Botantic Gardens and Queen's University

Once again, Lena took these pictures. She is always taking sneaky profile pictures of me.

The honeymoon is OVER

I admit it, I was completely blinded by my lust for everything N. Irish when I first arrived in Belfast. I mean the grass really is greener here! Then I realized that the reason for that is the ungodly amount of precipitation. Not only is the grass greener, but so are the roofs. I could probably count on two hands the amount of days in my 5 months here that there hasn't been any form of rain, fog, snow, sleet, or forms of precipitation that I haven't even encountered before. Hollywood must have had Belfast in mind when it created the iconic movie rain. I have gotten so soaked walking in the rain for 10 minutes that I looked like I just got out of the shower. Actually a typical rain here probably has more pressure than my shower.

I know I am living here during one of the coldest winters in a long time, but even when I first arrived on a mild October day, it wasn't the cold outside that bothered me, it was the temperature of my house. These people keep heat on a timer, portioning and rationing human comfort in an attempt to save money. Americans don't realize how spoiled we are when it comes to temperature control. When we are cold we just turn the heat up a little nudge. Or if you are in my family, you turn it up with thick gloves so that you leave no finger prints and then blame it on Adam. "Yeah dad, I put some wood on the fire, I don't know why anyone would turn the heat up?!?! But, I did see Adam lingering in the hall earlier". Something like that. Here, I don't even know how the heater works. Even when the sisters are out of town, I have no control of the heat. Which is probably a good thing for their heating bill.

Other than the weather, I guess I am just weary of the little differences. I am constantly wrong footed in even the most simple of interactions. A few weeks ago I was sitting around with the youth team before club. There had been a meeting earlier in the day and as usual the extra food was left for the youth team to either eat or throw away. I wasn't feeling well that day so when Andrea offered me some food I declined, besides I said "I have some pizza in my purse". My coworkers all paused and looked as if waiting for the punchline of a hilarious joke. Unfortunately that joke is me. "How did you manage that?" One of them asked. Blinking and looking from one expectant face to the next I finally realized my mistake, women's wallets here are called purses and a purse is a bag. Sometimes I think that it would be easier if I actually did speak a different language than the N. Irish. Then at least I would have a good excuse when I said stupid things like "Darn, now my pants are all wet!" in front of children. My coworkers wouldn't look at me like I was crass, but instead pity me for being the ignorant nonnative norn irish speaker that I am.

The Angry Mob

I have been putting off writing on this topic since last November--since the first riot that I was involved in as a youthworker. I have started multiple post about this topic, but have never been able to finish one because it is difficult to describe fear. I could write about how I can hear the blood pounding in my ears, or how I have been literally unable to react to the situation around me. I could write about the intense shivers that come after the adrenaline rush and the desire to cry. None of this would express how I felt though, because fear is really hard to pin down. All I know is that the worst part of fear is feeling defeated before you have even started. That is how I felt tonight.

Tonight's youthwork began pleasantly enough. I was on detached tonight with D (part of our new schedule) and we had a very interesting engaging visitor--a man from a consulting firm who is doing work with our Good Relations department (and by department I mean one person). We went on our normal route and spoke to and saw a fair number of young people. We even got to talk to a group for a long time about the walls, sectarianism, catholics, marching, etc. Basically a good evenings work. Soon after we had dropped our visitor back off at his car, D got a call from one of the youthworkers in club saying that a fight was on at one of the wastelands (large tracts of empty space). D and I investigated the area, but could find no sign of a fight so we started heading back. As we approached the pedestrian gate a few of the Catholic young people came out of youth club, one with a metal pipe in his hand. Just after saying our hellos, we heard shouts from across the street from behind the peace wall. On the other side were a group of protestant boys shouting and jeering at the three catholics.

Now this is where time begins to go all wonky. I have no idea if this lasted 5 minutes or 15, but I do know that a lot can happen at the interface in a short amount of time. Before we could stop them, the three catholics rushed the gate, leaving us no option but to push between them as bottles and bricks came flying over the wall. To describe what happened next would be pointless. Dealing with an incident at the interface is standing in the cold till you can't feel your toes, shouting at young people to stop--stop throwing things, stop pushing me, stop shouting things at the other side, and most importantly just stop and go home. This time was slightly different than other times though in that all the uncovered faces were unfamiliar, though I think I know who the one covered face was, and these guys were aggressive.

It makes all the difference in the world when you know the names of the young people you are dealing with, for both us as youthworkers and for the kids. Its hard to imagine one of the young people who come to club coming at me with a brick and yelling at me to get out of the way as happened tonight. During an incident last Friday, young people pushed me to try to get to the other side, but yelling "Hey, Ron you need to back off!" works fairly well when you have a history with that young person and when you have their parent's number handy. Tonight though yelling didn't deter them and they just kept pushing and pushing. The only advantage I had was height while they had numbers.

Unfortunately this story does not have a happy ending. Well, it does for me, I am home safe--a little shaken, but fine. For the young people, nothing was resolved. It wasn't our diligence that ended the riot, neither logic nor compassion. The only thing that can make a group of young people scatter quickly is paramilitaries pulling up on either side of the wall. Fear was the force that stopped the riot tonight. Fear is an emotion that the young people know well.

