Goleta residents Dana Goba and Liz Werhane will depart Wednesday for a one-month visit to Thailand, courtesy of Rotary International District 5240, which includes Santa Barbara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo and Kern counties. The two are five who were chosen for the trip.
The team leaves Wednesday for northern Thailand, where they will serve as ambassadors from the United States and experience life in Thailand.
Goba, community health coordinator for Cottage Health System, said the trip is special not only because it’s free, but because the team will interact so much with the locals — staying in their homes and seeing their places of business.
“I couldn’t book this trip, this kind of experience, any other way,” Goba said. “It’s only possible through Rotary.”
She added that she’s also eager to see elephants.
Werhane said the preparation has been its own adventure.
“I’ve been vaccinated for diseases I’d never heard of,” she said. “I’ve been reading books about the history, culture and food of Thailand, and I’m eager to see, smell and taste it firsthand.”
Goba graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in business administration. Werhane, a UCSB graduate with a master’s degree from the University of Oregon, is the internal communications manager for Citrix Online.
Both women are members of the Rotaract Club of Santa Barbara, a community service organization for young professionals.
The team members have met monthly since September preparing for the trip. Their preparations have included learning about Buddhism, malaria prescriptions and other vaccinations, securing visas and passports, practicing songs such as “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and “God Bless America,” laughing at their own attempts to learn the Thai language, and wondering how they will ever fit what’s on their packing list into reasonably sized luggage.
The other team members are Max Copenhagen of Camarillo, Nina Kobayashi of Oxnard and Sergio Reyes of Bakersfield.
Click here for the team’s blog, on which they’ll share stories and photos.
Each year, District 5240 partners with a different country, welcoming distinguished representatives from that country and sending American delegates to the partnering country. The program, Group Study Exchange (GSE), includes one Rotarian team leader and four non-Rotarian professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 living within the four-county area. The selection process includes an application, letter of interest and in-person interview. As this year’s team leader, Copenhagen has earned an honor awarded to only one Rotarian among the members of more than 70 clubs in this Rotary district.
Write to ljervis@noozhawk.com