Rotary Gram

Durango High Noon Rotary

November 6,2003

Chessa welcomed the club to the weekly meeting and asked Jennifer Simon

to give the invocation and lead the pledge.

Guests were introduced, including incoming Assistant Director Mike

Docherty, outgoing Assistant Director, Regan Bach and Director, Harlene

Russell and of La Plata Youth Services. Marv indicated success at getting

some funding restored so that much needed services could continue for

youngsters that have had an initial contact with law enforcement. HNR

members mentor a number of young people in the community.

Other guests were: Jim McCarthy, guest of Mike McGuire, John Windsor and

John Lopez, guests of Ted Robson and Laura Shelton, guest of Angie Beach.

There were no visiting Rotarians.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Chessa reminded us that there are no meetings on November 27th and

December 4th. Saturday, December 6th is the Holiday Train, taking the place

of the December 4th meeting.

Chessa told us that Jay Hwang was facing back surgery and that Bess

Maisel was away to be with her daughter, also undergoing surgery.

President Elect, Mike McGuire directed the members to complete

nomination forms for the President Elect Nominee, indicating a member that

you would recommend and whether or not we as members would like to be

considered.

Ted Robson, Charlie Albert and Mike McGuire reported on attending the

first Tri-District Conference in Chihuahua, Mexico. A large contingent from

around District 5470 went there to consider joining in projects with the 40

Mexican clubs that were present. Matching grant commitments were made,

including a solar well. The 'project fair' will be held annually with clubs

from Mexico, New Mexico and our district. The next one will be held in

Durango, CO/

Chessa read a recap of club activities so far this Rotary year and for a

complete list, see her. The club has invested about $60k so far in worthy

endeavors.

Chessa asked Jill (Membership Committee and Board Secretary), Ted and

John Windsor to the podium. John Windsor was introduced to the club by his

sponsor, Ted Robson and presented with the trappings for membership by Jill.

John told us a bit about himself, including giving credit to his mother. He

was born in Los Angeles, raised in Kansas City and, like his brother,

attended Stanford University. John played professional basketball, starting

in the ABA and then with the San Francisco, now Goldenstate Warriors.

He joined, in his own words, the real world, with a position at IBM and

progressed through the ranks in sales and supervision. From there he was

involved in the microfilm publishing company and for the last 25 years until

retirement, John was with the HammerBlow Corporation.

(http://www.hammerblow.com/ )

John expressed his interest in service and looks forward to his

involvement in Rotary. Welcome John.

Mike M. took center stage to present Ralph Martin with his blue badge,

indicating that he has fulfilled all the new member obligations.

Chessa (cgill@certusclaims.com) indicated that the much-maligned

evening club had challenged us to some sort of a competition and ideas for

same were solicited.

Tami told us of the success of the Interact silent auction and reminded

us of the annual Holiday caroling down main street, coordinated by the

Durango Diplomats (DIPS). It begins at 5:30 PM, with a stroll from Buckley

Park to the train station, singing all the way. The Guinness Book of World

Records folks will be on hand to certify it as the world's largest strolling

karaoke event.

Steve Govreau ceremoniously passed the club's check book to Steve

Redding, who is now serving as the club Treasurer. Thanks, Steves!

Chessa indicated that 3rd grade dictionaries were ready for distribution

and volunteers were needed to distribute them.

Red Ball Express is rolling with the able leadership of Walter Novotny.

Sign up for a task or two if you have not.

Keoki announced a Saturday, November 15th Habitat for Humanity effort at

Jenkins Ranch, 229 Jenkins Ranch road, beginning at 8:30 AM. Fences and

sheds will be built. Call Keoki to participate, 375-2300.

Jim Mulkey announced his participation in the Muscular Dystrophy

Association efforts and asked interested donors to contact his office,

247-0240.

Terry Price, decked in sport coat and tie, gave us a quick overview of

his recent trip to Thailand with wife Kathleen. After 3 weeks in Thailand,

Terry feels like he has discovered paradise. He felt welcome, comfortable

and safe.

