I spent today in the most beautiful place. I was attending a training course called "Away From Violence" at Correymeela, a residential center on the coast. The grass was so green, the sea so deep blue, the sky so bright blue. The clouds still left room in the sky for the sun to shine, and the fushia and hydranga are still in bloom. There were rabbits everywhere. It was this little haven of peace, which makes the rest of today's events even more difficult to grasp.

First thing, in the taxi this morning, we were listening to a BBC newscaster asking Belfast callers how they felt about the taring and feathering of a man in a loyalist estate. Taring and Feathering. They tied him to a post, hooded, and covered him in tar and feathers and made him hold a sign that said "I am a drug dealing scumbag." The debate is over whether or not community should take the law into their own hands when they don't feel like they get enough support from the police. The frighteningly overwhelming response was yes, if the police won't do anything, we will.

Just after dinner tonight, we were called together, and the training drawn to a close due to another tragedy. A youth worker involved with the organization running the training was found dead in his home alongside his wife. Inital thoughts are that he killed his wife and then shot himself. The folks we were with just kept saying what a loss it was, how he was so great with the youth he worked with.

And then, our taxi driver home tonight had to take alternate roads because of rioting. Over football. The (Glasgow) Rangers qualified for the group stages of the Champions League, which apparently is cause for the local Catholic community to riot. As we drove through our roundabout there were at least seven of the big armored police trucks, crowds of people, calm and talking to police, and debris all over the road.

And that's just in Belfast.

Belfast Mela

I've been feeling a bit nostaligic this weekend, for all things pre-Belfast (meaning all things settled and comfortable), so this afternoon was a good bit of medicine. B, M and I went to the Belfast Mela in the Botanic Garden and I felt like I was at a festival back in the San Francisco Bay area. It's an annual festival for all things Indian (and a few things Chinese, Thai, Japanese). I ate AMAZING Indian food, saw a Bollywood dance team, some sort of wannabe Indian street band from Edinburgh (with two Indian looking drums, two snares, a trumpet, trombone, sax and bagpipes...). I was a bit dissapointed by the lack of crafters or artisans, but there were lots of community organizations seemingly looking to provide info to a minority population. The longest lines were at the tarot readers and henna painters, and a big old crowd gathered to watch the dog show done by the PSNI of agility, obedience and attack (right, I know, this isn't very Indian). It's just always good to be in a large crowd, feeling involved in the community.







We tried to get coffee afterward. The sign said to sit and relax and someone would be to take our order. We left after a long time and lots of people sitting way after us and ordering way before us and asking someone to take our order and still nothing. I don't think I've actually walked out of a place before...customer service is not the focus over here. So we found a Starbucks.

***
I went back to the neighborhood church this morning. I remembered that I did really like it when I went with L. I love the worship (and there's a possibility of singing with a worship team), and I love the effort they're putting into focusing on the local community, Ireland and the world. It's so refreshing to be in a church that's not forgotten that there's a big world outside of its door.

Giant's Causeway

Another road trip today. BI, a gentleman I met at church awhile back, set up and hosted a fantastic day for myself and three other international folks living or volunteering in Belfast. He drove us up the North Antrim Coastal Road, stopping at a hotel overlooking the Atlantic for a Cream Tea (coffee, tea, scones, jam, cream). Continued on through the Glens of Antrim, stopping often for photos (check out the link on the left) until we got to Ballycastle. The plan was to picnic at the harbour, but we got into town at the same time as the rain... The next stop was Carrick-a-rede rope bridge, one of the main tourist attractions in NI. It's this bridge that has been tossed across from the mainland to a wee island for over 350 years by salmon fishermen. And now it's a bit like disney world, with lines and lots of tourists and we all take pictures as we cross the bridge. It's an absolutely awesome location, though, with crystal-like water, and when we got there the mist was still sitting low on the hills. Thankfully, the rain cleared out and we moved onto Giant's Causeway. Wild. It's thousands (millions?) of these hexagonal posts created by volcanic activity. I was walking all over these rocks, trying to comprehend how they were created, and how they line the bottom of the ocean and appear again on the coast of Scotland...it makes my head hurt and makes me apprecate God's creativity in his creation of nature and its formations. From there we drove into Bushmills (home of the whiskey and old distillary) for tea at a chippy: traditional fish and chips. While eating we were treated to a local parade of the "Bushmills Protestant Boys" playing their fifes and banging their drums in all of their red, white and blue regala. And then home. So good. Thanks BI.

