Winter Wondering

I know it's been a long time since last I wrote of my Irish adventure on this blog but so it is that the more time you spend in a place, the more normal it becomes and the less noteworthy it feels.  Since last I wrote, I have celebrated Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, made like 5367 latkes and braved the icy roads of the north coast with my mom as she visited on her way to Israel, participated in the annual Corrymeela Christmas Open Day (including brief stints playing a Christmas elf and Mary, mother of Jesus).  I watched as three men delighted in seeing snow for the first time, spent two days on a residential with the LTV team, went to a holiday concert at the beautiful Waterfront Hall, the main space for classical music in Belfast, spent three days dedicated to making Christmas decorations, participated in a residential group called Deeper Into Dialogue which involved people from St. Ethelburga's--a peace center in London--and from the  Interreligious Coordinating Committee of Israel.  I attempted to break into Belfast's only synagogue in search of a Hanukkah menorah (little did I know that each of my parents had separately sent me a menorah), spent a day with the LTV team shopping in Belfast before heading to Judith and Johnston's farm, where I first stayed when I got to Northern Ireland in September, to go for a "story ride," feed deer by hand and see some spooning sheep.  I walked the length of Ballycastle beach in heels when some short termers convinced me it would be a good idea to walk to the bar (it wasn't), decorated the whole of Coventry for the annual staff Christmas party before getting dressed up, putting makeup on Sari for the first time in her life (she's 28), eating Caribbean food and dancing with the other volunteers and staff til 4AM.  In the month since last I wrote I feel I've become much more grounded in my role and life here, and finally feel confident that I made the right decision by coming here.  The doubts and anxieties about {"The Next Step"} still gnaw at my bones but at least I feel now that I am where I am supposed to be at this moment.  Sort of.
In truth, I am sitting in a cafe in East Belfast although by all accounts I should be in Istanbul greeting Hodi for the first time in a year and a half--since we graduated.  But the weather had other plans, and as I walked into George Best City Airport at 6:30 this morning to find the flight canceled, I was reminded again about the complete lack of rhyme and reason when it comes to how our plans turn out.  It's been snowing off and on today; this is the most sustained cold and snow in Northern Ireland in the past 25 years--maybe more (thanks, global warming!)--and as irked as I am about the delay in getting to Turkey, I must admit how beautiful the city looks in the snow.  Everyone here is in complete denial about the regularity of snow, so things like plows, salt and grit are not exactly standard even in Belfast, the largest municipality in Northern Ireland, which is why three inches of snow over three days completely shuts the country down.  Pretty frustrating.  The sidewalk is covered with a layer of ice at least an inch thick--I feel constantly like I'm about to fall and break a hip let alone someone over the age of 23.  In any case, David, my community member host-friend/family person has the flu so I am staying with two other community members, Jonny and Susan, both of whom work for Corrymeela as well as being members.  They live literally around the corner from David in East Belfast in a lovely but freezing house, complete with an adorable cat and the mangiest dog I've ever seen.  It's a fairly rare breed called Bergamasco, otherwise known as an Italian Sheepdog and it has dreadlocks--actual doggie dreadlocks--all over its body.  It's a very sweet, chill dog that looks like the dog version of a homeless person, I'm not even exaggerating.  Google it, it's hilarious.  Jonny does a lot of work with refugees and asylum seekers in Northern Ireland and he's also an artist so the house has a really cool, funky aesthetic.  My favorite part of the house, however, is the electric blanket on the bed I'm sleeping in, obvs.

In any case, if you've made it this far in this inane post, feel free to check out the most recent pictures of the past month or so that I finally put up.  Enjoy!

As my fellow volunteer Michaela would say, Peace and Geese!

