Pictures

So here are the pictures from the last post --

This is the one where I was going to ask you to find the three indicators of a Catholic, Republican neighborhood (there are actually four, now that I see it!) The picture's kind of too small. On the far left, on the lamp-post is a green, white and orange sign that says "Political Status Now." The mural is memorial for people who were killed by rubber and plastic bullets. The green storefront in the foreground is the location of Relatives for Justice. And, the street sign is in both English and Irish. So there you go.



These are the pictures from the second insert -- they're from the international wall of murals. It really gives you a sense of the solidarity Catholic Republicans feel with other oppressed peoples.

Che is a figure all over the place. This particular mural asks President Obama to normalize relations with Cuba.

There's even a comparison with the American Civil Rights Movement. The situation in Ardoyne in 2001 is often compared with school integrated in Arkansas in 1957.

The Basque Country is one of the most common comparisons.

And, the comparison you've all been waiting for. No further explanation needed.

Post Three (but Really, Post Two)

So, here I am, in Vagabonds, putting off writing inquiry emails to organizations in Israel. So I thought I'd write the political/academic entry (Post Two/Post Three) now.

Just so you know, I wanted to put some pictures in this post, but for some reason Blogger wouldn't let me. I'll try to put them in another post, and let you know where in this post they were supposed to appear.

Since I last wrote an update on this part of the trip, I met with people from the following organizations:
- Beyond Skin, which aims to address racism, sectarianism and prejudice (of all sorts) through music (especially) and art.
- the NI Human Rights Commission, an independent statutory body which promotes awareness of the importance of human rights in NI, reviews existing laws and practices and advises the government
- the Divided Cities Project, a research project of Queen's University that focuses on Belfast and Jerusalem
- the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA), an umbrella consulting and advocacy organization for voluntary organizations.
- a group of Catholic and Protestant women from North Belfast who have a joint group and are learning about Irish and UK history
- Community Dialogue, which brings groups together to engage in dialogue, and helps train mediators and members of the community to engage in dialogue work.
- Public Achievement, which engages groups of kids in different kinds of community work, not necessarily directly involved with the Troubles.
- the Falls Community Council, a community center on Falls Road, the center of one of the most Catholic/Republican neighborhoods in Belfast, which provides tons of surfaces, and is involved in cross community dialogue.
- the Regional Training Unit, which provides leadership training for school administrators, principals and teachers.

Hannah (who came to visit from Dublin yay!) and I also went on a tour of Falls Road with an Republican ex-prisoner from an organization called Coiste, which I'm trying to find out more about and hopefully interview.

Whewf. So that's a lot of organizations, and I have at least 8 more interviews between now and Friday when I head back to Dublin.

I'm not going to go through each interview individually, because it would take wayy too long. But I want to offer up a few of my general observations and thoughts about some of the things I've learned. If you're interested in a specific organization, definitely ask me if you'd like.

Let me preface all of this by saying that the most important thing I've learned from my interviews and from staying here in Belfast is how much more work and research I need to do. All my questions have prompted more questions. But didn't Plato or someone say that the wiser you are, the more you know you don't know? Hopefully my confusion means I'm wise.

A few words about Belfast: One of the major goals of this trip was not only to have interviews and gain a better understanding of the conflict and resolution through that, but to walk around and get a feel for the actual status of the city. I've been able to do that to some extent, but certainly not fully. Belfast is really small, which I appreciate, because it means that I've seen large parts of it (I think, anyway). I do know that I haven't spent nearly enough time in North and West Belfast, which was where the vast majority of the actual violence took place, and where the community is most divided. When you walk around the center of the city, is almost impossible to tell that you're walking among a divided society – there are no real signs at all. In fact, it looks like a little London or Dublin or Edinburgh, though a bit less grand.

However, despite its accessible size, I still do not feel like I have managed to get a feel for things. This is possibly an unfair comparison, but when you walk around Israel, you're reminded of the conflict all the time. This is certainly true in the West Bank, where the Wall, checkpoints and nationalist graffiti dominate the landscape. But in Jerusalem, and even in Tel Aviv, bag checks at the entrances of restaurants, teenage soldiers roaming the streets, and visible differences in people (their dress, the language they speak, the color of their skin, etc.) remind you that that's a society that is troubled, or at the very least, made up of different kinds of people who hold different opinions and beliefs. Here, everyone's white. Everyone speaks English. Heck, everyone's Christian. And, of course, let's not forget that this is a post-conflict society, while Israel-Palestine is still in the midst of its troubles.

