Friendship Force forges world links

A trip abroad can often change one’s perspective of the world — just ask Marcia Walker.

After receiving a friend’s invitation to visit Brazil with the Fort Worth, Texas, chapter of Friendship Force, Walker went on a three-week trip touring the country, from its rainforests and beaches to its living rooms. Her expectations of the country as she readied for departure, she admits now, were a bit off.

“When I got ready to go to Brazil, I went downtown and bought water purification tablets,” Walker said. “I thought I was going to be in the jungle, that I was going to have to purify my water and take mosquito dope.”

Quickly, she found her impressions of the country had been largely unfounded. Rather than Amazonian huts, she found English half-timber houses near her residence in the country’s south. And rather than speaking only Portuguese, the natives spoke a wide variety of languages: Portuguese, of course, but also German, Italian and English. And what of her water worries?

“They had a water treatment plant better than the one we have in Columbia,” said Walker, who is director for the city’s Meals on Wheels program.

As her misconceptions about the country’s culture and society were dispelled, she came to appreciate Brazil’s differences, especially in regard

to the streamlined voting process.

“You become so insulated in your own country that you think everything you do is right and wonderful,” she said. “And then you go someplace else and you find out they may have found out a better way to do this. There may be another way.”

Once the three weeks were over, Walker determined she would try to bring the traveling opportunity that enriched her understanding back home with her.

“A lot of people in Columbia like other cultures, and they like to get to know people from other countries,” she said. “So this would appeal to them.”

The “this” of which she speaks is Friendship Force International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to uniting people of different cultures and countries in cordial harmony. According to the organization’s bylaws, its goal is “to create an environment where individual friendship can be established across the international barriers that separate people.” Its motto: “A world of friends is a world of peace.”

“Our mission is to create an environment where cross-cultural understanding can occur,” said Lauren Tepley, communications coordinator for the organization.

“I think it’s very important because I think that once people get to know each other on a one-on-one, you feel differently about their country,” Walker said. “You won’t have the generalizations.”

Because friendship “ambassadors” stay in homes, they often become immersed in the lives of its people rather than on the exotic, as evidenced, for example, by the recent trip of 15 Japanese ambassadors, including two children, to St. Louis.

Even though sightseeing dominated the schedule — with their hosts, the Japanese ambassadors visited the art museum, the zoo, Cahokia Mounds and the botanical gardens, among other attractions — the most intimate moments happened elsewhere, said Nancy Brower, vice president of the St. Louis chapter. However spectacular the ambassadors found the architectural wonder linked inextricably with St. Louis, the ties of friendship were made not at the Arch but a public swimming pool in Bridgeton and the ethnically authentic birthday party of a young girl of Hispanic descent.

“I think the things that I enjoyed the most, and they enjoyed the most, were the things that involved my family — my children and grandchildren,” Brower said. “The times when the children could interact.”

These interactions also mark a real cultural exchange.

To send them off after their six-day visit, the hosts arranged a party where a bluegrass band played, cooks served barbecued pork and homemade quilted potholders created by the hosts waited on a table for the ambassadors to pick up. Meanwhile, the Japanese dressed in kimonos, and one ambassador performed a traditional dance.

Friendship Force trips also give the chance for people to see how the seemingly mundane can be transformed to something magical in the eyes of a stranger.

“They took home three noodles,” Brower said, referring to the flotation devices, apparently unavailable in their native country, that struck the Japanese children with awe.

2006 marks the 30th year of operation for the friendship organization, which was created in 1977 with President Carter’s support in Atlanta, where it is still based today. According to the organization’s 2006 fact sheet, since its inception, 175,000 ambassadors have taken part in more than 5,000 exchanges, and the organization has grown to include 22,345 members in 55 countries and 39 states. Worldwide, there are 367 clubs.

Walker almost immediately discovered a flaw in her plans to make Columbia the 368th. Because of a new policy to deter competition among potential hosting sites, areas close to already existing clubs are encouraged to become branches to current clubs rather than developing into a separate entity, Tepley said.

Because of this, Walker relinquished her plans to start a Columbia chapter and began a process to start a branch of the St. Louis chapter — something that, while initially disappointing, ultimately proved fortuitous.

Although the Columbia branch cannot go on outbound trips on its own, its office can start its existence without meeting some of the more stringent guidelines, such as the number of required members, and can share most of the bureaucratic responsibilities with its big-city counterpart.

The lightening of these responsibilities should be reflected in the club’s atmosphere once meetings begin in September, Walker said. Walker anticipates monthly meetings at restaurants with foreign cuisine, where she hopes to garner a group of people interested in traveling abroad.

“They’re a social time for people to talk about travel experiences while eating out at a foreign restaurant,” she said.

More importantly, these meetings cannot only get people involved in the group but ready, like Walker, to meet people outside their cultural comfort zones; and perhaps, like Walker, who still maintains ties with her Brazilian hosts, create the foundation for a long-standing friendship.

“I got an e-mail yesterday,” she said. “It was their daughter’s birthday, and she shares her birthday with my son. So they sent me pictures of her birthday party, and their family, and how sad they were about the World Cup result.”

People interested in joining the Friendship Force can contact Walker at mwheels@usiw.net.