Sloe Mo and Birthday

Since my first time at Ballycastle beach, I have discovered a new hobby: hunting for the rare gem known as beach glass.  Deposited in the ocean and worn smooth by crashing against sand and rocks during tidal ebbs and flows, beach glass comes in several colors, but mostly white, green and the ever-elusive blue.  In my off time, I like to walk to the beach and look for beach glass, keeping my face glued downwards, my eyes combing the sandy expanse in hopes of catching a glint of green, white or blue.  As I walked back to the center the other afternoon, I caught sight of some crazy lady poking a stick into some bushes before realizing that it was Tiffany!  We had been meaning to hang out for the past few days but somehow kept missing each other, and it turned out that she came looking for me before she had gone out just then.  She was looking for sloes, a member of the plum family that ripen around this time and are used to flavor gin to make, you guessed it, sloe gin!  There were lots of bushes around full mostly of the half-eaten remains of sloes, but we were determined to make sloe gin happen and began to spot some that we could use.  Unfortunately, the bushes were fairly high off the ground and the branches covered with tiny piercing thorns.  Not ones to be swayed, Tiff insisted I climb on her shoulders and, though she could only look straight ahead, I grabbed as many as I could from the top, occasionally directing her right, left, backwards or forwards.  It was so funny, me on her shoulders trying desperately not to fall, the two of us getting scratched all over the place and still crying "OOH! Another one!" every time we spotted a goody.  On the way back, Tiff brought up how crazy it is that there are edible plants all around us that we never think of using or eating.

The next day, as Tiff looked up what to do with the sloes, she came to a shocking realization:  what we had picked were not sloes at all but rosehips!  No wonder those plants were so thorny!  Though we still haven't decided how we are going to use them, I am not too displeased with the result, as I happen to love rose-flavored anything.  We will still try to get our hands on some sloes, though, before sloe season slows to a stop.  (endless puns!  what more could you ask for in a fruit?!)

As a side note, Roland is the fifth of seven children. His siblings are named Ronald, Romeo, Rosalyn, Romelyn, Rowelyn and Henry.  No kidding.  The "lyn"s are all pronounced "leen".  His parents are named Romeo and Ilyn (pronounced "eileen").  His father must be super conscious of his own mortality.  Henry must be quite the black sheep.

I couldn't make this up if I tried.


On another note, I recently had a fabulous 23rd birthday, highlights of which include a surprise Dora-themed birthday party made possible by the craziest birthday package ever orchestrated by my mom, a huge balloon bouquet presented to me in front of a large group i didn't know and a few people i did, some lovely emails and messages and a special breakfast made by Tim and Tiffany.  For pictures of this lovely occasion, go to my web album on Picasa.  Though I was far from home and missed lots of people, the community here did so much to make my day special and I had a lovely time. xox

Autumn Sights and Halloween Frights!

