HOLIDAY!

Here is my holiday in pictures, as promised. Prepare yourself, these pictures are pretty amazing, if I do say so myself!

My sister and I started in Barcelona where we saw Gaudi's cathedral, ate at a tapas bar, and strolled La Rambla--a pedestrian walkway with vendors and street performers.

We then traveled to Algecerias, Spain, where we took a ferry to Tangier, Morocco. This was Marian's first time on a real ship...basically anything larger than a canoe. See Marian on the ferry:

From Tangier we wanted to take a ferry to Gibralter, but no ferries were leaving that day, so instead we spent the day in Tangier, which is not a tourist destination. We walked and walked through the town against the mightiest wind I have ever encountered, accompanied by lots of sand. See Marian and her sister attacked by a sand storm:

Eventually we found the train station where we could exchange money, for the Moroccans used dirham (10dh=1€). The only ATM wasn't working, so a security guard gave the cash to the information girls who took us into the bathroon to exchange the money. I'm not even joking. It was like we were buying crack.

Once we had the goods, I mean the dirhum, we bought train tickets to go to Marrakech. Moroccans lined up a half hour before the train was supposed to leave so that they could make a mad dash for it when they opened the doors. They attacked the ticket guys, waving their tickets at them and shouting in French. My sister and I, along with the rest of the tourists, waited patiently and incredulously. Due to the madness we had to be boarded 2 or 3 at a time and be shown to our respective sleeper cabins. I slept great.

In Marrakech my sister and I walked around the entire city, once getting quite lost in the part of the city that was designed to get invaders lost so that they couldn't find the royal palaces. It worked! We ate in a pretty touristy place that served spaghetti and pizza, but we also tried a version of a local dish called pastilla--chicken with honey and chopped almonds in a phyllo dough shell (usually made with pigeon). It was good, but not as good as the amazing fresh-squeezed orange juice that you could get at a million different street vendors that looked like this:

From Marrakech we re-traced our steps back to Algecerias where we were held up by passport control for 1 1/2 hours, causing us to miss our train to Madrid. The scene at passport control is better expressed with a picture. The only additional commentary I'll give is that I almost passed out, and I've never had my bum touched by so many children.

After escaping with our lives and our luggage, we visited the train station and the bus station to determine our best course of action to making it to Madrid to get the rest of our luggage (stored in a locker) and get on with our trip. We decided to take the night train out of Algecerias and then try to find a bus on the Lisbon, Portugal.

In Lisbon we stayed in the nicest hostel ever (Easy hostel, check it out) for a night, enjoying a lovely shower (we hadn't showered in 3 days) before heading on to Lagos for a couple days at the beach! We pretty much laid out on the beach, ate, slept, and shopped a little, and spent more time at the beach in this position:

From Lagos we went back to Lisbon, stayed at the hostel again, then went to Fatima the next day. After Fatima, we spent a day in Madrid visiting royal palaces, lovely parks, and art museums before enjoying a lovely dinner with a couple glasses of sangria (ok, it was a pitcher). Another night train took us to Barcelona where we intended to perhaps sightsee a bit before catching our flights out. Before that could happen, tragedy struck. While I was away at the restroom brushing my teeth and my sister was distracted by a man asking a question, a thief made off with my purse! Gone was my wallet with all my cash (€ and £) and credit cards, driver's license, passport, digital camera, sunglasses, and my peanut M&Ms. Thankfully the policia at the train station were very helpful in filing the report and directing me to the US consulate where I got a temporary passport. My sister was kind enough to lend me the € to pay for the passport. I made it safely back to Northern Ireland and am now in the excellent care of a Corrymeela host family.

The trip, minus the ending, was fabulous and I loved seeing my sister and catching up on family news that just doesn't fit in emails. I feel a bit more cultured, and perhaps a bit wiser now, too.

Wish me luck/keep me in your prayers as this weekend I meet my housemates with whom I will spend the next year! I'm as anxious as a college freshman waiting to meet her roomates!

It's fun to stay at the...