Seriously, I feel like I should be in Disney World floating past little mechanical mannequins that look like a conglomeration of all the people in the world. Or at least, the sound track should be my accompaniment. I walk into my first night of youth work level 2 training, and this lady looks really familiar, but I can't place her, so I think it's just one of those weird things. Until she introduces herself and I realize that she was my ninth grade history teacher. I am in BELFAST, 3000 miles away from home, and living 2 minutes away from a teacher I haven't seen in 10 years, who happens to be working with young people, and just now getting the local level youth worker qualification. Come on now, what are the chances?

The rest of the day seems mundane beyond that, but it was good. We helped with a funday in the park- playing twister and frisbee with kids and young people all day. It was great, warm, sunny, except for the £2 I payed for chips, which was just nuts. I think I am really having trouble remembering to live on a volunteer budget; all these goodbye parties don't help either. Meals out all day, two pubs and a taxi ride home just hurt.

Sketchy Blog Readers

Apparently people are reading my blog.

That is amazing, since, perhaps, TWO of you have sent me comments/thoughts/acknowledgement that you read it. I hearby deem you a "sketchy blog reader" if you are not one of the two. Come on folks, send some love...or at least let me know who is reading these random details about my life.

Craigavon

Today was class.

We took a short trip with the photo group to Craigavon for some banana boating. The yp were awesome, we had the best weather I've seen since arriving in NI, only one minor injury, and I got to go on the banana boat. It was a small group, 9 yp and 4 leaders, but I think the two groups are starting to mesh a bit, which is the point. The lake was beautiful, and really, there is nothing like riding on this big yellow raft with five other people only to get toppled into the water.

I sat in the van on the way home, the windows open and the warm air blowing around, surrounded by NI accents and young people and just felt completely content. Like I said, class.

Ulster Folk Museum

Today's rainy road trip was to Cultura and the Ulster Folk Museum. It's an open air museum, just like Colonial Williamsburg with a town and rural area. The buildings were all either actual buildings from around Ulster that had been dismanteled and rebuilt at the museum, copies of actual buildings, or buildings built to resemble those that really did exist. Three churches, a court house, police exhibit, schools, row houses, cottages, farms, pub, doctor, etc... there was tons to see (M, B and I meandered for about six hours). Most of the houses were from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, some were lived in all the way until the 1950s. Lots of photos in the link on the left. Enjoy!

Photo Project, again

While both youth workers were on holiday, J and I took four yp to Belfast Exposed for photo developing. We had only a minor mishap when the taxi driver and I both had the wrong address. We didn't realize it until the taxi left, and we had to hike across town, stopping every few blocks for directions. Thankfully, Belfast is a small city. The teens spent about an hour developing the photos they had taken, they were brillant. It was good fun to see how into it everyone was. Next time we go we'll have all the roles of film to print from, all the digital photos on computers, and the studio set up for studio shots. The folks at Belfast Exposed have been so good to us. The gallery was closed today for a special event (sad, I had wanted to see the current exhibit) but there was red carpet out front and real life models inside for, supposedly, the unveiling of a new coke can design. And while browsing, I noticed some postcards refering to a Belfast to Anacosia project. Turns out the guy we're working with spent awhile in Anacostia, living right in the middle of it and working on a photo exhibit. It's a small world.


An added bonus: Once the taxi driver figured out I was from the states he was excited to tell me about the time he drove Matthew Mcconaughey to Dublin. Too bad it's not THAT small of a world...