Let it be said officially: I LOVE HALLOWEEN!  For those of you whom I so regretfully forgot to share with, I posted some photos from the past month online so if you're sick of reading about my experience you can just look at some pretty pictures.
I've had a great week, off Tuesday through Thursday and in the kitchen over the weekend, followed by an awesome Halloween celebration on Sunday night.  Andy and Mary Lynne had to go home to Texas for a few weeks and generously allowed us use of their sweet ride, the only automatic car I've seen so far here, which they bought from a friend for £10.  Moby is a cute little Daihatsu with enough room for approximately 3.5 people plus a purse or two.  Riding with Andrew to take them to the airport at 4AM, Mary Lynne's suitcase wouldn't fit in the trunk so I sat with my feet above my face after we squished it into the back seat.  On the way back, Andrew and I stopped at the bakery in town, which thankfully opens at 7AM, to get some eclairs and enjoy them greedily back in Coventry.  On Wednesday I  bravely took to the wheel on the wrong side of the road and went on a mini road trip for the day with Valentin and Anthony.  We had an amazing time and it was just so nice to have the freedom to do what we wanted, stop and go, and not have any agenda but our own.  We stopped first at Murlough Bay, a gorgeous inlet just five minutes down the road from Corrymeela.  We climbed on all the rocks, ran over the rolling hills into the wind, spent 15 minutes just lying on the grass on top of a hill jutting into the ocean.  Very picturesque.  It was a beautiful day, very sunny and also very windy but a lovely crisp autumn wind.  We continued on, planning to stop at Torr Head, where my host-friend took me on the way up to Corrymeela my first day, a scenic view of the coast, cliffs and an abandoned coast guard station.  As I slowly creeped down the very steep hill, we detected a funny smell coming from the car and figured it would be better not to test Moby's limits and turn around.  Thinking that the smell came from overusing the brakes down the hill, we turned off the car to let it cool a bit.  At that moment a boy came alongside us and started chatting before heading downhill and returning behind a flock of sheep!  It was very stereotypical for Ireland and all I can say about it is that if you've never witnessed the way a flock of sheep looks from behind, do yourself a favor and get on it.  Seeing their little puffball tails wagging as they walked was maybe the best part of the whole day.
After turning around following the sheep parade, we headed east towards Cushendall, where a combination of my excellent sense of direction and my ability to accurately read signs (which is more than I can say of the boys;) led us to Glenariff Forest.  The woods were lovely, as the leaves had all turned bright yellow and orange, the most colorful leaf changes I've seen here so far.  There is a wooden walkway along the river there, with several small and medium-sized waterfalls along the way.  The park was practically empty, which was very nice, though the gorgeous weather we'd had earlier gave way to heavy rain about two thirds of the way through our 3km walk.  Irish weather is a fickle being, and while we tried to wait out the rain under a little shelter, it became clear that it wasn't letting up soon, so we sacrificed ourselves and just got wet.
It was a great day and I was shocked at how easy it was to drive on the other side of the road!  Thank goodness the car was automatic--no way could I have learned stick and driven on the left!  Every few minutes I would panic and check if I was on the left, but I always was.