But because of the homogeneity, it's sometimes quite hard to feel the kind of tension that is being described to me by many of the people I've met with. Of course, there are areas, like on Falls Road or Shankill Road (on the other side of the Peace Lines from Falls, and a strongly Protestant neighborhood) where it's very obvious what side of the tracks you're on. But it's very hard for an outsider to know that across one street or another you've changed neighborhoods completely. Lots of kids here, apparently, grow up knowing to not walk past a particular lamppost after dark. Interface areas can literally be street by street, with no visible barrier. I actually have started to get better at noticing the tell-tale signs of where I am. Obvious ones are flags (Irish vs. the Union Jack), murals, political posters and ads, graffiti, use of the Irish language on street signs or storefronts, etc. Less obvious ones are any mention or use of the colors orange (Protestant Loyalist) or green (Catholic Republican), different color mailboxes (on Falls Road, the typical red mailboxes you see in London, and all over the rest of Belfast, are painted green), even the font that's used on storefronts.

(Insert picture here, where I was going to tell you to find three examples indicating a Catholic Republican neighborhood. A bit of homework...)

The more discrete expression of differences here, plus some of the things I've heard and read in interviews and articles, lead to some interesting conclusions and questions. David Russell from the Human Rights Commission raised the great point that the goal here is very unclear – is it tolerance and coexistence? Or is it understanding and integration? Is it good enough to have peace, in the most obvious sense of the word, that is, the absence of overt violence? Or should there be exploration and confrontation of the issues, a discussion of history? One of Community Dialogue's main points on their website supporting the need for active dialogue is that in Northern Ireland there's a saying, “whatever you say, say nothing.” Many people have described the situation here to me as a “benign apartheid,” and as “happily divided.” In short, it seems that even though society is still significantly divided, since the barricades and checkpoints have been disabled, it's become quietly divided. And people seem to be fine with this. They're not really airing their dirty laundry – not to outsiders, and not really to each other.

This is a huge difference between the situation here and in Israel-Palestine. Not only is it almost impossible, by the make up of the population and the nature of the conflict, to forget that the society is divided. But Israelis and Palestinians are notoriously outspoken. Four Jews, five opinions, after all. I'm beginning to think that this kind of coexistence is perhaps less possible in Israel than it is here. It might might (I'm thinking out-loud here) be that either they address their issues and really get along, or that they don't at all. I'm not sure an in-between is possible. Maybe.

It's also important to note, that although it seems a large sector of the population feels that as long as things are peaceful, things are OK, the people in the community relations sector (ie the sector I'm studying), do not feel that way. Thank God. Most of them have said that the goal is real integration and acceptance, though this form of coexistence is certainly an improvement on the situation as it stood 15 years ago.

Further, this afternoon in my interview with Tony Macauley, who owns a consulting firm with many clients in the community relations sector, he said that it's easy and comfortable for the majority of the population to remain separated and not engage in dialogue. It's the interface neighborhoods (that is, those that are right up next to each other, often divided by Peace Walls), that experience the segregation most directly. And it's in these communities where the most work is being done. Ms. Claire Hackett from the Falls Community Council said to me yesterday that “the people who are least effected need to have the most contact.” This is kind of a radical idea, I think, but one that I may agree with. Many of the organizations I've looked at deal with sectors of society that have been directly involved in the conflict up to this point – ex-combatants and prisoners, bereaved family members, kids who live in interface areas, etc. But maybe for radical change, the people more unaffected need to be engaged in contact and dialogue. This is what I call the self-selection problem. No one seems to know how to fix it, especially since you really can't force people to engage in dialogue. It kind of defeats the purpose.

Unfortunately, besides these insights, I've not really been able to get a straight answer out of anyone about what kinds of groups and techniques work best, overall. I do get a sense that most of them think that some incorporation of “contact theory,” that is, just being around other people of the other side, and discussion of issues, is the most effective. Even if both of those things aren't incorporated into each program, there are at least programs of each type that serve the same communities, it seems. Mr. Macauley actually drew me a diagram with a sort of hierarchy of the efficacy (and the inverse abundance) of types of organizations, with only-Catholic or only-Protestant organizations being the most prevalent and perhaps the least effective, and truly collaborative organizations as the most scarce and perhaps most effective.

