The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

markhamite off to zaire africa weekender august 23 198g p19 by paula crowell staff reporter markhams tony vetter is on a mission a mission which will teach him about other cultures and lan guages and will immerse him in two community atmospheres with which he is unfamiliar tony 19 has been chosen as a participant of canada world youth an exchange program which combines a crosssection of canadian youth with counter parts from a developing nation the goal is to broaden horizons by living and working together in canada and in the exchange country tony will spend christmas in zaire africa he begins his ex change in quebec in early september where participants from both nations meet tony will be paired with someone from zaire and will remain with his partner for the duration of the ex change after about z months in quebec the group will move on to zaire the volunteers will find work in community service agri culture or small business but no thing is definite and circumst ances can change thats why one of the qualities participants must possess is flexibility we might have to find some thing to do on our own he said they have a plan but nothing is exact zaire used to be known as the belgian congo but gained its in dependence in 1960 the country is just north of the equator and consists of tropical rain forest and grasslands the average temper ature is 80 degrees fahrenheit the countrys official language is french and tony will be taking a oneweek immersion course in quebec before he begins the ex change he hopes to have a good working knowledge of the lan guage by the time he returns to canada in march the markham district high school graduate turned down acceptances at several universi ties to participate in this non profit program i felt it was better to do some thing like this before university to have a different point of view of how ill spend the next few years i hope to narrow in on what i want to learn he explained his interest lies with science and tony hopes to have the oppor tunity to apply his knowledge practically he adds that this gives him a chance to travel mainly though the exchange gives him a chance to see how peo ple live in a different environ ment theyll have different priorities i hope to pick up a diffe rent point of view on life tony expects to do several pre sentations at his alma mater when he returns from zaire march 31 he and john robert son another markham resident who is on an exchange to india will coordinate a slide presenta tion to show at the markham com munity library and schools his is one of the first formal ex changes with zaire which has only recently settled down after years of violent revolution and despite the fact that he would have preferred to go to india hes happy to have been accepted to go to zaire each year many young cana dians send in their applications the first draft is done by random selection from there organizers of canada world youth conduct interviews and group tests to de termine who will be chosen when they told me i was chosen from the random selection it was like winning the lottery he said the program is designed so that participants dont see their fami ly or friends for the seven months they are away but tony ex plained hell be breaking that rule in november he was chosen valedictorian of his graduating class and will re turn to markham for commence ment exercises when he returns home for good he hopes to have a better idea of what he wants to learn and a broader perspective that comes from experience stouffville magic festival 1986 september 1720 ffature attraction dinner theatre of magic and music at the deer park inn childrens magic shows street magicsidewalk sale closeup magic canadian amateur magicians contest tickets phone 4 16 6102395 or 640 6060 a park for all seasons only 20 minutes from markham come for a good old fashioned family picnic 25 acres of picnic sights tables 400 ft waterslide wet wild outdoor rollerskating on paved forest trails rollerskates available kids playground trampolines more j8p p ndes donkey sgg iff8l trail rides petting farm hay rides horseback riding wilderness hiking trails food beverage available f how to gt tu t z hero claflcmont p v f 3 3 0 pktrng t 1 gn nq park hours weekdays 1000 am600 pm weekends 1000 am700 pm 4715070 i rates for company groups picnics available