It is a great way to meet people and to see things you would never see,” says Cheryl Nelson (RC of Jasper). “When you visit a country as a tourist, it is different than when you visit a country with people who take you to things you don’t get to see otherwise.”
Cheryl was one of about a dozen Rotarians and spouses who visited Belgium in 2016 and later hosted Belgium Rotarians who paid a return visit to our District.
Cheryl hopes to be selected to join another Friendship Exchange that is in the planning stage.
“I have my name down for Brazil. I would go on every one of them if it worked,” says Cheryl, who was also part of a Friendship Exchange to Turkey in 2012.
This exchange, with District 4521 in Brazil, was initially scheduled to begin this fall with a visit to our District by a group from Brazil, and with Canadians visiting the South American country in the midst of our next Canadian winter. The COVID-19 pandemic put those plans are on hold.
“The Brazilians are no longer coming to our district in September,” says Sean Draper (RC of Edmonton Northeast), who is co-ordinating the exchange for our District.
“We are visiting Brazil—fingers crossed—next January or February and they will visit us in the summer of 2021.”
Information on the proposed exchange with Brazil can be found on the District website.
Canadian Rotarians visited a World War I trench in Belgium
While in Europe, the exchange group visited different towns and cities, where they were hosted by Rotarians.
“We were gone two and a half weeks. We visited at least six or seven towns or cities,” says Donnelly Hart (RC of Jasper). “We were almost always hosted in the homes of fellow Rotarians and also attended their meetings. Most of them were in the evenings and involved dinner.
“They just took us into their homes, which apparently in Europe is not common. I think that in some of the places they were quite nervous about it at first and I think they felt it wasn’t something they normally do. But I think each had a very positive experience and they treated us with such incredible openness and included us in their family lives as well.”
The Belgium hosts were accommodating of requests from their guests.
“They pulled out the stops to do whatever they could for us,” Lola says. “Frank and I had some graves we wanted to visit—family members who had lost their lives in World War I and a friend’s grandpa’s grave—and they made sure they knew where they were and how to drive us there.”
Visiting Canadian memorial at Vimy Ridge
Says Donnelly Hart (RC of Jasper): “They planned an amazing amount of activities for us to do, visiting historical sites. We visited all the World War I important sites — trenches from World War I and monuments. They took us out into the fields to view statues and monuments that had been set up for the Canadian soldiers in World War II,” she says.
“It was especially pertinent to me because my father served for five, almost six years, in the army during the Second World War and several of the places we had visited on this trip were places he had been.”
Lola was concerned about what they could show the Belgians who came to Canada as the second part of the exchange.
“As they are showing you all this history, you’re thinking, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to show them?’ We sort of worried about hosting,” she says. “Here we have such great distances, that they had quite a bit of driving to get from Edmonton to Grande Prairie and then over to Jasper, so they spent quite a bit of time on the road.
“In Belgium, when we switched from one city or one club to the other, it could be like a 40-minute drive. But they loved our open spaces, our campfires. They live in all that history, so they are just happy to get out to the see the beauty of the Prairies and the Rocky Mountains.”
Living in Jasper, Cheryl is used to hosting visiting Rotarians.
“I have hosted in my home so many Rotarians that I couldn’t begin to count them,” she says. “You have to open your heart and open your home to them coming back to you and give them everything you can, and you feel you can never equal what they have given you. And I think they feel the same way after they have been to your place. It’s an exchange of ideas and friendship.”
Something that stood out for the group is the esteem in which Canadians are held by people in Belgium.
“Belgium is an incredible place for history and especially for how well they treat Canadians because of the Canadian Army involvement in their liberation,” says Lola.
Lola’s husband, Frank, who is also a member of the After Five club, explained why Belgians feel as they do.
“In World War II, the Canadians were on their way to liberate Holland and they got an order to free up a few cities in Belgium,” he says. “Every day we were in a different World War I or World War II setting that was related to Canadian participation in Belgium. It was quite enlightening and quite emotional.”
“There were a lot of ceremonies we went to that honoured our Canadian veterans,” says Donnelly.
Canadian Rotarians under the Menin Gate in Ypres on November 11, 2016
The team was in Belgium on November 11 and attended the ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres. Since it opened in 1927, Belgians have gathered nightly at the Gate for a memorial ceremony.
“They stop the traffic under the Menin Gate every night at 8 p.m. and play the Last Post,” Lola sys.
“We had gone there one Wednesday, thinking that on the big Remembrance Day celebration there wouldn’t be any room under the Gate, but when the word got out that there were some Canadian Rotarians in town, they made room for us. We were right in the heart of that special ceremony.”
Cheryl says, “I was with a judge—a highly respected judge—who was the Rotarian who took us there. He said to me, ‘In all my years, this is the first time I have been able to be under the bridge, and that’s because I am with you Canadians. I am so happy to be here.’ It was such a surprise and humbling to be that honoured.”
One of 420 beers available in Belgium put
For Frank, there was another highlight of the trip that had nothing to do with history or war memorials.
“You can’t beat the beer in Belgium,” he says. “We went to one bar or beer hall in Bruges that boasted 420 different beers from across Belgium and our host made sure that we got to taste lots of good abbey beer.”
“It’s amazing in those pubs,” Lola says. “If they served 400 beers, you didn’t get it in a glass that didn’t carry the logo of that beer.”
“The world’s first beer pipeline is in Bruges,” Frank says. “The main brewery is in the centre of town and it caused lots of traffic tie-ups when the beer trucks would come in, so they built this pipeline from the brewery just to the outside of the old town and everybody is more than happy about that.”
Photo Credits: Lola Wright
Rotary International District 5370 News 