Brush Valley boy gets a great taste of life down under

BRUSH VALLEY - Joshua Roof should have no problem writing that ``how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation'' essay for his sixth-grade class at United Elementary School.

After all, he had that snorkeling excursion in the Great Barrier Reef.

And he can mention that some aborigines taught him how to throw a boomerang.

And of course he can elaborate on how he traveled halfway around the globe to generally do the bidding of former President Dwight Eisenhower.

Joshua, 11, for two weeks this summer helped improve international relations by being a student ambassador to Australia through the People to People Program.

The President's People to People Program was founded in 1956 by Eisenhower, who envisioned American students traveling overseas during the summer to learn, share and represent their country, their communities and their schools.

After Eisenhower left office, he arranged to have the program privatized as a non-governmental organization and for it to become a not-for-profit Missouri corporation now known as People to People International.

Joshua's involvement started more than a year ago when his parents, Jerry and Julie Roof, of Brush Valley, received a letter informing them that their son had been nominated to be a People to People ambassador. They had never heard of the organization, so they didn't mention it to Joshua for a couple of weeks while they checked out the authenticity of the group and the letter.

They never learned who nominated Joshua for the adventure.

``I was performing well and doing well in school,'' Joshua said. He suspects that one of his teachers nominated him for the ambassador experience.Australia, Joshua said, ``is a place I've always wanted to go.''

When he and his parents and other nominees met in Altoona with a People to People representative, Joshua learned that the ambassadors' itinerary would include a visit to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo in Queensland. And that was the deciding factor for Joshua. He's long been a Steve Irwin fan, his parents said.

Joshua next had to collect letters of recommendation from teachers and a family friend, and he had to complete a community service project. He helped with a fish fry at the Church of the Resurrection in Clymer.

He also had to make a presentation on the Great Barrier Reef and a presentation about himself so that other student ambassadors on the trip would know him better.

And since the People to People organization does not want parents to pay for their child's trip, Joshua also had to raise $6,500.

Unsolicited donations - including his dad's Christmas bonus from work - and relatives who ``splurged on him'' helped him pull together the cash he needed.

Long-distance traveling was not completely new to Joshua. He'd previously flown with his family to Florida and New Mexico. But his parents were uneasy about allowing their young son to fly away so far for so long with people who were new acquaintances.

``Jerry was really gung-ho'' about the trip at first, Julie Roof said. But as the departure date approached, ``He was getting more worried and I was OK,'' she said.

On June 27, Joshua met other ambassadors in Pittsburgh, and they flew to Los Angeles, where they joined more ambassadors, and together the group of 41 students and their People to People leaders started the 14-hour flight across the Pacific. They arrived in Sydney on June 29.

While there, the ambassadors toured the Sydney Opera House, took a cruise around the harbor, visited the 2000 Olympic Stadium and went surfing.

Next they traveled north along the coast to Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, with stops at UnderWater World and Irwin's Australia Zoo, where they enjoyed a wildlife show hosted by the late wildlife conservationist and TV personality's wife, Terri, and his daughter, Bindi, and son, Robert.

Next came snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, a visit to an Australian school, exploring in Capricorn Cave, and a few days on a sheep farm where they slept in little huts, went horseback riding and helped fill in washed-out areas with rocks.

Another highlight of the trip was a visit to an aboriginal cultural center.

``They did dancing for us, and taught us how to throw a boomerang,'' Joshua said.

He also learned to whirl a bullroarer, an ancient ceremonial musical instrument that was also used in communicating over long distances.

Along the way Joshua took hundreds of digital photographs, sampled the cuisine - some familiar, like fish and chips, some exotic, like crocodile and kangaroo - and at times struggled to grasp the dialect.

``When they told me what the total was, when I was buying something, I had a terrible time understanding them,'' he said.

Among his souvenirs are an authentic Crocodile Dundee-style wool hat, a necklace with sharks' teeth, a boomerang that he's careful not to throw near his home because there's a corn field nearby, and a bullwhip that he's already learned to crack impressively.

``It was really dry,'' Joshua recalled of the Australian landscape. ``Everything was flat and far off,'' and the ambassadors traveled long distances by bus during their two-week tour.

The People to People representatives recommend that the young ambassadors do not take cell phones with them on their trips. So whenever Joshua got near a computer with Internet service, he'd fire off an e-mail message to his parents and sister, Madison. His parents had his itinerary and a phone number at each of those stops, so they would call him every other day or so.

``If we called at 4 p.m. today, it would be his 6 a.m. tomorrow,'' his mother said. It was usually a wake-up call just as he was about to start another full day.

Joshua said the People to People experience is something he would readily do again, and something he would recommend to his friends.

And, he said, he's looking forward to more travels abroad. His first picks would be China and Slovakia.

Among the early trustees who helped Eisenhower lead the People to People ambassador program five decades ago were Walt Disney, Bob Hope and J.C. Hall, the founder of Hallmark Cards.