Corrymeela

From my day trip along the north coast. It was cold, but a very beautiful drive.

At least its just the police blowing things up

What is it with this city and blowing things up or setting things on fire? Between the destruction caused by paramilitary bombs during The Troubles, throwing fireworks at each other around Halloween, the illegal bonfires that are tolerated or ignored (although how you can ignore a twenty foot burning pile of tires and wood is beyond me) during marching season, you would think they had their fill. But no, now the police have gotten into the action.

I was falling asleep on Friday night after a surprisingly wonderful youth club, but otherwise crazy week, when a huge explosion woke me up. Its amazing how quickly you become accustomed to a new environment. If I had woken to sounds of explosions in Cincinnati, I would have been up and running around in a panic. In Belfast, I turn over and try to decide after the third explosion in a half hour how close a firework would have to be to my house to make the windows rattle.

I found out on Sunday that some bank robbers left their vans near my house and so the police called the army in to blow them up...you know standard procedure. I guess it has to do with the popularity of car bombs? Its called a "controlled explosion", but I don't really understand--an explosion is an explosion right? If it was a 400 pound car bomb, like the one that only partially detonated last week, wouldn't that be like still a really big explosion...like a "controlled" huge explosion? I know its just that I don't understand and there really is a reason. Someone please enlighten.
Here is a link to an article about it http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8409519.stm

My neighborhood

I took this a few weeks ago on my way to my bus stop. Woodvale park is on the left and on the right is a typical street in my area. Most of the houses are abandoned.

Why youthworkers have to be young and unmarried

Ok, ok, stop with the emails. I get it. I haven't written a blog in awhile, but I do think about it a lot. The reason I have neglected writing--I work, sleep, and eat. And when I am not working, sleeping, or eating, I am thinking about one or all activities. Today I worked 10.5 hours--2 of those hours were spent on detached youthwork in the bitter cold night. When I get home the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer and write. Mostly I want to curl up under my electric blanket, eat mince pies (why don't we have these in the States, they are amazing), and drink something warm. I don't usually work such long days, but the Minister of Education is coming on Monday for a youth leadership awards ceremony and I have been put in charge of decorations. I spent the last 3 weeks saving children's artwork from the bin (which reminds me that one time in my first weeks here while cleaning up in the playroom, I told a child to just throw the train set in the bin, I meant the plastic box that its kept in, he of course thought I was telling him to throw it away, that was an awkward moment) and coaxing 3-9 year olds to draw pictures of their ideal community so that I have enough artwork to put up on the walls in the play hall where the ceremony will be held. My boss is under the impression that we save all the children's artwork and so she told me just to ask one of the other youthworkers to get everything out of storage. Little does she know that storage must be code for dumpster. I think my mom put all of my artwork into storage too.
I have been absolutely frantic trying to get enough stuff together, because this is my first big responsibility and I really want to do a good job.

But anyway, like I said 11 hours isn't typical. I have been asked what is a normal day, but the truth is there really isn't a normal day; my schedule changes all the time. Usually though on Mondays all I have is afterschools. So I go in at 1:45 and stay till 5:30 (half five is how they would say it here, never five thirty). I am one of four afterschools staff--2 come in every day, Lena comes in Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I go in Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. We usually have around 15 kids age range 3-10. It is sometimes absolute madness, but its getting better. Also on Mondays I have been doing youthwork training from 6-8 pm, but that will only go for another week.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I come in at 1 and work till 9:30. I do several different things. I do some general office things for youthwork, such as going through all the registration forms and updating numbers and adding new young people to our contact list. I also am going to start working on a nonviolence flow chart to help our head youthworker teach nonviolence. After I am done with that she wants me to work on all these action plans and other things that will help us better understand what our goals are for youth work and if we are achieving our goals. On Tuesdays starting at 5:30 we have junior youthclub and then catholic youthclub. On Thursdays (now that my child protection class is over) we do detached youthwork in the evenings. This involves walking in a huge loop, with lots of detours in between, around the Shankill and Springfield. The purpose is to try to engage with new youth and to interact with them in their space. For instance tonight we met a bunch of the catholic boys who come to club at one of their favorite spots burning a large plastic crate. We had a nice chat and warmed up a bit while they slagged us and turned all of our names into dirty phrases. This is considered a good interaction and just good craic if you ask me.
On Wednesdays I have afterschools and then detached. And then on Fridays I have afterschools and protestant youthclub. This is all subject to change though depending on many different factors. I also attend community meetings for groups with long names like The Greater Shankill Community Safety Council or something like that.
Add to all of this the fact that I had a persistent cold for most of November and killer hangovers every weekend (if I didn't drink it would be culturally insensitive, well that's my excuse anyways)--I haven't had much energy to write. Now if you will excuse me I think Sister Myra is going to bed so I can finally watch what I want on the tv and then go to bed to start the crazy cycle of sleep, eat, work all over again.