Another fun thing I did on my time off was help Rachel Craig, one of Corrymeela's awesome facilitators and the wife of a past center director, fix and create larger-than-life puppets to be carried in the annual Ballycastle Halloween parade.  This mainly involved me and Roland working with a few teenagers from a local youth club painting cardboard with poster paint and figuring out how to attach parts like Frankenstein's ears to the giant figure.  It was nice to be crafty again and be around other artistically-enthused people.  Several weeks ago, a package arrived from my mother that contained a full Dorothy costume, complete with ruby slippers and Toto too.  I somehow managed to convince several other LTVs to join me in my Wizard of Oz extravaganza, despite the fact that several of them had never seen the film!  We had a movie watching party for those outside the loop and the rest was history.  Andrew, with his beard, was the cowardly lion, lanky Sari was the scarecrow, and Valentin, with his...Germanity(?) was the tin man.  Michaela was the Wicked Witch and Jeni, in Kat's absence, was Glinda, while Anthony was the wizard and Roland refused to be a flying monkey in favor of being a stupid mummy.  (A mummy!  when he could have been a flying monkey!  puh-leeze!)
Valentin spent all afternoon in arts and crafts working on his costume which was absolutely hilarious not just in  how much it made him look like the tin man, but also in the extent to which it constricted his movement, such that he could barely fit in the car and couldn't help but look like he was doing the robot all the time.
In any case, we arrived at the starting point of the parade, where Rachel was busy turning on the lights that illuminated the puppets, getting Andrew and Anthony strapped into the gigantic monster figures they carried and making sure everything was as it should be.  There were little kids in costume everywhere, and because we arrived minutes before we started, it wasn't until we actually started walking that I realized we were the first in the parade behind the drummers!  And I was at the front of the first puppet!  The night was lovely, not too cold or windy and I carried this two-headed sea king thing with Michaela, Roland and Valentin.  Every two minutes Val would turn his head to me so I could adjust the funnel wrapped in tinfoil and duct taped to his hood that composed his hat because he couldn't bend his arms to reach his face!  So funny.  It was such a lovely event, not too many spectators at the start but by the time we reached the main drag the streets were pretty full of people and everyone came out of the bars and restaurants to watch.  Many kids and families just joined the parade as we walked by, so that by the end there were at least twice the number of marchers as when we started.  In the middle of the town we were joined by stilt walkers and giant skeletons, and the three people holding the giant spider, including Jeni, would charge the crowd every once in a while, sending kids running!  The street lights gave everything a yellow glow and even as the puppets became unwieldy and uncomfortable, we all couldn't stop smiling, especially when the occasional kid went, "Look!  It's Dorothy and the Tin Man!"  We also saw almost all of the staff from the center with their families, and they would wave and get almost as excited as we did when we saw each other.  Walking behind the drum corps, we were all dancing  and walking to the rhythm, especially Franc and Anthony, who is a talented drummer in his own right.  As we reached the end of the parade at the sea front, we put down our creatures and danced in the middle of the large space that had been cleared for the parade participants.  The MC of the evening began to announce prizes for various categories--paraders, kids costumes, etc., when we suddenly heard that the prize for best costume went to...Valentin the Tin Man!  He was so thrilled but could hardly move so he just kept jumping up and down and flapping his straight arms.  He won £25!  Amazing.  After putting the puppets away (and after Jeni picked up the spider only to realized her handle had been placed in dog shit on the ground), we got in the car and drove back to Coventry, but not before I accidentally propositioned Peter, a community member who lived on site for 20 years, by asking if he wanted a ride (word to the wise: it means something very different here).  We sat around for a while, taking our faces off and laughing about the evening's events, and then settled into bed before the clock struck twelve.
This was the first Halloween celebrated by more than a few of the volunteers--in fact, only Andrew Jeni and I had really celebrated it before.  It was great to share such a fun experience of a first Halloween with them.  Definitely one of the most fun things we've done here so far.