He indicated that compassion, tolerance and caring are big factors in

the lives of the Thai people, indicating that it is natural that many are

Rotarians. One interesting fact is that families send their 10 - 11 year

old boys to monk training, with most returning to their families.

Terry attended and addressed a Rotary meeting held in a private club and

presented our club with their banner. Welcome back Terry.

Jennifer Simon was the subject of this week's 'This is My Life'. She is

originally from San Diego, CA and while in college worked as a camp

counselor in upstate New York and taught cheerleading and dance. She began

college at ASU, transferring to NAU, perhaps feeling the distraction of a

top - 10 party school.

Always wanting to live in Durango, they moved here when her husband Chip

accepted a job. Jennifer, heads the local efforts of the American Cancer

Society and was all too modest about her accomplishments. She invited us

all to a future happy hour to 'hear the rest of the story'. Thanks,

Jennifer!

PRESENTATION

Chessa introduced the day's speaker, John Marshall, to tell the club

about his experience as the Group Study Exchange (GSE)

(http://www.rotary.org/foundation/educational/gse/index.html) Team Leader in

2003 to district 4790 in Northern Argentina, made up of the Provinces of

Chaco, Formosa and Corrientes. To learn more about the region, go to

http://www.argentinaturistica.com/rnoresteturismo.htm

GSE is an international exchange program for young professionals between

the ages of 25 and 40, sponsored by the Foundation of RI. Typically, clubs

submit candidates for consideration and 4 - 6 applicants are chosen annually

from each district to travel to a district in another country, where they

are the guests of local Rotarians for 4 - 6 weeks. Exchanges are initiated

by incoming District Governors as they gather for their DG training.

The program is designed to develop professional and leadership skills

among young adults, so that they can address the needs of their communities

and an increasingly global workplace. While there is a strong emphasis on

vocational experiences, exchanges include cultural and fellowship

opportunities for the teams and offers Rotarians the opportunity to

participate in the process of sending, receiving and sharing educational

experiences of study teams that will enhance Rotary's missions.

What follows includes more detail that I had time to present and I

apologize in advance if you are bored with the details. The team I lead to

Argentina included Alexii Carey and Ellen Hartsfield of Durango, Kelly

Whittington from Rifle and Joe Watson from Colorado Springs. Alexii

currently teaches at Excell School, Ellen is a visiting professor at Ft.

Lewis, Kelly a branch manager for Alpine Bank and Joe is an electrical

engineer responsible for power quality to high tech customers of Colorado

Springs Utilities. All were Spanish speakers, Alexii, Ellen and Kelly

particularly well, and Joe could make himself understood, particularly in

restaurants.

We left for Argentina on Monday, May 19th and returned on June 17th.

The flight to Buenos Aires took us through Denver and Dulles, arriving in BA

at 9:30 AM on Tuesday. RI provides for an overnight stay enroute, if

necessary, and in our case it was. Due to the economic crisis, severe

cutbacks in airline service have taken place and the only flight to

Corrientes, in our host district, left BA at 6:30 AM, so we spent the rest

of Tuesday there.

The 6:30 AM flight left from the domestic airport, so we were up on our

official first day, Wednesday, at 4:00 AM for the minivan (combi as they

call them) to the airport. We each had luggage for about 4 weeks, including

appropriate business attire for the 20+ meetings and district conference

events, in addition to more casual stuff and, as is customary, gifts for our

host families. Needless to say, we were all faced with excess baggage

charges.

I carried a gift for their DG from our DG, Chuck Tutor, a gift for the

local GSE coordinator for his efforts in arranging our itineraries and host

family stays and a few extra items, including about 300 District 5470 Rotary

pins. They were a big hit, it's not just the exchange students that collect

them!

Our first day took us from BA to Corrientes and then by combi over roads

that rattled our teeth and filled our ears with grit, to the very small town

of Mercedes. We were met at the Corrientes airport by the District

Governor, Victor Hugo Boratto, GSE Coordinator, Dr. Francisco Arce Bazan, 3

sub-coordinators, one each per province and Gustavo Katavich, the leader of

their team that visited our district in October, 2002. We were hosted, upon

arrival in Mercedes, to a lunch of a variety of meats (goat, lamb, beef)

cooked over a wood fire, with what came to be the ubiquitous offering of the

local 'tinto' or red wine. Of course, we didn't want to hurt our host's

feelings.......