No matter who the interviewee is, I tend to ask a lot of the same questions. One has been the “what's the goal?” question, and another is the self-selection question. Others are:

-- Do you need to engage in intra-community work (what some people call “single-identity” work), before you can engage in inter-community work?

This question came out of the fact that here in Belfast there are two organizations, named Coiste and EPIC, both of which are ex-prisoner groups (for Republican and Loyalists, respectively). Though I unfortunately haven't been able to meet with either of them, it's my understanding that they each provide services for their constituencies and serve as sort of advocacy organizations for them as well. However, they also engage in cross-community dialogue, actually, with each other. In Israel, one of the most famous dialogue organizations is called Combatants for Peace, whose sole purpose is to engage ex-combatants from both sides in dialogue. I'm just interested in the difference.

The general answer to the question has been: sort of. There definitely should be intra-community work, and it's very important. But it's not necessarily needed before inter-community work, though in some situations it should be, It can be conducted side-by-side. It is definitely sometimes helpful to have single-identity organizations bring people to the table, because often they're already respected and trusted in the community for the other services they provide (for example, the Falls Community Council which is involved in great cross-community projects, also provides drug and alcohol abuse services, and has a really great oral history project for the community).

Many people find the term “single-identity” really unhelpful, positing that no person has only one identity, and the more people define themselves with a single identity, the more divisive that definition is. However, I do get the sense from people, and feel myself, that it's really important for people to feel connected to their own communities, histories, traditions, families, etc. That's actually a provision in the UN Convention on Human Rights, that people have the right to be brought up in their culture. That's obviously really important here. Talking to that group of women in North Belfast, I asked them if they send their kids to integrated schools or separate Catholic and Protestant schools. They said that they send their kids to separate schools because its important for them that their kids are brought up in the traditions they were brought up in. The trick is figuring out a way to get people to feel pride in their identity, without militarism or violence being a part of that identity. Without defining themselves as not the other side, and with an understanding and respect for others' identities. Easier said than done.

-- Is it considered successful if an individual identifies themselves as Northern Irish as opposed to Irish or British? Does this mean that they've achieved a non-sectarian, integrated identity? Or does this not signify anything and/or is it disrespectful of the right for individuals to feel pride in their identities in a peaceful way?

I think this is an interesting question. No one really has been able to talk to me about it, unfortunately. Oh well.

-- To what extent can or should the Northern Irish conflict (or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for that matter) be explored through a broader human rights lens versus a conflict-specific lens. That is, is it helpful to frame Catholic-Protestant relations here in the same context as Catholic Northern Irish – Polish immigrant to Northern Ireland relations? Or in the same context as Hutu-Tutsi relations? Or black and white Americans?

I've met with a bunch of more umbrella, human rightsty organizations on this trip, and this is a good question for them. One really interesting thing I've learned is that many Catholic Republicans talk about the major issues in Northern Ireland as human rights issues, whereas the Protestant Loyalist community has been avoiding the term, because they feel they're being hit over the head with it. I think this has a big hand in the sense of solidarity of the Catholic Republicans seem to have with other “oppressed” peoples (note, I'm using quotations to not piss some people off). This is obvious as you walk along Falls Road and see the murals (insert four pictures...)

In general, though, I haven't been able to get a good answer to this question, either. It's really complex, and I think it's really interesting. Are human rights abuses human rights abuses, the world over? Is teaching people to be respectful of all cultures enough if it encompasses the other culture in a conflict? Not sure. Definitely something to explore further.

So the interviews have been really interesting. I'm still not sure what I want to focus on, but the thing I keep coming back to is the education system. Integrated education is still really interesting to me – the training of teachers, why there's no stronger curriculum, how to get the government to care more about it, how to get more kids into the system, how to make them stronger schools academically, etc.

I'm also interested in the curriculum in the separated schools, especially the teaching of history and religion, and in the brand new “Learning for Living” curriculum, which encompasses among other things, to my understanding, employability and human rights education. I also want to learn a lot more about informal education that supplements the separated schools, and programs (like that collaborative exchange I mentioned in a previous post) that engage kids that go to separated schools in contact and dialogue during the school day. I want to know more about how to get parents involved in teaching reconciliation and acceptance to their kids after they get home from school, or at least how to get them to not teach the opposite.