Codes

There is a small cottage located on the coast about a twenty minute walk from the center.  Once owned and inhabited by the telegraph and radio pioneer Marconi, local legend has it that he sent one of the first transmissions of Morse code from the site just down the road from where I sit writing this.  It seems somehow predictable that Northern Ireland would be home to one of the first transmissions of code, as people here are very skilled at sending and receiving information using enigmatic communication.  Home to a conflict between people of more or less the same genetic origin, people here quickly developed ways of determining the identities of those around them as friend or enemy.  It's rude, of course, to ask someone their religion.  Rather, if asking their name yields ambiguous results (Sean and Bill are dead giveaways; Michael and Nathan are not), and asking where they're from offers little more assistance (West Belfast--probs Catholic, East Belfast, probs not), you could always inquire as to the name of their primary school as a more covert means to discovering the Truth About Your New Friend (or not, as the case may be).  The funny thing is that to people from here, all of these questions mean only one thing: asking someone whether they are Protestant or Catholic, making the whole song and dance around the actual question fairly unnecessary, in my humble opinion..  What's even more entertaining is watching someone beat around the bush of a foreigner, say a Jewish foreigner with, hypothetically of course, a distinctly Jewish name. In such cases, the same old codes and sensitivities may not exist.
I can't even count the myriad of creative ways people have come up with to ask me if I am Jewish without asking me if I'm Jewish.  A standard introduction goes like this:
A: My name's Yael.
B: Oh.  Is that a Jewish name?
A: Yes.
B: Do you have any connection to Judaism or Jewish people?*
A: Yes, in fact I do.
(awkward pause while A gives B a chance to be direct, to no avail)
A: I'm Jewish.
B: Oh, (trying to cover the tracks of having inquired about religion) I was just wondering why you might have a Jewish name.

*this is a direct quote taken from an actual conversation. 
I feel lucky enough to have been raised in a society in which I feel no discomfort at telling someone my religion without worrying about the effect of how it will cause me to be perceived, which makes it all the more jarring when you go to a place in which stating one's religion can carry not only a specific implication about one's political beliefs, lifestyle, upbringing and community, but also considerable risk in some cases.  The ways in which people's minds conform to the conflict in sending and interpreting the codes of everyday interaction are incredible.  In order to take what you need to know from these interactions, a person needs to know the basic population breakdowns of nearly every street in Belfast, not to mention the podunk towns all across the six counties composing Northern Ireland.
What codes do we learn as children in the US?  At ten years old, having just had the first round of health courses in school, I was scolded for asking my grandmother if she had been through menopause.  Yet the subtleties of emotion that so often dictate the way we understand our surroundings are equally coded.  Over the past few weeks, Andy's mother in Texas has been fatally ill with cancer.  (Andy, a Texan, is the assistant to Paul, the center director, and lives on site with his wife, Mary Lynne and their five-year-old son, AJ).  For weeks, AJ has understood that something is wrong, yet the only information he has been told explicitly is that his grandma is sick.  No details, no diagnosis, only the knowledge that she isn't well in combination with the myriad of communications that do not involve a direct verbal statement.
As a person who is very direct and hardly bashful about verbally articulating uncomfortable sentiments, the system of codified information in Northern Ireland is fairly difficult to get used to.  Why ask someone about their primary school when I can just ask if they are Protestant, Catholic or neither.  Unfortunately for me (but probably fortunately for everyone else!) I don't make the rules of social engagement here or anywhere else.  And every once in a while, I am made aware of the codes that I speak, or, as Paul says, the statements behind my questions.
During a training with Paul yesterday, we introduced ourselves to the two new midterm volunteers from Ohio by saying our name and where we are from.  While Roland, Sari, Valentin, Franc and Anthony said the countries from which they came here (Philippines, Hungary, Germany, Cameroon, Ghana, respectively), Michaela said Armagh, Jeni said Belfast, Andrew said Ohio and I said New York.  After going around in a circle, Franc raised his hand and asked why the four of us could say our city or state and expect everyone to know where it is, while he would never be able to tell a group of foreigners that he's from Bamenda and have people recognize that as a city in Cameroon.  I explained that I said New York because the new MTVs are from the States and would doubtless want to know where in the US I was from, and that furthermore I have never met a single person that had not heard of New York.  Similarly, Jeni and Michaela assumed that because we are in Northern Ireland, we would all be at least vaguely familiar with its major cities.  While both of these statements are both true and fair enough, the point about the US is clear: the domination of Western culture in our so-called diverse community is blatant in our accurate assumptions of other peoples' knowledge.  As soon as Franc posed his objection, I felt myself getting defensive even though I could see the validity of what he was saying.  It felt good to recognize the statements behind the codes and appreciate where he was coming from in his frustration with being on the margin of Western hegemony.

