A fascinating presentation was made, when the GSE Program was presented to Arcadia Rotary on Friday. The District 2450 GSE team comprised of five members, attended the meeting and presented individual portraits of the team and the second largest district of Rotary International. The Five members, two men and three women, of the team presented individualized presentations about themselves, their families and life styles. This exchange group gave an excellent program about their district and countries it encompasses.
District 2450 is made of nearly 150 clubs located on three continents, Asia, Africa and Europe. There are ten countries in the District: Armenia, Bahrain, Georgia, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Egypt and Sudan. The average size of a club in the district is between 25 to 40 members.
The team leader is Robert M. Srouji, past president of the Amman, Jordan Rotary Club. He is a business man, who established a trade firm importing and selling paint and accessories. In 2005, he founded Heidan Coating Technologies, L.L.C., which manufactures high tech paint in Jordan. He joined Rotary in 1992. He has three sons, has many hobbies and his dream is to extend his business to various international markets.
Sahar Wahbeh is also from Amman and is a special education teacher specializing in students with learning disabilities. She showed us pictures of her family, the family farm and a typical Jordanian breakfast.
Lara Hahham was born in Amman and has a Masters in English language from the University of Jordan. She currently works as a translator at the U.S. Embassy in Amman. She likes to travel having gone to Egypt, Turkey, New York and Washington D.C. She had pictures of three traditional Jordanian foods: Mansaf, baglava and knafeh. She claims the best coffee in the world is Jordanian coffee (ahwa).
Lena Karaoghlanian also was born in Amman and has a bachelor’s degree in money and finance. Her first job was for Kuwait Bank. Currently, she works for the Jordanian treasury, in the investment department. When asked about banking there as compared to the U.S., she said they were very similar. A typical fun weekend is to go to the Dead Sea for swimming, boating and water skiing. She speaks three languages. She is a member of the Armenian Folk Dance Group (Spitak) and has performed with the group in many places. The last member of the team is Peter Alfred, who was born in Alexandria, Egypt and lives in Cairo. He has a bachelor’s in communications engineering and is currently working in the largest Mobile operator in Egypt. Like many of his team members, he spoke of a favorite vacation spot Sharm al Sheik, on the Red Sea, which is world renowned for its diving and snorkeling. He is an avid bowler and squash player and loves watching movies.
The introduction of the GSE team was given by Ernie Jensen, who explained that because of the turmoil in the Middle East, Rotary District 5300 did not send its own team to District 2450 in esxchange. It looks like next year, a team from the U.S. will be going to Chile