After the official welcome, each team member was taken to his or her

host's home, an event that was repeated when we arrived in the cities of

Curacu Quatia, Corrientes, Resistencia, Saenz Pena, Machugai, Quitilipi and

Formosa. We stayed with each host from 1 to 4 days, staying the longest in

Formosa, the site of their district conference.

The GSE program calls for the Rotary host districts to provide shelter,

food and transportation, as well as the vocational, educational and cultural

opportunities. In advance of our trip, one of my jobs was to send the bios

of each team member and myself, in Spanish and English, to the GSE

coordinator in 4790. From there, they planned our vocational days, a minimum

of one full day per week, so the team was often split up so each member

could spend time with a counterpart.

I was even asked what my particular interests were. I asked to spend

some time with city government officials to learn about how they handled

conflict resolution and planning issues. The team members spent time with

bankers, teachers and engineers, and there were common outings to the

offices of various government ministers for culture and education in each

province.

Because we visited what amounts to three states, there was a lot of

duplication of experiences, as the clubs in each province wanted to show us

all they had to offer. Interestingly, a GSE Team is real news in this part

of Argentina. For example and back to our first day, we were gathered up

from our host families and taken to the local community theatre, where we

were promptly seated in the first row. It was about 7:30 PM by then and all

of us were looking forward to some rest, given the flights from the U.S. the

day before and beginning this day at 4:00 AM.

Before the musical presentation and series of skits began, I was invited

to the stage to make some remarks on behalf of the team and Rotary. This is

where I formed my oft repeated theme of the purpose of our trip, to build

bridges between countries, provinces and most importantly, between people.

And, to breakdown the stereotypes that exist between our two countries.

With ample thank yous and apologies for 'mi pobre Espanol', the show began.

At 10:30 PM, we went to dinner, stumbling into bed at about 1:00 AM, and

yes, we didn't hurt our host's feelings in the 'tinto' department. We went

to Argentina knowing that the clubs in 4790 didn't meet until quite late,

expected to be tired, but were actually thoroughly exhausted and somewhat

disoriented 10 days later.

Most days were like this, filled with events from roughly 8:00 AM all

the way to as late as 1:00 and sometimes 2:30 AM! The Argentines in this

region split their workday in two It begins at about 7:30 AM for school

kids, a little later for working adults and all return home at 1:00 PM for

lunch and as much as a two hour nap. The working adults dress and go back

to work at about 5:00 PM, finishing at 8:30 or 9:00 PM. Being so far North,

this region suffers very hot summers, so the 'siesta' is based on a mid-day

respite from the heat, although many of the offices and homes are air

conditioned.

Think for a moment about two daily commutes to work, the exaggerated

length of the work day and twice as much fuel for your car or for public

transportation. And, dividing your sleep into two parts! Needless to say,

it through us for a loop. This was especially so when it became obvious

that the clubs had arranged activities all day and well into the night. We

didn't get many siestas.

Back to GSE Teams being news, we were interviewed 4-5 times on live

radio, were on TV twice and the subject of several newspaper articles. Turns

out that at least 5 of the Rotarians in the district owned all or part of

either a radio or TV station or a newspaper. I was common for us to arrive

in a new city, gather at a hosts home for a welcoming reception and be

descended upon by the media. We called it the attack of the press.

In one radio interview, we were seated around a large round table with

microphones in front of each of us. This show had a call-in format, so we

took questions from their listeners. It bordered on the sureal.

We were asked our impressions of Argentina, opinions about the financial

crisis, about our occupations, what we had seen and done and were planning

to do. Here is where my building bridges and breaking down stereotypes

speech really clicked. The team members were not allowed to use any of my

material!! Of course, we were very enthusiastic about the opportunity to be

there, to learn and to experience their culture.