Autumn Change

Today I washed windows from approximately 9:40 AM to 3:00 PM. 

I had a half hour break around 10:30 and then took about 40 minutes for lunch.  Other than that it was just me, the squeegee and a bucket of tepid suds.  Top be honest, it was a very nice day--satisfying work with instant results, I was able to be outside a lot, I listened to music and had some alone time which is always nice around here.  As I wiped the dust and cobwebs from the glass, I couldn't help but be struck by the symbolism of this task.  Here I was, at a peace and reconciliation center, making sure that people on the inside could see outwards clearly.  Maybe I am reading into it too much.  As I stood cleaning, I thought about what other members of my graduating college class were doing right at this moment, picturing some of my friends in grown up, formal, work clothing, sitting at desks with their work email accounts.  I thought about those of my friends traveling, working in coffee shops, as English teachers, nannies, secretaries, volunteers in other capacities.  When you've been in school for as long as you can remember, it's pretty impossible to accurately envision post-college life.  Sometimes I still wonder about when this limbo part ends and "real life" begins.  At so many different points in my life, from camp to college to travel, I have sought out intimate communities that provide some sort of "bubble" that separates me from what feels like the rest of the world and contains me within its social network and daily life.  I don't quite know what to make of this but it's something I've been mulling over for a while. 
There's something about this season.  It seems that every year the fall brings change for me, both predictable and unexpected, connecting me and my life with the season in which I was born.  As my mother always tells me when I'm upset around this time: "Everything happens in the fall."  Indeed, it would appear that this time of year in which the old growth dies as the earth steadies itself for the coming months of cold has always been a time that represents change for me, sometimes tumultuous and sometimes meticulously planned.  Though spring is traditionally thought of as the time of birth, new life and new beginnings, it's not a coincidence that the Jewish new year happens in the fall, when the sunshine and bounty of summer give way for something else entirely.  Perhaps, I'm not talking about renewal but of cleansing, a clearing away of what is no longer necessary and a moving on from the sunny, happy days of summer to a time of introspection and focused reflection.  If praxis is the dialectic between acting and reflecting, autumn is a time for me when the latter becomes dominant and I can't help but self-reflect.  While this can be overwhelming and often painful, I have come to the understanding that it is this time that allows my to approach the rest of the year with passion and motivation.
Every time I sit down to write it feels like a whole year has passed.  Since last I wrote, I spent a day with Corrymeela's schools worker leading activities in an integration program with ninety 5-6 year olds, worked with an SIT group, the program I came here with, spent time with an integrated group of fifty 13-14 year olds from nine schools in the town of Ballymena, went to Belfast on my off time where I spent time with a former volunteer from Turkey and saw some stellar Irish music on the Falls Road and met some awesome Hungarians who gained respect for me when I told them that my favorite Hungarian dish is gumbotz (thanks, Gizi!).  It's completely amazing how I stay in one place and the world just comes to me!  Sometimes I feel like the work being done here is so important, that my role is awesome and that this is the best place ever.  Sometimes I feel completely useless, bored and that I will literally strangle the next kid that rings the worship bell in the middle of the day.  Most of the time I am somewhere in the middle, which is probably how it should be, I suppose, though bad moods are something you have to get over pretty quickly when working with groups.
Nancy, a mid-term volunteer from the US who happens to be the mother of one of my brother's friends from college, left Corrymeela under less than ideal circumstances, which really affected our community of volunteers.  It's really amazing how quickly everyone's role in the group has solidified such that the loss of one person means so much to everyone, often regardless of personal relationship.  I'll miss Nancy, and the show must go on.
A highlight of last week was Monday night, when Valentin and I cooked community dinner for the rest of the volunteers, Aileen, Tim and Tiff, Paul (the center director)'s family, Andy, Mary Lynn and AJ, everyone's favorite resident five-year-old.  Because of the fact that several of the dishes I grew up on are German, we decided to make schnitzel (chicken breast breaded and pan fried) and cabbage salad.  Despite the kitchen's denial of our request for beer (dry site schmy site!) we had a great time--I cut up the cabbage very thin, added some lemon juice, salt and pepper and called it a day while Roland hammered the chicken and Valentin dipped it in flour, egg and bread crumbs.  Though the house smelled like schnitzel for about five days afterwards, it was so nice to cook for everyone and take pleasure in their enjoyment of our food.
We also celebrated Jeni (my roommate)'s birthday last week.  She turned 20, making Valentin our lone teenager, and we threw her a Batman-themed party in homage to her favorite movie.  I had spent a while making batman masks for everyone and batman symbols, which we put all over the reception area of Coventry (the building where we live).  We've decided to keep them up until Halloween, so for now the building is very batted up!  Speaking of which, I also got an awesome package from my mom for Halloween, which included a Dorothy costume complete with ruby slippers and Toto too, as well as some vital accoutrements, such as temporary tattoos, fake spiders and other essentials.  It was the best--everyone gathered around to oooh and aah and I am trying to drum up support for everyone to go as someone from the Wizard of Oz.  Jeni and Michaela are already fighting over the Wicked Witch, but as long as Roland is a flying monkey I'll be happy.
Sara's birthday is coming up on Sunday, followed two weeks later by mine!  The wind whips the changing leaves as my 23rd year comes to a close and I look forward to a 24th full of learning, growing and renewal.

