The Visit

Visits are planned so that participants should see themselves as pilgrims and not as tourists, travelling with openness to learn from new friends, new experiences and different cultures. Hospitality and programmes are organised by the receiving community. A programme normally includes:-

A work-camp or suitable opportunity to learn about the development work of the host community and of other groups.

Visitors go to stay in a family in the host community for between a few days and a week. The family visits normally take place either in the middle of the programme or at the end, so that the visitor has already had some experience of the local culture.

Members of a group often begin to feel a little apprehensive as the time for the family visit approaches. They have usually adjusted to being part of a group and now have to change again, and be alone in a family and community. It is helpful if the group can talk about these feelings before the visits take place.

"When we go home, we will help our wives in the kitchen, now we know how to cook" (Said by a member of a Kenyan group in Britain)

kitchen.jpg (18021 bytes)

It is usually both helpful and challenging to remind members that if they had wanted a "home away from home" they might as well have stayed at home.

A discussion on what it means to be a pilgrim may be useful at this point, so that members leave for the family visits with a genuine desire to learn, to be sensitive and to listen before talking.

Members may be challenged to "see through new eyes," the eyes of the family they are visiting, for only in this way will they appreciate the richness of the culture they are fleetingly part of

A reminder about different views of time may be helpful, because sometimes on family visits people do have to wait around for long periods, and some find this very difficult. Time can also be a problem the other way round, when hosts are good time-keepers, and guests are slow to prepare themselves for events.

Visits to places of interest are normally arranged so that the visiting group and the host community participate together. This means that visits have to be arranged simply. Sometimes groups stay in their base camp and go out for days. Sometimes a longer trip is arranged, and then accommodation may be in a school or church, or occasionally in a tented camp. Food is normally taken along and cooked as it is needed. Sometimes hospitality is offered by local people.

Work-camps are not always easy to arrange by a host community, but when they are possible they are an excellent way, through hard and happy times, of giving participants of many backgrounds the opportunity to share a common goal and to develop mutual understanding and friendship. Alf Chipman, who joined with Christians Aware in many Kenyan work-camps, said, "..Work-camps are always hustle and bustle.. just the sheer magnitude of doing in 8 or 9 days what ought to take the same group a full month, means we must press on continually .... the hustles and bustles are always different ... they rub off the sharp corners and they reveal our weak points..."