I really think the education system is going to be the focus of my paper, in the end. I just need to make sure that it's OK that I write a senior essay that's an expansion of a previous paper (though it will be super different), and that I meet with the right people and organizations in Israel to have the right kind of information. This post is getting really ridiculously long (4 pages in a word document. Yikes), so I want to just leave you with a few interesting tidbits about education that I've picked up from various people:

-- The UK government is compelled by the EU Convention on Human Rights, to fund all non-state schools if it supports any non-state school. Meaning, because it funds Catholic in addition to State (Protestant) schools in Northern Ireland, it also has to fund integrated schools. They, apparently, have made the qualifications for integrated schools to be eligible for funding less stringent than for other schools, but still. Turns out they're not as progressive as I thought they were.
-- Apparently both churches (but more prominently the Catholic church) discourage parents from sending their kids to integrated schools. Anecdotally, Catholic teachers who have taught at integrated schools have a harder time getting jobs at Catholic schools later.
-- If I understand it correctly, the school system is the only place where employment discrimination based on religion is allowed (besides the police force, and that's special).
In the human rights curriculum, which has to be taught in all schools (including the integrated schools), it's pretty easy to not talk about Northern Ireland at all.
-- There are two major teacher training colleges – one for Protestants and one for Catholics. Obviously, this means that if they teach at integrated schools they won't really know how to handle contentious situations.

In any case, it seems as though things are not as hunky-dory here as I thought they were. Super interesting. I've also heard loads of good things, so let's not get down on the education system here. I also have to remember that there are other things that education needs to be concerned with (ie math and reading), so I can't really, in good faith, say that coexistence values should be their very first priority, even though it is mine.

So, I will hopefully write one more post on the political/academic side of the Northern Ireland part of my trip before I go. A last thoughts before I go post, with more about comparisons between here and Israel.

Thank you so much for reading. There's so much to say! Please do let me know if you have any questions or comments on anything I've written. They are more than welcome.

Until next time,
Sarah

Post Two (but really Post Three)

So Post Three is coming before Post Two. I'm wild and crazy, I know. I'm having a wee tea break with a lemon square with raspberry filling (yum), and thought I'd get these pictures up.

On Saturday I took a hike up Cave Hill in North Belfast. It was absolutely beautiful, and I was able to take in a bit of exercise and brisk wind. I also went all by myself, which was one in a world of small triumphs. I've never taken a hike by myself before. May not sound like a big deal, but was for me! Enjoy the pictures. The real Post Two will come later this evening, God willing. And that post will have more pictures, I hope.

Happy at the top of Cave Hill, where some nice hikers took my picture for me.

The view on the way up -- look at those clouds!

The top! I stood at the tip of that cliff and had a muffin (don't worry, Mommy, I was very careful)

The view off one side -- glen, dale, city, sea and cloud

The view off the other side. I thought it was really cool how you could see rain falling in only some parts of Belfast and not others.

First Post in a While

Dear Loyal Readers (and you Not-So-Loyal Readers. It's OK, really),

I apologize for not writing in a while. At first, it was just the product of moving from my dorm room where I was really alone and kind of lonely and had a lot of time to write long blog entries, to a youth hostel where I have less time and privacy and more people to talk to. And then, even when I settled in a bit here at Vagabonds, things picked up, and each day that went by without a post meant more info to put in the next one. And then it got overwhelming, so I just didn't do it, etc., etc., etc. So there you go, a view into the inner workings of my brain.

Lots has changed since I last wrote, over a week ago. But I'm going to try to break this post into three separate posts. Post one will be written tonight, and maybe even post two. Post three will have to wait until tomorrow, when I have my camera cord with me, and I will post beautiful pictures of my 4.5 mile (solo!) hike up Cave Hill in North Belfast.

So thus begineth Post One -- the emotions and thoughts thus far, and looking into my near future in the Holy Land. In short the solo travel part of this blog (for observations on the political and academic, please stay tuned for Post Two).

I had less free time this week than I had the weeks before, because I actually had one or two interviews every day. In some ways, I'm happy for the change, for obvious reasons. On the other hand, I actually miss the loneliness a bit, much to my surprise. I've had less time to journal, less time to just walk around with headphones on. I'd finally gotten kind of used to just listening to the voice in my head. For the first time, maybe ever, I wasn't thinking about the future (next year at Yale, the year after, 10 years down the road), or being nostalgic about the past or fixated on missing people and places (an anywhere-but-here-ness that I get sometimes). I was just focused on the near future -- what interviews I needed to set up for next week, where I was eating dinner, etc. And for the first time, also maybe ever, I was experiencing just being me. Not me, in relation to other people. Just...me. As I am, without any cues from familiar situations or places or people. It's certainly a weird feeling -- to be completely alone, and feel that I am completely alone in the world. It's a feeling of complete independence that's not necessarily bad, just different. Not sure if this makes sense to other people besides me.

