Date: Fri 06-Jun-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Schools-AFS-Wilson-Stewart

Full Text:

Sixteenth Summers in Australia And Ghana

(with photos)

BY DOROTHY EVANS

When you say the words "summer vacation" to Newtown High School sophomores

about-to-turn juniors, Thyra Wilson and Jennifer Stewart, their eyes light up.

Both girls say they have been looking forward to June for months now - but

it's not merely the prospect of time off from school and spending leisurely

days with their Newtown friends that they anticipate.

More likely, Thyra is wondering what it will be like to go bicycling, canoeing

and bush-whacking through the Australian outback with AFS students from other

countries who are on a two-week Outdoor Adventure.

And Jen is hoping she might come face to face with the wild animals of West

Africa during her four-week stay in Ghana, and possibly help out in a local

conservation effort at a nearby wildlife refuge.

Both girls, now 15 years old, will be turning 16 before the summer is over.

Years from now they might be thinking back to the summer of 1997 with special

pleasure - a special time in their lives, when they traveled abroad as AFS

summer exchange students.

Headed For Australia

Thyra is the daughter of Jan and Pete Wilson of Taunton Hill Road.

She will be leaving for Australia via Los Angeles on a flight June 21 out of

Hartford. The California stop will include an overnight stay and an AFS

orientation, and then the next day she leaves for Sydney, "half way around the

world."

"That's just 19 days from today," Thyra said Monday.

She'll be back eight weeks later, August 22, "but that seems a long time from

now."

Thyra said she's never been out of the country before. This will be a

first-time experience, beginning only four days after her sixteenth birthday,

which is June 17.

This past Sunday, Thyra attended an orientation meeting for area AFS students

held in Easton.

"They gave us all the usual advice, like don't call home because you'll get

homesick, and bring lots of books," she said, adding that luckily, no special

shots were needed for travel to Australia.

Thyra has been talking to the current Newtown AFS chapter president, junior

Cara Neilsen, who also went to Australia, visiting Adelaide in New South Wales

on an AFS exchange during the summer of 1996.

Thyra knows she'll start out in Sydney and go on the Outdoor Adventure program

for two weeks, then spend six weeks with a host family in a town as yet to be

identified.

"I don't have any special expectations about where in that vast continent I

might be headed," she said, but she didn't seem too worried.

The final details will be taken care of by AFS in due time, she said with

confidence.

"My parents are excited," she added, promising she'd take pictures and keep a

journal to share the highlights when she got back.

On To Ghana

Jen Stewart will turn 16 on July 25 in Ghana, West Africa.

She leaves her Clearview Drive home on June 30 and will return to the United

States July 31. She will have exactly one month on her AFS exchange.

"I want to live in Africa and work with the wildlife there, perhaps in the

Kalihari Desert or a refuge," she said.

She hopes to see the rain forest, too.

Jen knows there is political unrest in Ghana but feels comfortable about

traveling there, because "the government is military," and because she already

has some acquaintance with her African hosts.

"My host sister is living now with a family in New York City on a half-year

program. She'll be there to meet me," Jen said.

Jen, whose father is a pilot and whose mother is a flight attendant, has grown

up in a family of travelers. She visited France in April and has been to

Vienna, Prague and Budapest with the Newtown High string orchestra.

Very independent and goal-oriented, she has ambitious plans for her last two

years at Newtown High, as well.

She hopes to graduate a semester early and then take a year off to travel.

When planning for the AFS summer exchange, she did all the advance work

herself after talking with Linda Van Tassel, adviser of the Newtown High AFS

club. Then she approached her parents, Kathy and Doug Stewart.

"Basically, I went up to them and said I'm doing this thing. Please sign

here," Jen said, laughing.