The team made at least 15 presentations at Rotary meetings, sometimes

with more than one club attending. We had another10 informal events with

Rotary clubs, including lunches and dinners. At the Rotary meetings, we

gave a power point presentation about the U.S., with emphasis on Colorado

and a bit about each team member. Each member had two or more topics to

cover and they included our form of government, our history, heritage,

agriculture, tourism, high technology, education and health and the military

presence. We made all of our presentations in Spanish, and slide captions

were in Spanish as well.

As an ice breaker, we demonstrated the official State of Colorado Dance,

the Square Dance. We brought a cd of music and swung our partners etc. We

then invited our hosts to join in and choas usually resulted. In return, we

were offered Tango lessons (they didn't take) and a regional dance know as

chamamai.

The economic crisis in Argentina is profound and continuing. Several

years ago, the Argentine peso and the U.S. dollar were at parity. Smart

Argentines converted their peso paychecks to U.S. dollars as a hedge against

inflation and kept dollar denominated savings accounts. As a result of

pressure from the world economic community, Argentina agreed to devalue

their peso. But, before doing so, they forced the banks to convert dollar

accounts to pesos and then put the devaluation into effect.

As a result, many, many Argentines lost up to 65% of their savings.

Some Rotarians told me privately that they had managed to park some of their

dollars in other countries, Spain and the U.S. for two, and managed to avoid

the loss of their life savings. Rotary membership is down, lifestyles have

be reduced and I saw parking garages with numbers of luxury sedans covered

with tarps.

The mission of Rotary continues and the team was introduced to a number

of past and ongoing projects. Among them were feeding centers for infants

and the elderly and an eyeglasses project, where a Rotarian optometrist

would fit donated glasses to indigents, by providing a pair that came as

close as possible to their need.

We visited several elementary schools where the clubs provided books,

shoes and food stuffs. The farther we traveled from the city centers, the

greater was the need and that is where the clubs focused. Cleft palate

surgery was a major focus of several clubs with plastic surgeons as members.

At one feeding center that fed infants, we witnessed the positive

results first hand. We were introduced to one youngster that was nothing

but bones 6 months before and as a result of the attention of the volunteer

staff and the food, in part from one Rotary club, became a robust and

healthy child. I found the director and made an investment on the spot,

money that I had intended to buy gifts with. Geraldine's gift was knowing

that she helped feed 30 infants for about a week.

Argentina is heavily Catholic country. Many of their churches are

wonderful examples of architecture and we visited two or three a week. We

often found the poor sitting on the steps hoping for a few pennies to help

make ends meet. Alexii, who has spent a lot of time in Latin America, would

usually find a street vendor and buy food so he knew that the kids had the

comfort of a full stomach.

Our vocational opportunities extended beyond our own interests. We were

taken to furniture factories (great rain forest hardwoods), cotton

processing plants (gins), wool processing plants, a rice packaging plant, a

factory that made tannin for the conditioning of leather, the local version

of HoneyVille, a fish farm (rice and fish are two things that Argentines are

learning to eat more of in this region heavily dominated by beef), a

hydro-electric plant and more.

We spent a night in a biological reserve, arranged by the Rotary Club of

Mercedes, but paid for by us, since the were barely able to feed and

transport us from their diminished club funds. The club president was quite

upset that they couldn't do more, but insisted that we should have the

experience and he was right.

Another club took us for a ride, teeth rattling, grit in the ears, into

an area they call the 'inpenetrable'. It is a forest of thorny trees,

impenetrable on foot or horseback, with a few roads cut through to service

power lines. Small villages have developed here and there along the power

line roads, and our ride took us to one of these villages to look at a large

wooden statue of Christ. It is quite famous, at least locally.

One day was spent in the town of Chlorinda, up north on the border with

Paraguay. My host was the vice mayor and he drove us around the city,

honking at his constituents, talking on his cell phone, all the while

explaining everything to me in great detail. Note, all seat belts in

Argentina are either broken or disabled.

We visited several potable water plants. Usually, water is pumped from

a river and put through a series of purification steps and them piped to

homes and businesses. There are huge campaigns to reduce water waste, but

municipal and individual infrastructures are in such poor condition that

cities just add more pumps to move more water to accounts for the leaks.

And, lots of water, and electricity for that matter, is stolen throught

illegal taps.