At Long Last!

Photos! It only took me 36224725 hours of frustration with the stupid HP software my computer came with to realize it's useless! Thanks, Picasa and Google for saving my sanity and allowing my pictures to go public. For those of you just tuning in, I am spending a year in Northern Ireland, volunteering at Corrymeela Center for peace and reconciliation, which has so far involved lots of doing dishes, playing with little kids (some cute, some not so much), and listening to cool people talk about some crazy shit that's gone down. In any case, if a picture is worth a thousand words then this album is worth 155,000 words! Winner!

Click on this sentence to view the photos (it's what they call a "link"--this is for you, Savta and Grandpa).

Hope you're all well and staying out of trouble (or at least not getting caught;).

xox

Ignorance

Another week, another series of events, experiences and activities that make me feel as if I've been here for years. I hung out and slept a lot on Tuesday, following our family group, community week and our day at Knocklayd. I then went to the pub with four other LTVs, which was nice, if fairly short, owing to the fact that Ballycastle's approximately 14 pubs all close at 11 on weekdays. Awesome. In any case, I ended up going to Belfast the next day, catching a ride with a community member and spending the day on Wednesday just wandering the streets, checking out our old haunts in South Belfast (Clement's was as awesome as I remembered!) and relishing being around lots of strangers I didn't have to introduce myself to! A few of the other LTVs spent their time off camping, biking and being in nature--it's funny to think that I have to recharge by heading to a big city and being in an urban environment with concrete and bustle and noise. Corrymeela is by far the most rural place I've ever lived, and I really miss being in or just outside of a major city, though I am enjoying the alternate opportunities living in such a gorgeous place provides. I met up with Nancy, an MTV, and we saw a very interesting documentary as part of Belfast Age Awareness Week entitled Gen Silent, which examined the crisis faced by aging LGBT people. The film followed several gay, lesbian and transgender senior citizens as they try to negotiate placement in senior care facilities when the people entrusted with their lives may have serious prejudice that sometimes goes as far as trying to "cure" the seniors in their care. Many older people in the LGBT community even find themselves going back in the closet to ensure that they receive unbiased care, including couples that pretend to be non-romantic when one visiting each other in nursing homes. It was an American film that took place entirely in Boston and its suburbs, but was especially poignant to watch in Northern Ireland, where, in my opinion, the culture is much more conservative and repressive of LGBT issues. Even being in the audience was unusual in that I was around more openly gay people than I had been possibly in my entire time in Ireland. As much as I enjoy being here and as secure as I am in (most of) my multiple identities, the film also articulated issues for me about inclusion, exclusion, categorization and bias that have not been at the forefront of my mind for a while as I try to focus on acclimating to this community and surrounding. This was especially striking during a conversation the other day with a few other LTVs about Christmas. I discussed the experience of feeling excluded from Christmas as a child, wishing I could have a Christmas tree, lights, Santa Claus and took it a step further by suggesting that the length of time and degree to which Christmas is celebrated excludes many people that live on the margins of expected societal and cultural norms. The four other people I was talking with agreed that Christmas was way too commercialized, and as a result of the general detachment from the religious aspect of the holiday, it was open to anyone who wanted to celebrate it. Therefore, I, as a Jew, was excluding myself by choosing not to participate in Christmas, and that I was always invited to celebrate Christmas in a non-religious manner (i.e. tree, lights, etc.). How could I explain to them that a sign that says "Happy Holidays" doesn't mean anything to me when it's up two weeks after the minor holiday of Hanukkah and colored in red and green? Can that really be considered an act of inclusion? Partly because I wasn't in a very serious frame of mind and partly because four people were in agreement without me, my attempts to represent my point of view were framed in a joking, lighthearted manner. I tried making an analogy to a group of popular kids in school that invite you to hang out with them, provided you change the way you dress and other representations of your personality. The fact is, though, that I couldn't draw a comparison to something that a group of middle class people of European descent would be comparably excluded from. When I suggested that gay people are another group marginalized from the holiday, one girl disagreed strongly. I stated how I felt, that the mainstream definition of a family and togetherness as being exclusively heterosexual is concentrated and especially emphasized around the Christmas season, and the fact that many people, align themselves against/don't like gay people/homosexuality becomes very clear (to me and others on the outside) during the Christmas season. One girl became very offended by my characterization that "many people don't like gays," saying that her sister is gay and that she's found more acceptance than not in a very conservative society. The others piped in with the myriad of gay people they know who love Christmas and therefore if someone feels excluded it's just their own fault. I said that while I couldn't speak to her sister's experience, I know that in the US the number of places where gay people can live an open lifestyle without having to obscure their identity to most people is limited, and that I was not saying that no gay people like Christmas, but rather that the perception of the holiday as being inclusive is, in many cases, misguided.
In any case, I the Christmas conversation came to a close, but it wasn't until the following night that I realized how affected I had been by it. As we sat around a lovely bonfire, one of the people who had taken part in the conversation spoke brought up the subject, saying I had been "complaining" about Christmas and something about my being bitter about the holiday. Not wanting to be misrepresented, I reiterated how much I like some aspects of the season, such as the trees, the lights and the music, but that I couldn't help but feel excluded by something that almost everyone else takes part in except for me and a handful of others. The team started piping up with the "you do it to yourself" spiel, until someone else in the group (who happens to be gay but isn't out to most people here) called them on their crap and expressed their frustration with placing the blame on those in the minority. "It's not a choice," this person said, "and I hate it when everyone says that it is when really it would require you to give something up in order to join in." Hearing someone else validate my point of view as reasonable was a wake up call to me. It was only then that I realized how much I had been doubting myself, thinking about whether or not I was doing this to myself. I have always been fortunate to live in exceptionally open-minded, accepting places, in which there was an awareness about issues of inclusion and exclusion, particularly in terms of religion and sexual identity. Having people I like and respect tell me that my feelings of exclusion as a member of a minority religion/culture were my own fault had been so unusual for me that I didn't know what to do with the feeling at the time. I am hoping to have another, more focused conversation about the issue at some point, having thought about my feelings and position. Hopefully it can be a learning experience for people other than myself.
