Holy Trinity Parish news....
Family takes on the world
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In August this year, a family from the Parish will be embarking upon the journey of a lifetime. Dave and Jane Rawlins, along with their three children Thomas, Beth and Shona, will fly from Heathrow airport to Geneva, Switzerland on what will be the first leg of their around-the-world trek. |
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Dave, a 45 year old science teacher at the Central School in Grantham, is taking a year's unpaid leave to undertake the trip. Jane, 43, a self-employed HR project manager, explained that they will be keeping in touch with both Dave's school and Holy Trinity School where all the children have attended. Jane said: "In this way, the children will feel that people they know are taking an interest in what they are doing. "Also, they will be writing about what they have seen and learnt as part of their 'school work' and will |
send it back for their teachers to comment upon." Thomas, 12, is coming to the end of his first year at Sir William Robertson High School, Welbourn. Beth, 10 and Shona, 6 are still at Holy Trinity School in years Y5 and Y1 respectively. The family will be posting a diary of their activities on a web site which they have set up themselves. See HERE. Immediately before their departure, a special Mass will be celebrated at Holy Trinity Church: Tuesday, 7th August at 2.00 p.m. |
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Jane and Dave describe their motivation and the concept behind the trip.
"In August 2001 we will be setting out as a family (Jane and Dave with our three children Thomas 12, Beth 10 and Shona 6) to travel around the world for a year. The concept of the trip is something we have dreamed about for many years but the timing is quite critical so far as the ages of the children are concerned. There was no point in attempting it before Shona was old enough to appreciate and remember it. We decided that she had to be at least 6 years old. On the other hand, we cannot afford to disrupt Thomas's schooling too close to his GCSE's, so we felt that anything after his second year at secondary school would be too late. That really only left the academic year 2001-2002. Why are we doing it? Well, partly just a desire to see more of the world but more importantly to share it with the children. We try to bring them up with a concern for the environment, with an acceptance of different cultures and a real interest in the world around them. By educating them as we travel we are sure that we can not only keep them up to date with everything they would normally be doing at school but we can let them experience it. Let them see, smell and feel the rainforests, learn history in Africa or appreciate the art of mathematics in the Nazca lines in Peru. Another important reason for doing this is to take time out of the 'rat race' and prove that we can survive and thrive as a family in situations that will not always be easy. We will be backpacking and using public transport. We will camp as much as possible and use Hostels or other simple accommodation when it is not practical to camp. We will also be 'Wwoofing' which is 'willing workers on organic farms', in return for board and lodging. We won't be able to carry much in the way of toys, books or other forms of entertainment around with us so we will have to rely a lot on our own imagination, storytelling skills and interest in things around us. Fortunately the children are not television or computer game addicts, so they won't miss that, and they have a terrific sense of fun and adventure which we can build on. We are taking two recorders and a small book of 100 folk songs. Also the six Narnia books as they can be read over and over again. When we have exhausted them we will give them away and find something to replace them. Perhaps the latest Harry Potter will be out by then and somebody will post it out to us! Obviously we cannot travel to every country. Our itinerary is fairly safe, no war zones for example, we are not prepared to take too many risks with the children and nothing that is overly expensive as there are 5 of us. This means that we will miss out on a lot of places we would have loved to visit, for example, the Holy Land and the Galapagos. We also want to travel slowly, spending weeks at a time in any one country rather than rushing through. The countries we hope to visit, the dates and the main focus in each area are in our Itinerary. Our aims, apart
from our broad aim of learning about the areas we travel in are: To
travel lightly, to always bear in mind our impact on the environment
and the culture of the places we travel in. To make new friends and
to keep in touch with them. Never, not once, to eat in a MacDonalds-we
don't here so we certainly don't intend to start now! To go to Mass
once a week, or if we are not near a catholic church to go to the
local church. To keep a record of games, songs, poems and stories
which we make up or learn along the way and finally, to be patient
and to support each other." |
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Itinerary
Early August - SWITZERLAND - Family A few days with Jane's family in Montreux, Switzerland, before starting the trip proper. Hope to get in some mountain walking and camping as warm up! Mid August - SOUTH AFRICA - Scenery and Animals There is so much to see and do in South Africa that it has been really hard to slim it down to fit in to a month. We actually only decided at the last minute to start in South Africa. Our first destination was to have been Tanzania but it worked out a lot cheaper to fly in to South Africa and travel overland to Tanzania. Of course we must take the opportunity to let the children understand about the apartheid years and the changes that are happening in South Africa and we have arranged to stay in a township (Khayelitsha) so that we can see 'the real South Africa' but after that we decided to concentrate on scenery and animals and focus on people later in Africa. So we'll be travelling up the coast from Cape Town to the Kruger Park, then back in to Swaziland. Mid September