I don't know if any of you other rising seniors and college-age kids feel this way, but I guess I sort of felt that grownup-hood would come after a set point in my life. Maybe after I graduated college. Who knows, maybe after May 25, 2010 (my graduation date, fyi), POOF, I will feel like a grownup. Or maybe I'll be scared shitless. Probably something in between, or both. It never really occurred to me that being a grownup is a process. Ridiculous, I know; it's kind of obvious, after all. But grownups, to me, are still sort of foreign (no offense to the grownup readers of this blog), much older people who seem to have a lot of it figured out. And even if they don't have it figured completely out, they're not afraid of the dark, at least. They're responsible, or, in any case, expected to be responsible. It's not unreasonable to expect that they know how to cook full meals, not screw up plane tickets online, know what to do in an emergency, pay taxes, etc. They are still people that I need to pass my decisions by. Even in my best moments on this trip, when I've had a really good interview, and figured out the bus, eaten a healthy meal, made a new friend, made some intelligent comment, etc. and feel really good about myself, I do not feel like I have a lot of that basic stuff down. In fact, when I do feel really confident, I'm actually surprised that I pulled it off. I'm really, honestly, shocked that this trip is going as well as it is! But then again, maybe this is what being a grownup is. Or becoming a grownup, anyway. Totally weird, and I know I'm rambling a bit.

In any case, I've been doing a lot of thinking along these lines, some of which is unhelpful and freaking me out (especially the recurrent realization that I'm graduating in a year, and will have to say goodbye to Yale and all the wonderful people that I see every day. But I won't go off on that gush-fest now), and some of which is really interesting and provoking of more thought, and really, well...exciting. Because I have managed to pull this off. And if I can toot my own horn for a second, I'm pretty proud of myself. It certainly hasn't been perfect, but from conception to execution, I planned this trip and am living it, all on my own. Yay, me. That's been the most important thing I've realized about myself. That, and that in the end, I need other people. And how lucky I am to have wonderful people to need. In the worst moments of this trip, I get so much strength from that. Perhaps most of all from my other friends who are off on their own traveling as well, in Sierra Leone and Nicaragua and Benin and Italy and so many other exciting places. I am alone, but I am not alone.

At the risk of making this the longest post in the history of posts, I want to switch gears and talk about Israel for a second.

First off, I don't know how many of you heard about the two gay Israelis who were murdered in Tel Aviv last week. When I saw it pop up on the BBC, I didn't think too much of it, at first. As perhaps ridiculous as this sounds, considering what I'm trying to study, I tend to avoid violent news coming out of Israel, of any kind. It makes me too upset. But it turns out that this particular incident became a little more personal -- one of the two victims was my friend Aaron's cousin. Aaron is one of the people I talk a lot about Israel with, and though we don't always agree, we mostly do, and I always get a lot out of our conversations. We share frustrations about Israel, and discuss our respective love-hate relationships with it. We met in Arabic class, two Jews with a Palestinian teacher. He's actually been in Israel all summer, and is still there now, with his family. They still haven't said who they think committed this crime, but they have said that they don't think it's "nationalistic" in nature, as in, not Palestinian terrorism. And considering the opposition from the ultra-orthodox community to gay pride parades in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (both which I attended in Israel two years ago), I think a lot of people (myself included) suspect that the person who did this is a Jew. And though there has since been huge outpouring of support across Israel, and even among Israeli politicians, this thought still sticks with me.

The most, the MOST hurtful and painful thing for me about Israel is that it is a country full of people who share my identity. Who, more than representing me, for better or worse, to the rest of the world, are supposed to believe in what I believe. They are the people who, when I celebrate Shabbat, I feel connected to. The most important part of their being, the very heart of who they are, is, in name, and supposedly, in value, the most important part of my being and the very heart of who I am. And for me, my Judaism is the thing that most informs my values of social justice, acceptance, peace. I just don't understand how a country so full of Jews can be so...not that, more often that I'd like. And here, I'm not just talking about what happened last week, but about everything I'm about to go study and immerse myself in once again. About that conflict that has dominated world politics for 60 years. I know I'll probably make some people reading this blog uncomfortable and upset by saying these things. But that's really, if I'm honest, what has made Israel so so difficult for me.