Okay, I'm back from being abroad, but before I tell you about vacation, here's an update on my last week of work at Corrymeela before I left.
I worked with a group from a neighboring town with a COMPLETELY different accent than the locals I've met. Amazing, really. Sure New Yorkers have a slightly different accent from Bostonians, but I can understand both! This accent was beyond me. I sometimes found myself simply nodding along after asking them to repeat themselves more than 3 times. Often they just needed someone to listen to them, not to necessarily understand them, so hopefully I fulfilled that role successfully.
This group was mostly mums with their kids, and one father came as well. The kids were, well, kids. They were really active and excited to be away from home, I think. A couple were labelled ADHD, but they weren't really all that bad. Of course, I can say that now that it's been a couple weeks! :) Okay, so they climbed up onto the roof of the building, broke a glass door, and made a wee boy from the other group cry. Boys will be boys, right?
Anyway, the week was exhausting mostly because I was ill for part of the week. But it was interesting to see kids with their mums instead of in a youth group setting as I did the week before. This time I had more context to understand how the parents' behavior affected the kids' behavior. I believe there's a pretty strong link there. When parents yell and scream and threaten to beat their children for anything they do wrong, can we really be surprised when the kids yell at us and raise their fists?
Amid their misbehaviors were some really touching moments that sort of made up for the more trying moments. For instance, one wee little girl about 4 years old was very quiet and shy when they first arrived, even though she was related to most of the other children there. By the end of the week she was walking up to volunteers she had just met to demand to have her face painted as a butterfly after which she would run around declaring, "I'm a butterfly! I'm a butterfly!" Precious! Another boy of about 5 or 6 years old was helping a little boy from the house group who was probably about 2 years old, go up and down the big green slide. He was a gentle and attentive as any parent could be to a kid he had just met. And this was an ADHD "troubled" child. These little things give you hope that the program is allowing for these little moments where hopefully parents will see a different side of their kids and the parents will be relaxed enough, knowing that they are in a safe place, to let their kids go a little.
Two other things struck me about this group. First of all, many of the mothers were about my age. At least one was younger than me. Scary.
Second, the only father in the group shared that he has never read an entire book in his life. I realize that not every person likes to read as I do, but many like to read more. But even my brother, who has probably never willingly read a book in his life that wasn't about farm machinery, had to read books in school. Novels like Tom Sawyer or The Scarlet Letter. I can't imagine graduating from school without reading a whole book. Of course, I'm assuming that this gentleman graduated from school. I am glad that he shared this bit of information with us all because it helped me to realize what I have been blessed with and that I shouldn't assume that their lives have even closely resembled mine.

Youth Group

This week I worked directly with a visiting group from part of Belfast. I worked with an amazing group of 14 young teenagers, and we had a blast. We went banana boating (which involves an inflatable banana pulled behind a speedboat and lots of falling off), played capture the flag, and did a couple 'deeper' activities. I worked with Ronan and Alan, both of Northern Ireland, who were also amazing, and all three of us were the luckiest people on site.
The rest of the volunteers worked with a family group which consisted of approximately 100 people (we still aren't sure how many there were). There is an entire sheet of paper--front and back--listing all of the things that went wrong with this group. Fire alarms, fighting, sick children, swearing--you name it, it happened. This group was the most challenging that I have seen here at Corrymeela, and several who have been here much longer than I echo that sentiment. But the most amazing thing is, no one was sorry to have worked with them. Over and over I heard that, yeah, they were tough, but that all in all the kids were grand. Sure the parents were difficult at times, didn't always get along, and fed the kids way too many sweets, but they love their kids and are doing the best they can. Most importantly, volunteers and staff reiterated that this group is just the type of group that needs to come to Corrymeela, and as challenging as they were, they would rather work with this kind of group than a well-behaved, in bed by 11pm kind of group.
I certainly did not regret working with my youth group, cause my kids rocked, but I was happy that I had an occasion or two to chat with a couple of kids from the family group on my day off from my group. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that those volunteers were right. The kids ARE alright. I had a wee chat with a boy about laptops and his niece who walked on his toy laptop and broke it. He was the sweetest little boy, but I know he caused trouble throughout the week. It's amazing the dichotomy these kids are capable of. Then again, I suppose we all are.
One issue that cropped up this week more than others was the relative level of sexism compared to the States. It's hard to pinpoint sometimes, and some of it may seem petty, but I felt very uncomfortable at times. Part of me wants to stand up for myself and confront it, but another part of me hesitates at challenging what I feel is a cultural difference. I can't expect all of the men in Northern Ireland to treat me differently because I'm American. I'm trying to work within and admist the culture of Northern Ireland, not against it. I suppose I'll have to choose my battles carefully.