Highlights

It is all too easy to slack on writing once I skip a day/event, although, I suppose it's only been about a week since I last posted. Feels like much longer. So here are the highlights, minus deep thoughts:

Saturday, 4th August: St. George's Market, Belfast Pride Parade, City Hall Tour (it only took about four tries for me to make this tour happen...)




Sunday, 5th August: Checked out a new church. TONS of young people, good message (by a guest speaker), good worship (the guy who wrote "Days of Elijah" is their main leader, but in the states for the summer), but maybe a bit TOO much contemporary and nearly impossible to get to on a Sunday morning without a car.

Monday, 6th August: Saw Happily Never After with the wee ones. MUCH better than the Simpsons, which we saw last week (my apologies to any fans, but I truly thought it was awful).

Tuesday, 7th August; Hip Hop with the afterschools. So super. But those years of dance lessons sure don't show.

Wednesday, 8th August: Day trip on the train to Castle Rock with F, C, J and MS. We missed our first train...
played Uno on City Hall lawn

finally made it to Castle Rock

walked up the beach and coast to Massenden Temple and Downhill House. Amazing. (check out the link on the left for more photos)


Friday, 10th August: Belfast Hills Hike with C, F, R (visiting BVSer)


Saturday, 11th August: Day trip to Portaferry and Strandford (via bus) with R and N (visiting BVSers). These little towns are on the Ards Penninsula. By ferry they are 5 minutes apart, by car, 1.5 hours. We spent the day ducking the rain, sitting in coffee shops, eating the most amazing seafood chowder, crashing in the lobby of a hostel for a cup of tea and a sweet, following the walking tour guide. We got back to Belfast in time for AN's (another volunteer in Belfast) leaving do. We got drinks at a Maddon's pub while listening to Irish music and then began the hunt for a dance club that would let people in without id (since a few folks had left their's behind...) We ended up at Union Station, one of Belfast's premier gay bars, tunred it into our own little dance club, and rocked it. It was quite a night...it's nice to be a minority among ten Germans (three Americans) and eight guys (five girls).

Sunday, 12 August: Visited a church with a coworker. It was nice and very traditional. Again, a guest speaker, so I'll have to visit again when their new pastor is back from holiday.

Throw in a bit of work, a few episodes of Britain's Next Top Model, MANY Ultimate Uno games, two books (Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott- EXCELLENT, and The Pact, Jodi Picoult), lots of walking and public transport and that's my week. It's been super.

Photo Project, continued

This afternoon we took four yp from the Catholic side of the wall and six from the Protestant side on a tour of both neighborhoods. Before we started, we heard from two women who lived on the peaceline during the height of the conflict. They told us their stories of raising children before the wall went up, when the Catholics would hang out at the Protestant bonfires without incident. They remembered the violence, the people killled on their street corners, and the building of the wall. It began as barricades, and then filled in and grew taller and taller as people perfected the skill of throwing. We asked what it felt like to have the wall go up and they said it was like taking matters out of their hands. There was nothing more they could do, and now, they couldn't even see what was coming. All they would know was the stones, bricks, paint bombs that came flyng over the top. They told of how when the wall went up it bordered the Catholic ghetto, and now, it borders a Protestant ghetto instead. And both women were insistent that the young people in the group grab hold and change things. They urged them to dream for their community, to move forward and to be willing to Live for Belfast instead of the holding onto the mantra of the past: Die for Belfast.

From there we boarded a bus and drove through the streets of Woodvale and the Shankill (Protestand neighborhoods) and then through Ballymurphy, up the Springfield Road and the Falls Road (Catholic neighborhoods). Staff from Blefast Exposed brought nice cameras for the yp to use (they took, at least, hundreds of photos today) and we had tour guides give us tons of historical information. We saw murals, memorials, cemetaries, both sides of the wall, drove past mills and the old courthouse that connects to the Crumlin Prison. Of course, my personal camera was sitting at home on my dresser.