Wearing Really Big Hats

This weekend I wore a huge hat. A hat that is normally worn by someone who is much more experienced and better at her job than I am. But I survived. Let me explain...

Twelve families were scheduled to come up this weekend for a residential away with one of our programme workers to focus on positive parenting. I, along with two other long-term volunteers and three short-term volunteers, were assigned to work with these 30 kids and 18 adults. I was very excited to work with these people and the programme worker. Late Friday morning, about 8 hours before the group was to arrive, I am told that the programme worker is sick, and she wants me to organize a few things for her so the residential can still happen. Sure, I say. It even gets me out of housekeeping for the day! So there I go, arranging things, checking things. The group arrives, we welcome them. They get their safety speech and they are told that they are to go to me if they have any problems! Holy cow! Right. So there it was. I was officially in charge.

The weekend went fine. If the programme worker had been there, the group would have had a totally different experience, but they still had a great time. It was weird to be "in charge" of other volunteers who were my peers. I've never been appointed a leader of my peers. I've been elected, but that's different. But it worked out alright. Things weren't always the smoothest, but I don't think the families noticed. The evaluations all came back with positive comments, and the kids seemed to be having a blast. Several of them came to like me so much that they occasionally attached themselves to my arms, legs, waist...everything. And no one saved me from them! But they were so cute and good that I couldn't get angry at them.

There's lots of stories of all the cute things they said and did, and all the things that I learned from being a "programme worker" for a weekend. But I'm exhausted and can write no more.

Here's another photo from New Year's. Jonny felt left out that he wasn't in any of my pictures, so this should make him feel better!

2007!

New Year's Eve--Belfast style! I rang in the new year at the home of one of the programme staff members with whom I work. Four of my fellow long-term volunteers were there, too, along with one of the short-term volunteers. In the first photo are Jason, Daniel, Alan, and Niki. The next photo is Daniel, with the odd expression on his face. I wanted to catch a candid photo of him, but my camera took so long to focus, that he ended up posing in a very silly way! Hehe... I would add other pictures from the evening, but not everyone knows/has given permission for me to post their photos on an open website.

The night was lots of fun! Our hostess supplied wine and yummy food (which was good, cause I didn't really eat dinner that night!) and a place to sleep, even if it was the floor of the attic. The six of us volunteers had a slumber party up there, and in the morning we tried to get an Ulster fry delivered up to us for breakfast! No such luck. Couldn't even get a hot cup of coffee. So we stumbled down the fold-out stairs, made ourselves look as human as possible, and made our own coffee or tea. Some headed home, some to Ballycastle, and I remained in Belfast for one more night.

When my holiday break was over, I returned to Ballycastle, and all of the volunteers went for a retreat up on the mountain, Knocklayd. Don't worry, we weren't camping or anything silly and outdoors like that! We stayed in a house and had beautiful food. As a group, we were all supposed to climb the mountain one afternoon, but as I was sick with a horrible cold, I stayed back and played a board game with the other lazy people.

After our retreat, I was off for the weekend, then I worked the next 12 days straight, basically. I might have had an afternoon off somewhere in there, but I always had another group to prepare for, so I never really got to turn myself off and stop working. I worked with two American groups, and decided that I don't like Americans! Just kidding! I like Americans; I just didn't come to Northern Ireland to work with them all the time. Oh well. Daniel and I worked with the second group of Americans, and we were in control! We planned an delivered the program for them. It was definitely a learning experience! We didn't fail, but we didn't pass with flying colors, either, I don't think. But I'd love to try again sometime.

After the Americans, I worked with two primary schools groups. The first was at their school; the second was on-site here. In both cases, classes from both Catholic and Protestant schools were meeting together to get to know each other and learn about things like friendship and their own identity. Both groups were exhausting and fun! So full of energy they were, so empty of energy was I, especially after the long week I'd had! So today (my first full day off in two weeks) I slept until 12:30pm and didn't get up until 1:30pm. I feel so much better.

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On a totally unrelated note, I finally got some pictures of our Thankgsiving dinner! I meant to write about it a long time ago, but I never had the photos to go with it, so I didn't! So imagine it is 2 months ago....

Crystal, Justin, Emma, (mid-term volunteers) and I cooked a Thanksgiving feast for 40+ people! We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, fresh rolls, pumpkin pie, pecan pie,and a cranberry parfait. And we pretty much made it all ourselves. We had help with the turkey and the gravy, but that's it. And nothing flopped! Nothing was burnt! Everyone loved the food, decorations, and the event as a whole.
In the first photo is Justin pretending to take a huge spoonful of whipped cream while Crystal is meticulously working on her cranberry parfait.
The second photo is of me brushing my fresh bread rolls with butter as they come out of the oven. Yum! The third photo is of Emma showcasing the beautiful decorations that

she worked so hard on, after helping with the food as well! The huge U-shaped tables should give you some idea of the number of people that we fed. Yet we still had to pull up additional chairs to the table, as people just kept coming! The last picture is of the desserts table. There you can see what remained of the three desserts at the end of the meal. Not much!

