Re scripted school visits

I felt the letter titled “Tour Members’ Encounters Distorted?” (Jan. ’09, pg. 26) presented an unusually negative characterization of a tour experience in Southern Africa with Overseas Adventure Travel (Cambridge, MA; 800/493-6824, www.oattravel.com).

My wife and I traveled independently to many of the world’s countries, and, following her untimely death, I decided to take group tours since I didn’t want to eat by myself. Subsequently, I have taken 17 overseas group tours with different companies.

Although not all of the group members on every tour were people I would have chosen to travel with, there have always been enough interesting people to make the journeys pleasant. The tour companies cannot, after all, be held responsible for those who book their tours. Also, describing tour participants as a “cult” struck me as intemperate.

My first overseas group tour was to Turkey in October ’03 with Grand Circle Travel, OAT’s sister company, and I cringed inwardly when I read we would be visiting a school partially supported by the Grand Circle Corporation. I was expecting an artificial experience, but learning about a Turkish school turned out to be one of the trip’s highlights. And, yes, we sang an American song for the kids, who sang a Turkish song for us.

Before leaving the school, we learned a little of the students’ lives as we conversed in their surprisingly good English, though I wondered how they were able to understand the thick, rich, drawl of an Alabama traveler whom even I had difficulty understanding!

Similarly, on a trip to Sicily in October ’07 I enjoyed a visit to a school in Monreale to which Grand Circle provides assistance and with whose students we spoke English to provide a real-world language experience.

In each place, Grand Circle Corporation provides school supplies and computers to the students.

JAMES E. McGEE

Sun City, CA