How green is my valley!!!
This Friday, Divya and I embarked on our maiden visit to a British family through the HOST programme. I share the experience we had over three days (and diary postings) - our last weekend of vacations, before Term 3 begins.
HOST is a voluntary organization that is a platform for international students to taste a sample of life for a British citizen. Students are free to send in a request to stay in the region of their preference and the volunteers from HOST make their best efforts to match the students' requirements with the families who have volunteered to invite or host such students. For more details, you are invited to check out the website at www.hostuk.org.uk
Just after noon time this day, we took our coach for Birmingham where we stop over and change the coach for our onward journey to a small town called Brynmawr in Gwent, Glamorgan. Through the HOST programme, our request had been accepted and we were invited to stay over with a Doctor-couple family - Drs. Carl and Sally Venn.
While the journey to Birmingham was confined to the motorway, our real journey began when we took the Birmingham-Brynmawr sector on the second coach. After all, we were entering Wales - an area that was once an independent country before it merged into U.K.
With undulating terrain, we soon knew what "paradise" meant. Daffodils blooming all over and cattle grazing across vast lands; we asked each other - "how would it be when summer is here!!!!" During this journey, I also realized that the colour "green" is an incomplete word without appropriate prefixes. So it has to be bright green, dull green, brown green, greyish green, light green, dark green .......(phew) I feel at a loss of words to capture the subtle shades of greenery that we saw.
As the coach glided along the road, we couldn't help but smile and savour the joy of natural beauty. As we continue to see more of the country, we keep saying to ourselves - how beautiful is this country!!! If only people could stop talking about the weather, they would see much more than they do. They will realize how green is their valley!
We arrived at the coach station in Brynmawr in the evening and were received by Carl. It is a small town and we walked over to their magnificent house nearby. We were in for a pleasant surprise soon enough. Carl and Sally had also invited a very close Indian family friend Dr Murthy to stay over with them. Drs. Carl, Sally and Murthy turned out to be such nice people that all our apprehensions about going to a "stranger family" were washed away. They were such a considerate couple that a vegetarian meal had been prepared for us.
Soon, we had become very comfortable with them and had opened up with our barrage of questions. We were surprised to know that Sally and Carl had actually spent over a year in a remote village in India in 1990's - involving themselves with work on development alongwith an NGO. The attachment with India reflected in their house too - with beautiful hand made paintings adorning the walls.
Little did we realize that it was close to midnight - we had been chatting with a couple who were strangers just a few hours ago and had become good friends instantly. Sally had also planned out the options for the next day - what we could see or do.
I knew then - the valley remains green because of good and friendly human beings such as Drs Venn.
HOST is a voluntary organization that is a platform for international students to taste a sample of life for a British citizen. Students are free to send in a request to stay in the region of their preference and the volunteers from HOST make their best efforts to match the students' requirements with the families who have volunteered to invite or host such students. For more details, you are invited to check out the website at www.hostuk.org.uk
Just after noon time this day, we took our coach for Birmingham where we stop over and change the coach for our onward journey to a small town called Brynmawr in Gwent, Glamorgan. Through the HOST programme, our request had been accepted and we were invited to stay over with a Doctor-couple family - Drs. Carl and Sally Venn.
While the journey to Birmingham was confined to the motorway, our real journey began when we took the Birmingham-Brynmawr sector on the second coach. After all, we were entering Wales - an area that was once an independent country before it merged into U.K.
With undulating terrain, we soon knew what "paradise" meant. Daffodils blooming all over and cattle grazing across vast lands; we asked each other - "how would it be when summer is here!!!!" During this journey, I also realized that the colour "green" is an incomplete word without appropriate prefixes. So it has to be bright green, dull green, brown green, greyish green, light green, dark green .......(phew) I feel at a loss of words to capture the subtle shades of greenery that we saw.
As the coach glided along the road, we couldn't help but smile and savour the joy of natural beauty. As we continue to see more of the country, we keep saying to ourselves - how beautiful is this country!!! If only people could stop talking about the weather, they would see much more than they do. They will realize how green is their valley!
We arrived at the coach station in Brynmawr in the evening and were received by Carl. It is a small town and we walked over to their magnificent house nearby. We were in for a pleasant surprise soon enough. Carl and Sally had also invited a very close Indian family friend Dr Murthy to stay over with them. Drs. Carl, Sally and Murthy turned out to be such nice people that all our apprehensions about going to a "stranger family" were washed away. They were such a considerate couple that a vegetarian meal had been prepared for us.
Soon, we had become very comfortable with them and had opened up with our barrage of questions. We were surprised to know that Sally and Carl had actually spent over a year in a remote village in India in 1990's - involving themselves with work on development alongwith an NGO. The attachment with India reflected in their house too - with beautiful hand made paintings adorning the walls.
Little did we realize that it was close to midnight - we had been chatting with a couple who were strangers just a few hours ago and had become good friends instantly. Sally had also planned out the options for the next day - what we could see or do.
I knew then - the valley remains green because of good and friendly human beings such as Drs Venn.
posted by Sandeep Gupta at
2:42 pm
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