Life's a journey, not a destination

My Christmas travels began on the Marine corner bus stop in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. It might have been 9:30am, but through the mist over the sea, it looked much later, as the first picture shows. The cliff is Fair Head, and it's one of the natural attractions of the north Antrim coast (which was named the 5th most beautiful places in the world, just so you know). We--Niki, Jason, and I--travelled by bus to Coleraine, and then train to Londonderry/Derry where we met up with Emma, a short-term volunteer at Corrymeela. Then we boarded the rickety bus of the Lough Nilly bus company, the only bus service that goes to Malin Head, the most northernly point in Ireland--our destination.


The bus ride was bumpy but uneventful. We were dropped off at a sign pointing toward the Sandrock Holiday Hostel. So we started walking. The hostel was about a mile away, perhaps, but the view of the setting sun (at 3:30pm) made it very worth it! We might have been quite giddy and excited about our choice of holiday spot at this point. We might have been nearly skipping and jumping up and down with our huge backpacks. And...we might have stopped occassionally to take pictures. Like of the old bathtubs that were in the pastures for the cattle to drink from. Or maybe people really take baths in the middle of the fields. No judging here... We knew we must be getting close to the hostel when we could again see water ahead of us. Our hostel was literally a stone's throw from the coastline. Everyday would could have watched the sun rise from our window--if we had been awake! We did watch it set every afternoon--we were always up by 3:30pm! We cooked, slept, read, wrote, walked, pubbed, slept, dined, wined, thought, and watched movies for four days here.
Then we again boarded the Lough Nilly and returned to Coleraine where we were picked up by a volunteer from Kilcranny House, another peace organization in Northern Ireland. We stayed with him for Christmas and had a lovely time.
After Christmas, we all split and went our seperate ways. I headed to the Republic of Ireland (seperate country from Northern Ireland, where I live), traded my British sterling pounds for Euros, and bussed my way down to Galway.

The train....
There's a saying that life is a journey, not a destination. This has never been more true for me than in my journey to Galway. Once in Galway, I didn't do a whole lot. I didn't really do anything that I couldn't have done in any other mid-sized Irish city. But the trip down was very interesting. I've decided that the Irish have an inexplicable need or desire to share their life stories with total strangers. On the train from Coleraine to Derry I met two people with connections to Corrymeela (small world!) and one of the them, a woman who lived in Northern Ireland but was raised in the Republic, told me about all of the places she's lived, the things she's done, her niece in Galway, and her opinions on any subject that was even hinted at. She must not have been any more than an inch over five feet, and her feet dangled from her train seat across the aisle from me. She struck me as a lonely person just wanting to be listened to. So I obliged.

The bus...
From Derry I picked up my bus that would eventually, in 5 hours, make it to Galway. After my interesting experience on the train, I was keen to have some quiet time to read, write, or listen to music. But that wasn't in the cards. Twenty minutes into the trip, the bus started to fill, and an old woman sat down next to me. She didn't waste too much time in striking up conversation. In the space of the remaining 4 hours, I knew far more than I ever imagined necessary about this woman! I knew where she had been and why, where she was going, where she grew up, about her family, her education, her religion, and everything she knew about whatever we were passing by. And she asked all the questions of me to learn the same information about me! I teeter-totted back and forth between being a tad annoyed and completely amused. But mostly I was amused. The woman was a complete sweetheart. She told me that she lived several miles outside Galway, and that if she lived closer to the city she would have taken me home with her so I wouldn't have to stay in a hostel! She asked if I would be cooking for myself in the hostel, and I said that yes, I would be. So she insisted that I take the sandwiches and giant piece of Christmas pudding that her daughter-in-law had sent with her! I tried to resist, but I could sense that the grandmother instinct in her was not worth arguing against. So I thankfully gave in. With a mischievious grin, she told me that the pudding had real whiskey in it and that I'd better not eat it all at once! I laughed and said that I wouldn't. Good thing, too! Even half of the portion had enough alcohol in it to have an effect! It was very good.
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The end!!!
I realize that very few will make it all the way to this point of the post. Too much text and too little photos, I know. So I'll end this one here and finish review of my break with another post, another day.