Rathlin Island

Jason and I had our first weekend off this weekend and we choose to go camping on Rathlin Island. It's an island right across from us, a 45 min. ferry ride. Saturday we had a beautiful day which we spent exploring and relaxing. The island has 4 lighthouses, we visited the east one. It's full of beautfully green rolling hills. There's stone ruins everywhere. We spent a fair bit of time in a cove watching seals play. That night we camped in the island's only pub's field. We woke up to a down pour, which unfortunetly lasted 3 hours. But overall it was a great chance to get away and do some exploring. For any of those who are coming to visit us, I'm sure we'll make it to Rathlin. During the summer months it's a breeding ground and sanctuary for many types of birds, so Jason looking forward to returning at that point.
Note the two seals on the rocks in this picture.

Belfast Murals cont...

It's been a week now working. I've helped to host three groups. A church group and two schools groups. Above are three photos from last week. The three above photos are taken in Belfast, the top is a photo of a Protestant mural, next is a photo of a police station and lastly is a "peace" wall which is up in an interface area.

Belfast Murals

Here are some photos of Belfast. Nationalist Catholic and Loyalist Protestants will mark their territory with flags, colours and murals. The photos above capture some of the murals from Catholic territory, I'll try to add more pictures of murals later.

Northern Coast

Last Thursday as part of our training we got to spend a day touring parts of the Northern Coast. The rock formations are unique especially at the famous Giant's Causeway; but in general the scenery is beautiful no matter where you are on the coast. We went to the famous rope bridge which used to be a good fishing location for salmon. We went to Ballintoy and the picture above gives a taste of that small town. We then went to the Giant's Causeway and made a couple of stops on the way back.

Irish English: A First Impression

The Irish accent includes some key words to learn if you are a Canadian and want to sound Irish: lovely, brilliant, aye and wee. There are also some words that we use that may give the Irish some confusion. For instance what we call a "flashlight," is a "torch," a "trunk" is a "boot," "pants" are "trousers," a "jacket" is a "coat," a "sweater" is a "jumper," "supper" or "dinner" is "tea," "snack" is "supper," "underwear" are called "pants," a "truck" is a "lorry," a wrapped ice cream treat is a "lollypop," "running shoes" are "trainers," and lastly the "washroom" is a "bog."

Time of Reflection

This is a space that could potential be a very reflective spot for me. It's looking out to Rathlin Island from Corrymeela.

A Gradual Unfolding

We've only been at Corrymeela for a couple of days, but it's felt like a long time. There are a lot of things that we have learned about the program, the history and the people. I'll maybe break up this post in those three ways:

People: "This is going to be the best year of your life," said Corrymeela Director three times in a row to the full year volunteers while discussing the centre and its' mission. We arrived at Corrymeela with a warm welcome from community members and staff Sunday evening. There was a nice room to await us and three or four people asking us a number of times if everything was to our satisfaction. The people are really great; very welcoming and lots of character.

History: Corrymeela has been around for about 40 years. It was founded by a prisoner of war and who found that while in prison that they needed to get past their differences in prison in order to get a voice for decent treatment. Out of this experience grew a community that is founded on this idea of an open and safe place for people to come from all backgrounds. The Corrymeela symbol of a diamond divided in four parts is to represent people coming together from the four corners of the earth. The community started before "The Troubles" in Ireland, but proved to be a significant safe haven for both protestants and catholics to escape the bombs and the bullets. Many people from all over the world and from different backgrounds come to the center for retreat or group learning/development.

Program: Currently Corrymeela tries to get about a third or half of its volunteers from Ireland and the other part from other countries. There are 12 full year volunteers which help out in many aspects of the community work and live in community on site. As well as full year volunteers are short term volunteers that work for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks at a time. There are also finance workers, kitchen workers, program workers, directors, managers etc. Groups come in usually with their own program leaders or with a Corrymeela program worker and we, in pairs or more, facilitate/ host/ participate with/ mediate with groups. If we're not with a group we might work with housekeeping for a few days, which involves changing sheets and wiping walls or toilets, or we might be working in the kitchen helping to prepare, serve, and cleanup meals throughout the day. We get two weeks off at Christmas when we have to leave the site and about three or four weeks off during the rest of the year. Currently we are getting two weeks of training. We get about 6 days off a month.

When we are working with groups it will be mostly all day everyday until the group leaves. The main kind of groups that come in are children or youth groups or family groups.

Ballycastle...home

We've arrived, at long last. Last night we had a potluck at our host family's home where we finally met all of our new house mates. This afternoon we were driven up to the Corrymeela Ballycastle centre, it took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get here from the house in Belfast.

Ballycastle is as beautiful as we had imagined. There are several different buildings. The main one is "the House," it is actually what I would compare to a lodge. Then there's the Village and the Cottages, which are residential places for people to stay. There's the Croi (said Cree), which is our worship building and is magnificant inside. Not much light, but it's built of stone and is a complete circle, it has several rooms but the are all semi circluar as well, with the small worship space containing pillows and a small alter in the middle. They are very purposeful on not being overtly Christian, but create a space where all people can feel safe and worshipful. Our home is coventry. Also a very unique building, it's got lots of character and I'm actually quite happy with our room. We're all in the same level, kind of like a domatory, we're at the end on the south western side. Our room consists of a bed, desk, sofa, closet and sink. It's really quite cosy. It's very green and I'm ecstatic about the ocean (and they have kyaks here!).

Our team is very international, which I'm also very excited about. We have people from: El Salvador, Nigeria, Sweden, Germany, US, Canada (us), Northern Ireland, and England. It's a really neat group and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.

We now enter into two weeks of orientation and then into our jobs. I'm getting the impression that it will be a lot like camp work, with a little more focus on reconciliation and group facilitation, along with the broader range of age groups, but mostly children and youth. This post is getting fairly long, and I don't want to give all the details away at once. But as the Irish would say...it's been just lovely! Good night.

P.S. Above is a picture of Coventry which is where we are living.

First images

Here are some images early on our journey from top to bottom:
1) Local street in Belfast with brick houses and cars parked on the sidewalk.
2) Our host family's house
3) Downtown Belfast
4) Niki and I at the Calgary Airport carrying our stuff
5) Driving down a road in Belfast in the evening on the Left hand side of the road
6) View outside our current bedroom window
7) Typical residential street in Belfast

No Turning Back

We made it to Belfast safe and sound. We have a wonderful host family and we're excited about learning more. More Later.