But. Here's what's changed in the last week. I emailed one of my wonderful rabbis at Slifka, Lauren, who has been someone I can go to when I feel especially distraught concerning these things.

She wrote back: "We have to continue to fill the world with love."

It's so completely obvious that she's right. It is so simple, so true, and no one could've said anything better to me.

I have a tendency to let my frustration and confusion about Israel collapse everything else. I don't really know the best way to say this without sounding like a self-help book, and there are lots of ways to embody that statement, but: all I can really do is take care of my own identity -- my Jewish identity is about love. A lot of the rest of my identity is too. And if I can just approach this whole thing from that perspective, maybe I'll feel better about this whole thing. And maybe, just maybe, things will actually get better. I have so much to feel love about.

If anything else, I need to approach my trip to Israel with an open mind, with optimism, instead of with the expectation of disaster and hatred and pain. Last time, the differences between my Jewishness and the perception I held of Israel shook my identity, really, to its core, and that was almost unbearably scary. It made me want to divorce myself from all the implications of Israel. This time, if I'm going to continue to define myself through my Judaism, I have to look at the implications. I have to make my difficult peace with Israel. I will not let my identity be shaken by it, but I need to fully engage it in dialogue. I will not let it represent me, but I will not run away from it either.

Don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that I will stop being critical of Israel or its policies. This is not a political or an intellectual decision, really. It is an emotional decision, for my own well being. I don't know what it looks like, but, honestly, I don't think I would feel so strongly about Israel if it wasn't part of my identity. I'm confident this is a good goal, but who knows if I'll actually going to be able to do it.

The other interpretation of what Lauren wrote me, is of course, to just love. Period. Not relating to Israel, but in life. That definitely can't hurt, and I'm working on that, too.

It's pretty late, and I'm not really sure if any of this makes sense. If you ask some people (and those people know who they are), I'm never quite coherent about what's going on in my head, and certainly not about Israel. This is just a preview of what's to come. It's entirely possible this whole new approach will fall apart as soon as I step off the airplane. I sort of expect it to. But it's a good thing to come back to and remind myself of.

But until then, it's still a chilly 55 degrees in Belfast, and my bed is calling to me. Thanks for reading (if you got this far, you're a super champ). More tomorrow, can you believe it? Less rambling, more politics, more pictures.

Lots of love. I really mean it.
Sarah.

Adventures in the North

Hi Everyone!

So, as promised, a post with pictures!

On Wednesday, I went up to the northern coast to see some of the natural beauty of this country. I took one of those one-day tours where they drop you off at various points and then tell you to be back by a certain time before you move on to the next sight. We had a bunch of 10-minute stops at castles, etc., but the main two sights were the Giant's Causeway, which is a World Heritage Sight, and Carrick-a-rede, which is where there's a famous rope bridge (no, thank you). So, as they guided me, I will guide you. I will save you from having to watch a DVD of Michael Flatley's (of Riverdance and Lord of the Dance fame) new show. Instead, listen to these songs by Kate Rusby, which is what I listened to most of the way (trying to drown out Michael Flatley):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyFc-pbcO94
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBAq1gHU7L0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HHLj8rKrZ8

The first few stops before the Giant's Causeway were rather insignificant, except for Carrickfergus Castle, which was the landing place of King William III of Orange (aka he ruled over Holland). He's a short little dude, and kind of looks like Captain Hook. I took a picture of him just for you, Mom.

We then took the most beautiful drive along the coast, and a little inland. The scenery was exactly what you imagine the Irish scenery to look like. It was, from minute-to-minute, gorgeously sunny and then grey and rainy, giving a full range of atmosphere (excuse the reflections off the bus windows).

Then we made it to the Giant's Causeway. After a cheap and kind of gross meal at the hotel, I went off on my own, walking along the road at the top of the cliffs, then down some stairs and around near the sea to take a look at the actual Causeway.