It seems that opinions about foreign cultures are held on to for dear life whether or not they are based on experience. A few days later I was talking with another LTV and somehow the issue of Mormons came up. She had read several books about the early church (read: polygamy) and was suddenly saying all these things about the modern church, how some Mormons are still polygamous, how they "propagate" (yes, she used this word) because they believe you need a number of spirit children to get into heaven--I didn't even know what she meant--and how demeaned women are within the belief system. I related my experience of living with and surrounded by very devoted members of the Church for a year, having had many conversations and asked many questions about their beliefs and come to have a lot of respect for the way in which many people of this faith live their lives with great integrity and care for their children. I told her about how people found to be polygamous are excommunicated from the Church and that the lifestyle is in no way acceptable within the modern structure. This girl kept referring to books she had read and "articles on the internet," because clearly, reading about something on the internet is waaaaay more informative than asking many people, over a long period of time, whose lives are devoted to the religion, specifically about their beliefs. I would never read a book written by someone who left her hometown for having a negative experience and then her life in her hometown, thinking that my understanding was more informed based on this book I had read. Why hold on to this? I'm not claiming to be a theological scholar by any means, but seriously? You're going to argue with me about whether Mormons are still polygamous when I lived five minutes from BYU? So frustrating.
And truly, the icing on the cake came yesterday when I went with Valentin, Sara and Anthony, volunteers from Germany, Hungary and Ghana, respectively, to hang out in Derry for the day. After a beautiful, scenic bus and train ride, we arrived in the middle of town and started walking around Shipquay Street, the main drag within the old city walls. As we passed by a seasonal Halloween store, we notice, among the costumes for kids to dress up like a pirate, a policeman or a skeleton, a Gestapo costume. Now, just to be clear, this wasn't a soldier's uniform that happened to look like a Nazi; rather, the label read "Gestapo" and the suit consisted of a grey uniform with a black hat and boots and a red armband (sans swastika--really?? That's the line they draw?). The four of us stopped walking and Valentin and I in particular were absolutely speechless. Part of me felt like crying while another part felt like breaking the window and a third part just wanted to keep walking and pretend I had not seen it. Yet, knowing myself, I knew that I could not pretend I had not seen it, nor was I willing to release emotion then and there. Of course, being incapable of keeping my mouth shut (for better or for worse), I walked in the store. I asked the older man behind the counter if this was his shop and he said yes. I mentioned that he had a Gestapo costume in the window and he turned around to hand me one to buy. No, no, I said, I just wanted to let you know that I find the costume very offensive. He put the package back on the shelf, shrugged his shoulders and said "that's just the way it is here. Sorry, love, that's just the way it is." Before I opened up with my whole life story, I just told him again how offensive it is and walked out. Valentin and I recalled the episode a few years ago when Prince Harry dressed up like a Nazi at a Halloween party and he noted that he could not understand how anyone could have a sense of humor about this, which made me think more about the costume. Who would buy such an outfit? Who would want to wear it? I concluded that it would either be someone who somehow thought it was funny, or someone who didn't know what Gestapo meant and just thought they were buying a soldier's uniform. Which was worse? An offensive sense of humor and poor judgement or complete ignorance to something so recent, significant and threatening? What was the thought behind the marketing? One of the effects was that it made an integral figure in mass murder colloquial and insignificant. I reflected on how scary this process is of forgetting just enough of the real meaning to make us ignorant on a daily basis to horrific, violent events that have shaped the world and our lives. While I knew that telling this shopkeeper how I felt would not cause him to take the item off the I think I would have felt a sense of self betrayal had I not said anything. At the same time, if there had been a costume in the window of an IRA volunteer or an RUC (notoriously sectarian police force in Northern Ireland prior to the peace process) officer, the display would have lasted about five seconds before people came out to demand its sale stopped. What did he mean when he said "this is the way things are here"? That people in Northern Ireland only care about their own tragedies? That offending people doesn't matter if they're not from around here? Or, most likely, that being offensive doesn't matter if the only person giving you shit for it is a tourist from New York who wouldn't be a potential customer anyway. Though I'm sure that some might say I am too sensitive, politically correct or naive, I don't feel that I am overreacting in any way. The bottom line is that seeing that costume made me feel more than uncomfortable, it hurt me to think that the Holocaust, or any genocide for that matter, is so unimportant to people that they would dress up as its perpetrator for fun.
Living in a small, diverse (Christian) community in a small, socially conservative country with many people who have been sheltered from conflict other than their own has its ups and downs. I am glad I'm here to have these conversations with people about Christmas, to share my experiences with others and have others share with me, but sometimes it's hard to do this much learning and teaching. This weekend I am working with the SIT group, the study abroad program that brought me to Northern Ireland and to Corrymeela for the first time. Should be fun and exciting and interesting to share where they are on their educational journey.