Youth of today

[filcon]

I stay in Ayr and travel to Glasgow 36 miles everday on the x77 bus, mind you I,ve 3 weeks till I retire, ya beauty.
Anyway, today I met a really interesting young guy called Mikey from Jersey shore, NY USA on my travels. Got talking to him having spotted his big used ruccie and lets say he looked a free spirit, wind swept and interesting.
Mikey had just slept rough for the night in the middle of Ayr racecourse, having travelled from Ireland the night before. He was now heading to Aberdeen via Glasgow before returning to the USA. He was returning to work at a Wyoming cattle ranch to pay off his debt he had incurred over his 9 months journeying all over the world.
A young guy of 20 year old, had started in China, thro Mongolia his favourite(I,ll come back to that),India,Tibet,Russia,Europe, Spain,Morrocco,Ireland,Scotland and then heading home to the USA.
Youth of today, what an example this guy was amazing. I thouroughly enjoyed his tales of his 9 month adventures, particulary about his favourite country Mongolia which I,ve always fancied.He and his friend were invited to dine with this typical hospitable Mongolian family, well what do you do before you dine, you wash.To wash you need role up your sleeves.
Whats Mongolias favourite sport, wrestling. Now part of Mongolian culture is when you role up your sleeves the least wee bit that means you are challenging the man of the family to wrestle. Mikey unbeknown had challenged this local champion who wrestled, grabbed him and sqeezed the life out of him before he tapped out.
This guy was full of adventures and told really interesting cultural tales, Mikey was brilliant company.
The Youth of today gets bad press, lets open up and give ours the encouragement to copy the likes of Mikey.

phil

 

[bushcraft_lad]

Have a virtual pint mate well said bravo !!!

 

[nuggets]

i,ll drink to that as well well said !!

 

[sasquatch]

Nice post Filcon, I thought it was going to be the typical moan when I read the title! A refreshing read, well done!

 

[Tony]

Excellent post, when i first saw the title i thought 'oh no, i wonder if this is going to turn into a ranting thread' but no, it's great to read about young people doing things like that, having adventures etc

 

[locum76]

I'll raise a glass to this too.

 

[leaf man]

Nice read, thanks for sharing

 

[Barn Owl]

Lucky young fella.

 

[The Joker]

It makes a refreshing change to hear something positive about our youngsters, good post.

The majority of our youngsters are great its just unfortunate you tend to only hear about the bad ones.

 

[Tony]

Yeah, that's a good point Pete, i'm involved with a youth group and they're all great kids, we just let them plod through life and just vent when we're wound up and it does give an inaccurate impression sometimes.

 

[helixpteron]

One of my friend's girls that I used to babysit is traveling next year to Uganda to help build a school in and for a village.

All her travel, food and other costs are being raised by her and she's putting everything into her preparation so that when she gets there, she's able to work her heart out.

I'm so impressed with her commitment (and that of her classmates and Church group) that I'm supplying whatever funding and gear I can.

Seeing her determination to improve her fitness level so that she'll be able achieve more really touched my heart. I'm inspired by her dedication to do good work in order that other children may have a school and the opportunity to learn.

I often find young people quite inspirational. I guess they always were, its just that I hadn't noticed before...

 

[Andy BB]

Because of my job, I travel widely, often to Africa. And one thing I've noticed is the tremendous work kids on a year's VSO do. In Malawi met up with two girls on a break year who were teaching and living in a local village - virtually unpaid it would appear. The locals told me that they made huge contributions to the village and the children's education. Heard later that one of the British VSO's was killed travelling in a deathtrap known as a local minivan taxi as they couldn't afford their own transport.

Compare and contrast to the posh hotel on Lake Malawi which, everytime I visited, seemed to be permanently booked by very well-known charities for "conferences" for their big-wigs- I'm sure the swimming pool, excellent restaurant and bar, and watersports on the lake were incidental to the good causes. Admittedly, as the rooms were $140 each a night, and the food and booze expensive, there probably would be considerably less funds available for those good causes........................