The most popular myth behind the Causeway is this: A giant from Ireland decided to build a causeway to Scotland so he could fight his Scottish counterpart. When the Scottish giant came across the causeway to fight, the Irish giant saw how huge he was and asked his wife to disguise him as a baby. When the Scottish giant saw how huge the baby was, he could only imagine how enormous it's dad would be, and he ran back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway behind him. Scotland really is not that far away -- you can see it from the coast.

What makes the Causeway so special is its strange rock formation -- columns of hexagonal rock next to each other that create stepping stones. They were created in real life not by giants, but by volcanic activity along the coast. They're really quite beautiful:
I have many more pictures, but Blogger's photo upload kind of sucks, so if you want to see more, just ask!

Then we went to that rope bridge. I am NOT a rope bridge fan, so I asked the bus driver if there was anything else to do in the area. He suggested that I take a walk on a path along the cliffs. I think that was the main highight of the afternoon -- I was all alone on this tremendously beautiful path, with green fields to the left and the sea to the right.

There were cows:
Proof I was with the cows (not a great picture of me or the cows, but you needed proof):

As I walked back, it started to rain. So it rains almost every day here, but it's a nice rain, very gentle. So if you have a rain coat and a fleece and good walking shoes (like I did), you're totally fine, and it actually enhances the experience. And, because it was sunny AND raining, I saw a huge full arc rainbow going off into the sea. SO beautiful (by the way, that may be Scotland in the background, though also possibly not):

And then we headed back to bonny Belfast. Whewf. OK, I'm off to the library. Need to catch up on those emails!

Hope you're all well, and have a great weekend!

Sarah

Sunny Day

Hi Everyone,

First off, I'm going to apologize for not keeping the promise I made last time about having more pictures to share. I'll try for next time. And, just a warning, this will be a rather long post, as yesterday was very eventful, at least in comparison to all the other days.

Yesterday was a really good day. I got out of the house early (which is key. Otherwise I just lay around like a bumski), because I had an interview with a Professor at Queen's University. I had sort of forgotten who she was since I had made the appointment, but when I was preparing for the interview I remembered that she's really involved in integrated education, which is one of my main interests. Not only that, but she's worked with the foremost expert (that I've been able to find, anyway) on integrated education in Israel, AND I've actually used one of her papers in one of MY papers, so that was very cool. I was very excited to meet her and felt confident about the interview since I had more background on her topic of research than on others.

The interview turned out to be as great as I had expected. Just a bit of background on integrated schools: In Northern Ireland, schools for Catholic kids and Protestant kids are generally seperate, and had been almost entirely so until about 30 years ago, when a bunch of parents got together to create integrated schools for kids of both backgrounds. It took the government a while to back them up, financially, and since then, they've grown. Their integratedness depends solely upon a ratio of students -- the baseline has to be something like 30:70 Catholic:Protestant -- and not on an agreed upon curriculum or set of standards. However, there is an independent organization, the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education (NICIE), which has a statement of principles that many of the schools have agreed upon, at least on paper.

In Israel, and I'll talk much more about this later, there are currently two seperate types of education (well, more than two, but two main ones), one for Arab Israelis and one for Jewish Israelis. And I'm not just talking seperate and unequal in terms of funding, etc., but they have completely different curricula. I could go on and on about how screwed up I think the system is, and how difficult it is to solve, and all the implications for Israeli identity the system has, etc., but I'll save that for a later post. In any case, there are just a few integrated schools (3 or 4) in the whole country, called the Hand-in-Hand schools. They're incredibly interesting, co-taught by Arabs and Israelis, taught in English and Arabic, etc., but tragically underfunded and, well, scarse. My friend Liz actually just spent much of the summer teaching in one. In any case, it was the comparison between the integrated schools in Northern Ireland and those in Israel that first made me interested in this whole comparison in the first place, so it's something I'm pretty passionate about.

So, this professor said interesting things. I think the thing that struck me most was that she said she thinks the integrated schools in Israel are actually BETTER than the schools in Northern Ireland, but that since they exist in a still conflicted (as opposed to post-conflict) society, they have a hard time making a real impact. But, she said she thinks that their techniques and principles are more effective, or at least more direct. It was really interesting to hear her say that, especially since it made me think about the efficacy of on-the-ground reconcillation period, if the society as a whole is still conflicted.

