La Prensa Grafica

Yesterday we were talking to Christian, our volunteer from El Salvador, about his journalism work in El Salvador. He worked for the newspaper called La Prensa Grafica. He told us stories of being taken in a helicopter to see what was happening during a volcano eruption in El Salvador, or interviewing the mothers of gangsters for mothers day. You can look up his newspaper online and just search for Christian Guevara to get a list of articles and photos submitted by Christian. http://www.laprensagrafica.com/. It's all in Spanish of course.

Our first visitor

A couple of weeks ago I heard that Jonathan Dueck, one of my CIT's three years ago, was travelling Europe. I told him that he should come visit us if he was in Northern Ireland and maybe volunteer at Corrymeela. On Friday last week I received an email from Jonathan asking if he could come and on Monday he arrived. Jonathan had been cycling France lonely and growing tired of the same food, so since arriving at Corrymeela he has been very thankful for things like a bed and cooked food. On Tuesday Jonathan and myself did a famous walk from the Giant's Causeway to Ballintoy Harbour. We were stunned by the scenery at every bend. The walk took us 5 and a half hours. Wednesday Jonathan began volunteering at Corrymeela and hopes to volunteer until next week Monday or Tuesday before he continues to travel other countries. Above is a photo of Jonathan and below are pictures of some of the scenery on our walk.

More on our Long Term Volunteer Team

This is a photo of Helen and Daniel. Daniel comes from Ballintoy, which is not very far from here along the Northern coast. He has a degree in Computer Science and has a qualification in teaching English as a second language. He was born at almost the exact same time as Niki, so his birthday is June 20th. Daniel hopes to go into Youth Work. Helen's birthday was today and she turned 27. She comes from North Belfast, has a Psychology degree and hopes to go into Social Work.

Derry/Londonderry

We've been to the city of two names for the last couple day. Jason and I, along with the american volunteer Marian, sent a lovely two days in Derry. We spent most of our time wandering around inside of the old walled city, visiting museums, churches and coffee shops. We also went to the theater twice (The last king of Scotland and Miss Potter, both very good movies). It was a nice treat seeing as Ballycastle doesn't have a movie theater. Here are a few pictures. Jason will be updating the blog again soon with some descriptions of our dear housemates.