“This is where Mary Queen of Scots lost her scarf when attempting to escape from Castle Bolton”. The phrase was spoken by a Rotarian guiding the Group Study Exchange Team on one of our guided tours of the many wonders of Yorkshire. It came to him as he probably struggled to pique our interest. Little did he know that wonder and amazement were unrelenting feelings from the moment we arrived.
The picturesque villages, the walled fields, the countless sheep, the cliffs ending right at the sea, all this was all very beautiful. But what brought Yorkshire alive for the team was the people who live there.
It was the people of Yorkshire who constructed its rich history - as we looked in awe at churches and castles built and destroyed many times over the course of the last thousand years, we couldn’t help but think about our own short-lived history: Brazil was only “discovered” in 1500, later than many buildings we were inside were constructed. It was the people of Yorkshire who gave us invaluable work experiences - for my part, hearing first-hand impressions about your government austerity plans, from the people that move Britain’s economy, was simply priceless.
Yet above all, it was the people of Yorkshire who welcomed us in their homes, treating us as part of their family, who made the whole experience really shine. The Team left Yorkshire with wonderful cultural and vocational experiences, but with the strongest sense that the Group Study Exchange Program is not only about these things. It is foremost about meeting people and realizing that regardless of cultural, geographical or economical differences people are, well, people. It was a remarkable lesson for everyone involved. A lesson that, not surprisingly, is bound to foster world understanding and Peace. A lesson well known to anyone who’s ever been involved with Rotary.
Murilo Schmitt
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