There are some major problems with the integrated schools in Ireland. For one, the government only evaluates them on that ratio, and not on their efficacy in reconciliation, which she said is entirely unproductive in establishing whether or not they're actaully doing anything. She also reiterated what she had written in her paper that I had used -- that a lot of the times, teachers will try to brush contentious topics and arguments under the rug, instead of talking about them or confronting them head on. She said that she understands why they do that -- these teachers were brought up in Northern Ireland when the society was still conflicted, have political views and baggage of their own, and may not know how to deal with those types of conflcits in their classrooms. She said that special training, and time each week for the teachers to refelect on the curriculum and their job (which the teachers in the Israeli schools have), would be really helpful in changing that practice. Finally, she told me that for various reasons, sometimes the integrated schools are not as strong academically as other secondary schools, and that parents who want integrated eduacation for their kids on ideological grounds might take them out of the school once they remember that school is for math and reading, too.

She also told me about a new project that sounds really interesting, called collaboration, whereby Catholic and Protestant schools in the same area allow their students to attend the other school for classes that they might not offer themselves. For example, if a Protestant kid wants to take German, but it's not offered at his school, he can go to the Catholic school down the street to take it. This not only mixes the kids together on a regular basis, but also emphasizes their differences (if they wear different uniforms, for example), so that topics will come up and will need to be addressed. Sounds great to me, if it works.

In any case. Very successful interview. Afterwards, I found the nice street in my neighborhood -- bookshops, cafes and all -- and then went to the library and worked for a while. Today I'm back at the library, writing to you, and tomorrow, I will take an all-day tour to the Giant's Causeway, one of the main natural attractions up here in the North. Very much looking forward to it.

One of these days when it's not the end of a very long post, I will write to you all about my general impressions of Belfast (just a start: it smells like Holland here, which is very comforting -- damp), and will hopefully accompany it with pictures.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Sarah

Belfast Part I

Greetings from lovely Belfast!

Today is officially my third full day in Belfast, although only the first had anything of interest to report, and the third hasn't really started yet. The bus ride up from Dublin was quite beautiful, rather rainy and very green, and I managed to accompany it with the right soundtrack on my ipod. In any case, very atmospheric. I took a cab to my dorm at Queens University, in the south of the city, and have found it so far to be extremely suitable (sink in room, toilet and shower not).

On Friday I had my (drum roll, please) very first interview with Mike Ritchie (not to be confused with Mark Ritchie, Minnesota's Secretary of State). He's the Executive Director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a human rights advocacy organization that did and has continued to do quite a bit of work concerning the Troubles and in emphasizing the importance of human rights in the governance of Northern Ireland. I learned a bunch of interesting things from him. For example, he believes that a truth commission, or at least an objective, consolidated view of history might be very useful in moving forward in reconcilliation. He also said that the situation in Belfast might be considered a benign apartheid, in which people seem peaceful, but that voilence errupts almost every summer. He also talked about his previous job in which he worked with Republican ex-prisoners and engaged them in face-to-face discussion with Unionist prisoners and other "opposition" parties about important issues in the community. Great first interview, and gave me a lot of confidence that the rest will go well as well.

I then went next door to this cool gallery called Belfast Exposed and browsed through their extensive photo archive. I came across a photo (which I can't find online, but does, I promise, exist on their archive at the gallery), of one of those famous Unionist murals that I hope to tour this week with an Israeli flag waving in front of it. Mr. Ritchie told me that during the Intifada, Palestininian flags started to show up in Republican neighborhoods and Israeli flags popped up in Unionist neighborhoods. Just another interesting point of comparison.

I spent much of the rest of that day wandering through Belfast and buying a cheap lunch (thanks Marks and Spencer!), and then found what I believe will be my day-time watering hole for the rest of my stay here -- The Linen Hall Library. It's a wonderful, rather small public library with cheap wireless, a wonderful cafe, and a great Irish history collection in addition to the Northern Ireland Political Collection, which I'm hoping to dig through, starting this week. It's also right on the main square, practically across the street from my central Belfast bus stop. Seems like a perfect place to spend a lot of my time.

And that's the long news from Lake Woebegone. Not sure what's in store for the rest of today, as most of the city is closed on Sunday, it seems. In any case, please keep those emails coming. I know I sound cheerful, but it is pretty lonely here, and it's beginning to get to me. Also, I have Skype! My username is sturbow, so if any of you would like to talk to me voice-to-voice or face-to-face (engage in dialogue, so to speak, ha ha), I would gladly welcome that.

As usual, thanks for reading, and I promise more pictures for next time!

Until then,
Sarah