Its All Good

It has been a while since my lovely adventures during spring break in Scotland and London so I will do my best to update! Spent the last two weeks at Aware helping out with the depression awareness week doing mail outs, goodie bags and various other helpings. James and I also met with the U.S. Consulate to Belfast Kamala S. Lakhdhir and we talked about the happenings at Aware, as well as some suicide issues that have been prevalent recently in Northern Ireland. Along with meeting with Kamala, I met up with Steve from an organization called Cara-Friend that works with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups (LGBT) in Belfast. Essentially James wants to work with Steve in setting up some more support groups that are connected to the mental health issues associated with this cohort. So, I had a couple meetings with Steve in setting up a proposal in what a support group focusing on the mental health of LGBT groups might look like.

My last hoorah! at Aware was participating in the Depression Aware Week launch which took place at the Belfast City Centre, which is a beautiful building as well as going to Bangor at the Woodlands Juvenile Justice Centre with Andrea and Pat for their mood matters program! The launch was successful and I got my picture taken with the Lord Mayor Naomi Long, and Lynda Bryans (BBC personnel) was also present at the launch! Then James threw me a wee "American" party! It was fun! On that Friday Andrea, Pat and I went to Bangor to the only juvenile center for kids aged 11-17 in all of Northern Ireland. There are a range of felonies that the kids have committed including murder, to stealing money, clothes etc. Some of the kids responded very well to the presentation about depression and others could care less.

For our last weekend in Belfast Abby and I went out on the Shankill road which is a predominantly Protestant working class area as well as the Falls area which is a Catholic area. In between the two neighborhoods lies a peace wall or an interface. We are doing a group project on the peace walls and interfaces and took this day to go photo the area. Its all very foreign as an outsider and I can not imagine the impacts of living in fear of "the other" for a majority of my life as many have.

Spent the evening out with James, Andrea, and Liz! We started out at the Duke of York, then went to Robinsons, though tried to get into Fibbee Maggee's which is in the back part of Robinsons but there was a Scottish band playing and it was packed! Liz left us after a while and then James and Andrea went to the Spainard which I hadn't been to yet and was really fun and I liked the atmosphere a lot.

Sunday Claire, Janel, Erin Hocking and I traveled to Ian Paisley's church. We had attempted to at the beginning of our time in Belfast and didn't make it time so we made sure it happened for our last day! It was an interesting service. We were clearly the outsiders as we did not have our Sunday best on which would've included a huge hat and gloves. The congregation was not that big at all, but afterwards Ian came and shook our hands and introduced ourselves to him. It was definitely an interesting experience!

That evening we had gone to the Queen's Film Theatre to see a movie called "We carried our secrets." The Belfast film festival was happening so there were lots of movies happening all over the city but this was a free one and just so happened to be relevant to our coursework and studies in Northern Ireland! It was a documentary about a theatre production of 7 individual stories of those who have been affected by the troubles in some way or another through what is known as Theatre of Witness I believe and was started in Philadelphia I think. It was a very powerful film and talked a lot about when is it the right time to tell your story, and how that can be helpful in the healing process.

Later on that night the whole Belfast crew met up at Robinsons for a couple drinks for we were celebrating Justin's 21st! Than we traveled to none other John Hewitt for one last time. It was a wonderful last evening and the singer sang Happy Birthday to Justin! :D

Monday Nigel picked us up with the Derry folk already in the beast(the van) and we headed to pick up Erin and Eva from the train station who were coming from Ballycastle. We were heading to DUBLIN!!! It was mostly a travel day though we did stop by the River Boyne where the Battle of the Boyne took place, and then also at Newgrange which is an ancient tomb site from the neolithic period, and was probably built 5,000 years ago! O my! Our accommodations for the week were at All Hallows College and is said to be pretty haunted, according to one of our taxi drivers! That evening Claire, Abby and I met up with Lesley one last time at the Gaiety Theatre to see the musical Evita! It was so much fun to see her again and the show was awesome.

Tuesday we went to Trinity College which is one of the oldest colleges in Ireland, and we saw the Book of Kells. We had lunch in St. Stephen's green and then headed over to Kilmainham Gaol which is an old prison and housed the 14 people who were involved in the Easter Rising of 1916. And how can I forget we then went to the Guinness Factory! Got our free pint and were on our way!!! Wednesday we went to the Irish parliament and met with various representatives from different parties. It was all very interesting to hear there parties perspective on how they view the state of Northern Ireland and the peace process. Wednesday evening we did a literary pub crawl around Dublin! We started at a bar called the Duke, headed to O'Neills, a bar where Michael Collins used to drink where Ashley, Erin and I talked with two 80 year olds who happened to be brothers! Then ended up at a bar that some of us didn't stay at too long cause we were tired.

Thursday we traveled to the Wicklow mountains to an organization called Glencree. They are a peace and reconciliation organization and we talked with them about what they do, and some of the groups that they have dealt with dealing with paramilitary organizations and issues surrounding conflict. We had a wonderful lunch there and then played a game of football (soccer)! It was a lovely day! Then we went to an old monastery called Glendalough. Went walking through the mountains and then went up to the old monastery site where there was a graveyard and some other old buildings. We stopped for food and then headed back to All hallows!!!

Friday we were heading back to Portrush! On the way though we stopped in a town called Crossmaglen where we met with Ian Bothwell who is the director of an organization called Crossfire Trust. He started the organization 30 some years ago and has a very interesting story and background. Crossmaglen is a predominantly Catholic town and is located very close to the border. We then went to the Darkley House where Ian has set up his organization and Darkley is an old Mill so there is a large facility for them to use for the many aspects of their organization. Crossfire Trust is a faith based organization and Ian has run into many hesitant people because of this. He also met with George W. Bush before we went to Afghanistan and Iraq and said one thing to him, "Blessings are better than bombs." Then of course we went to war. Very interesting man with a very unique story.

On the way back to Portrush we traveled through Nigel's home town and he finally told us his story. It was a very moving story and has been a long time coming considering he is the back bone of our experiences here. Got back to Portrush pretty late so we all just unpacked and hung out. It is a little weird being back in Portrush. It seems like we were just here. Tonight we are going back to Kelly's (biggest night club in Northern Ireland) for Eva's 22nd birthday which is tomorrow! Then we also have Monday off because it is a bank holiday. It should be an interesting final 2 weeks in Northern Ireland considering we want to pack in as much as possible as well as starting/finishing papers, and projects. Look for at least one more blog update before I head back home on May 15th.

:D