- SWAZILAND - transit only Sadly, we will only spend two or three days in these countries, mostly on buses travelling through. Perhaps we should have planned to spend the whole year in Africa, we're going to be missing so much! Mid September - MALAWI - Snorkelling and Trekking They say Malawi is one of the friendliest countries in Africa. It is tiny compared with South Africa and Tanzania and has beautiful snorkelling and trekking areas. So we plan to spend a couple of weeks enjoying that, before moving on to Tanzania. Beginning October - TANZANIA - People, projects and schools Our focus in Tanzania is to meet people, to stay in villages where possible, to visit schools and see projects which have been put in place to help to make improvements for the often extremely poverty stricken people of Tanzania. As we'll be arriving by boat from Malawi we'll try to spend some time in the Mbeya area, possibly using some of the many homestay projects in the area. Then up to Lake Tanganyika and across by train to Dar Es Salaam. A very kind family near Dar who we contacted through the British-Tanzania Society have volunteered accommodation for a few days and have said they will help us to see schools in the area. Of course we have to climb a mountain in Tanzania and have decided on Mount Meru, as although we would have loved to climb Kilimanjaro the cost is prohibitive and children are not allowed the whole way up. Once again, around the Mount Meru area we hope to make the most of locally organised projects to stay with people and learn about local crafts and industries. We may stay up to six weeks in Tanzania, or we may head in to Kenya before that. Early November
- KENYA - transit only The most cost effective way to fly on to India was to fly from Nairobi, so we will travel through Kenya. How long we take and what we try to do very much depends on how long we decide to stay in Tanzania. Mid November
- INDIA - People, Religions and Meditation We arrive in India in mid November and will stay for about six weeks. So far we have arranged two 'wwoofing' stays of about a week each, one in Gujarat and the other in Dheradun in the foothills of the Himalayas. Both these places do Vipassana meditation as well as organic farming, which will be an interesting experience. A lady in Delhi has offered floor space in her flat for a few days and we shall probably go from Delhi to Agra to see the Taj Mahal again. We also want to visit Varanasi and Darjeeling again, and we hope to spend some time helping at a refuge in Calcutta. All this takes us through to around the end of December. Not sure yet whether we'll be in India or Bangladesh for Christmas. January - BANGLADESH - People, Poverty and Projects We'll travel overland to Bangladesh either just before or after Christmas. Here we hope to stay with people from the Catholic organisation Caritas and to visit and learn about some of their project work in the country. We particularly want the children to learn what causes the terrible poverty and problems the people of Bangladesh have to live with. It will also be interesting for them to see, as it will in other countries, the stark contrast between rich and poor. We have a friend there, a lady called Taleya Rehman who runs the organisation Democracy Watch in Bangladesh. Jane used to work with her many years ago in the UK and we're looking forward to seeing her again and learning about her work. End January - AUSTRALIA - Koalas and ?? Yes we know there is a lot more to Australia than Koalas. It's just that, like South Africa, there is going to be so much that could be interesting, the Outback, the Great Barrier Reef, Aboriginal history and culture. However, Beth has loved Koalas since she was tiny and if there is one thing we will definitely do, it will be to let her have her birthday treat in February holding a Koala! We know here is a Koala sanctuary just north of Brisbane, so we fly in to Sydney and out from Brisbane and decide what we do with the time in between when we get there. Mid February - NEW ZEALAND - Scenery and Swimming with Dolphins Well, we have just about 4 weeks in New Zealand. Swimming with dolphins is something we really want to do and probably lots of walking and some Wwoofing too. We fly in to Christchurch and out from Auckland. Mid March- HAWAII - Our Pacific Island visit Actually we would have loved to have visit some of the smaller or less talked about pacific islands, but again the cost was just prohibitive and, as with most of these plane tickets, a stop at Hawaii costs no extra. So we are stopping for just 6 days to get a feel for it and to look back at the spot on the map later! It's fun to think that we leave New Zealand on the 16th but reach Hawaii on the 15th! End March- PERU - Easter, Rainforests and History We have cut down on our time in Australia and New Zealand by a few days each, to be sure of being in Peru for Easter! Being a very Roman Catholic country, Easter is a very big celebration. We are looking forward to being with our friend Livia, in Trujillo during the week leading up to Easter. We have nine weeks in Peru, part of which we want to spend in the rainforests, part in the mountains. We certainly want to see Macchu Pichu and Lake Titicaca and we may also cross in to Bolivia for a while. June and July- USA and Canada - Family, Friends and the North Well, almost full circle! We are stopping in the States to visit family in California. Then we want to travel as far north as we can afford to go. We may do this by going to Alaska, but more likely at the moment we will try to go to Nunavut. Having been so far south that we would like to know that we made it north as well! Finally, after visiting relatives in Toronto, we will fly home. |
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