Face to face

Value of Rotary project is to bring us together

An interesting exchange took place in West Jefferson earlier this week.

A group of five young adults of Middle Eastern ethnicities visited Ashe County, toured local businesses, ate and slept in local homes, talked to scores of local people and watched the operation of the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

It was part of the Rotary International Group Study Exchange.

It’s kind of like exchange students from foreign countries only they are only in one place for several days and they are older than the high school variety of exchange students most of us are familiar with.

This group hailed from Egypt. Most are in their mid to late 20s. One of its number is a dentist. All are professionals and college educated. The men wore suit coats. The women wore business dress and one woman covered her head with a scarf.

Their English carried a heavy Middle Eastern accent but for the most part the grammar was correct and the word usage appropriate and intelligible. Likely, their use of English is better than the Arabic spoken by anyone in Ashe.

The visitors entertained a group of local business folk and the local host families at a reception at the Ashe County Arts Council Tuesday. Most people listened to the accents and enjoyed the jokes playful interaction between the team members.

In these days of suspicion about faces and attire that look to us to be “Middle Eastern” and dress that looks different from our own, the thing that stood out was how similar these people are to us in terms of sense of humor, desire to learn, love of family and friends.

That is one thing the Rotary GSE project does well, bringing people together to let us see for ourselves what people of different cultures are like.

There are differences, but maybe not as much as we think.

By coming together we can find common ground and understanding.