We were treated to great doses of the regional song, dance and food. We

were hosted one day on an estancia, in Argentina, a huge cattle ranch, with

perhaps some groves of fruit and a large main house, with an outdoor cooking

set up called a parrilla (par-eee-yah). Many estancias double as weekend

homes and second businesses. There is a ranch manager and family who run

things during the week and then provide for the owner,s pleasure on the

weekends. It's like a two day, three night vacation every weekend. Meals

are cooked, horses groomed, laundry done, guitars are strummed, and now and

then, some sleeping on the porch. That is if you have applied liberal

amounts of mosquito repellant!

Host family accomodations ranged from quite modern and comfortable to

quite old and uncomfortable, but we were offered the best that was

available. I slept for several nights in the bed of a 4 year old (he slept

with his folks) and the bed was furnished with Goofy (Disney) sheets and

thankfully, a full size twin. On another occasion, my bed clothes were

Barbie-themed.

Time with host families was often the most revealing, giving us the

opportunity to answer their questions about ourselves and our families, as

well as to discuss issues of mutual interest. This is a male dominated

society and the women just sort of smile and accept it. Conversations with

female Rotarians were eye opening for me, having expected clubs to be as

populated with females as they are here. There is even a woman's auxillary

of sorts called Ruedas Femininas, female wheels, more or less.

They actually do a lot of the work, while the men do the meetings,

dinners and ceremony. The 'Ruedas' even have their own district conference,

where men 'may' be invited.

Meetings and other events were quite formal. Clubs have a master of

ceremonies that conducts much of the meeting. The Argentine, Rotary and

Provincial flags are raised at the beginning of meetings and are retired at

their conclusion. In honor of our visit, the Stars and Stripes was also

displayed and one of the team members had the honor of raising and retiring

it.

At the district conference, the Colorado flag was added to the

complement of flags, a flag that happened to belong to Dick Foster, a member

of the Broadmoor Rotary club in Colorado Springs. The visiting Argentine

GSE team borrowed it last year in anticipation of our visit. I brought it

back to Dick.

Our team received high marks for our preparation, the thoroughness of

our presentation, and most importantly, the abililty to speak the language

of the host district. For my part, I insisted that the team be able to

speak Spanish for a couple of reasons. One was to be certain to get the

most from the opportunity provided by the Foundation and the host district,

and the other was to show our respect for our hosts and the host nation by

making the effort to speak their language.

GSE teams have ended exchanges when language proved to be a barrier and

we were told of one team from the mid-west that packed up and went home

after two weeks because there was only one Spanish-speaker on the team.

All the team members have made life-long friends and friendships as a

result of the exchange. We even had an immediate impact on one club at the

suggestion of Joe Watson who was taken on a visit to an orphanage. This was

a home for older boys, largely un-adoptable due to age. They had few

possessions, but more importantly, little contact outside of their facility.

Joe suggested to his host that his club might find members that would

spend some time with the kids. The result is that there is now a group of

Rotarians calling themselves the Grandfathers, that takes the time to help

make a difference in the lives of these kids. And, you have probably have

guessed by now, Joe has been invited to join the Broadmoor Rotary Club.

Ellen is a member of the DayBreak club and Kelly has joined the club in

Rifle. Alexii will be a fine Rotarian and might join Ellen in the morning

club to accomodate his schedule and take advantage of the reduced dues.

I must thank the High Noon Rotary club for it's support and willingness

to submit me as a candidate for Team Leader, the Foundation for providing

the tickets, District Governor Victor Hugo Borrato of 4790, Walid Bou-Matar,

Past GSE Coordinator of 5470 and President of the Grand Junction club and

evening Rotarian, Roger Ptolemy for his advice prior to the trip (he was a

team member and a team leader!)

The generosity of Rotarians to perfect strangers is the stuff of legend.

Living with Rotary families is a rare privilege that I will never forget.

Te saludo Rotariamente.

Chessa thanked John for his presentation, but the thanks belong to

Rotary. Chessa brought the meeting to a close with, 'see ya next week'.

John E. Marshall

3005 County Road 207

Durango, CO 81301

970-259-6248 p

970-259-4498 f