Belfast

This week has been my first week of holiday since coming to Ireland! I spent the first three days in Belfast with Lisa and Luong in a hostel downtown. These three days were a transition for them, going from volunteering to vacationing, and I guess it kinda was for me, too. But I have more volunteering to do. We met up with a friend, Katie, who lives in Belfast and volunteered with us at Corrymeela. She brought a few of her friends, who we proceeded to run into during the rest of our stay in Belfast. We also randomly ran into two other Americans who had volunteered at Corrymeela. So we all hung out together and we pretty much felt like we owned the city.

While Belfast is a lovely city with many interesting things to see, it can be startling from an American point of view, I think. First of all, our hostel was across the street from a Loyalist pub, meaning we should not enter that pub. It would kinda be like walking into a known mafia hangout. Also beginning in front of that pub, the curbstones are painted red, white, and blue. No, they are not big fans of the U.S., they are indicating their loyalty to the British. It also serves as a warning to any Belfast Catholics who might consider wandering through that part of town. The three of us were always conscious of our green and orange jackets--green being Republican and orange being Loyalist--depending on which part of the city we were in. We figured that if we walked together we would balance ourselves out. Who knew colors could be so dicey?

On Saturday as we were walking around, we could hear marching bands. We asked a friend we were having coffee with why there was marching. (We knew that 12 July is a huge marching day, but we weren't sure what this occasion was). Turns out that on the last Saturday in July, the Protestant bands march again. This means that groups of men march around playing drums and flutes and everyone else drinks. This also meant that the pub across the street from our hostel would do great business that night. I am definitely glad that I saw the marching. It's a staple of life here in Belfast, I'm sure.

History museum?

We went to the Ulster Museum in the middle of the city, next to Queens University. The current exhibit was titled something like 'Troubled Times in Ireland.' We were very excited, thinking that there would be a huge exhibit on the Troubles, right? Actually, the exhibit displayed times of war or conflict dating back to the bronze age and did not focus on the Troubles much at all. Nothing was there about the Troubles that I hadn't read elsewhere. When we thought back on it later, we realized that to say much about the Troubles was bound to offend one side or the other, resulting in more trouble. I would be very curious to read the history textbooks used in schools to see how they tell the story. I'd love to compare a textbook used in a Catholic school to that used in a state school. I think about the way we are taught about Native Americans back home. We were taught a very slanted version of history. History is more than retelling facts--it is framing the future as well. If students in Northern Ireland are taught a balanced history--not favoring Catholics or Protestants--perhaps the nation could hope for a more balanced future.

Touring the trouble

On Sunday, we met up with Katie for brunch (she laughed at our orders and the waitress gave us funny looks). Then we met up with Lisa's American friend, Justin, who has been in Belfast for the past year or so. He has been working at Queens University with Steve Stockman, a chaplain at Queens and a writer on Bono. Justin gave us a driving tour of the murals, peace wall, memorial gardens, and places of interest in Belfast. Most of it I had seen the last time I came, but some of the stories, and Justin's perspective, were new. It really hits you to see it all. And it's something that you have to see for yourself. You can see pictures of murals glamourizing paramilitary men, but until you see them in the context of a community of homes with children walking by everyday, it doesn't really hit. Again, I go back to the children. They walk by these murals that glorify terrorists--on both sides of the conflict--everyday. They walk past graffiti like 'KAT'--Kill All Tigs (Tigs=derogatory slang for Catholics). How does that breed peace, I ask?