Playing Catch-up (Part XII)

Now that I've only got a little more than a week left in Ireland, I'm finally going to catch up on this blog. I wish I'd been able to update it more diligently, because then there would've been shorter entries, but they would've been more detailed. Unfortunately I got behind from the very beginning since we didn't have internet access and I just haven't been able to catch up. Plus, I kept that journal for Connie, so I was writing about everything in there as well as trying to keep this up to date. Ah well; no use lamenting that now, I guess.

So anyway, we left Sligo on Saturday morning and headed up to, at long last, Belfast! The bus ride was somewhere around 3 or 3.5 hours but my memory of it is rather hazy and anyway I'd rather NOT remember it because what I DO remember involves a boy and his feet, which smelled up the entire bus with their dirty disgustingness. The odor offended my delicate nasal sensibilities and I did not appreciate that. But we arrived in Belfast in the early evening, and, as usual, things were not what they appeared to be. We are staying at Elms Village, a residential portion of Queens University Belfast. Elms Village is comprised of a bunch of sylvan-sounding "streets" (Rowan Grove, Oak Avenue, HollySycamoreYewWillowGiantRedwood Street) which have rather attractive (fake) red brick three-level dorm buildings that look more like small flats. Unfortunately, appearances can be deceiving and the inside of Oak 4, our building, was sadly much less lovely than the outside. We met up with Peter Collins here - he's our Belfast liaison - and first we had to drag our luggage across some grass because the walkway was under construction, and then he handed out randomly assigned room keys, and then we found out that there was no lift for those of us on the 1st floor (equivalent to the second floor in U.S. terms.) Of course, I was on the 1st floor so I had a fabulous time dragging my suitcase upstairs. I switched rooms with a kindly boy so that I could have a room near Esther, and then the moment of truth arrived - I put my key card into the slot on the door, waited for the green light with bated breath, opened it, and gazed into what would be my home for the next threeish weeks...

...and I saw, to my horror, a small jail cell waiting for me. I took a step in and discovered that although a public smoking ban was enacted in Northern Ireland this past April, the last occupant of my room had clearly decided that it didn't apply to him/her and had puffed away merrily. My room had - actually, still has - the distinct odor of a cheap motel room - stale cigarette smoke and other unsavory odors. The floor, which is carpeted in a nasty shade of brown with small blue spots, is covered in stains of various shapes, sizes, and colors. The long blue curtains on the window displays a matching set of stains, much to my horror. The walls are made of those white painted large cement bricks. There's an open closet type thing, a low bed (supremely uncomfortable; I feel every spring when I move) and, to complete the jail feeling, a small sink on the wall. All I need is a chamberpot and a slot in the door for my meals and I'm set.

Seriously, though, we were all rather disillusioned by this place. If I were a college kid with housing here, I'd probably not last the year... the building is dirty and depressing and uncomfortable. We have 10 people to a floor, with 2 showers, 2 toilets, and a (dirty) kitchen. Upon checking out our floor kitchen we discovered food that had been left in the refrigerator for God knows how long and was emitting yet another in the long series of foul odors we'd encountered that day. The kitchen does have a TV, a table, benches, and some (ripped up, dirty) chairs as well. The TV only gets 3 channels, but it's still something to do.

Anyway, after getting briefed by Peter about the program in Belfast, Bonnie, Esther, and I headed out to Tesco to stock up on groceries. Eventually we discovered that Peter's directions were faulty when we didn't encounter the store after a 35 minute walk. Eventually we asked some kindly ladies for help and were instantly met with an example of Belfast friendliness and hospitality as they eagerly showed us the right direction - "Just down this road, luv, it's a bit of a walk for me but then I'm not as young as you are" - patted us on the shoulders, and wished us good luck and that we'd find good food. Eventually we made it and discovered that it's only a 10-15 minute walk from Elms Village. Okaaay.

So that night and all of Sunday dragged on foreverrrrr, mainly because our internet connection wasn't working and it was pouring out so nobody felt inclined to explore the city (which is, by the way, a 45 minute walk away and we weren't given bus passes here, nor is there a stop very close by.) Everybody was mopy and we all just shook our heads at one another in mutual discomfort. This point, I think, may've been a key one in our shared group bonding experience.

Finally Monday arrived and we all headed to class at Queens. The building is a 20ish minute walk away, but instead of being a long walk through an ugly campus like at UCD, we get to walk down Malone Road, which is kind of on the fringe of the city itself. If you've never seen a picture of the QUB main building, the Lanyon Building, I suggest you Google it because it's really beautiful. Of course, our class is held in the new and uglier building BEHIND Lanyon, but still - it feels really cool to walk through the Lanyon Building on our way to class.

So in Belfast we had class three days a week, with day trips mixed in. Connie organized the program so that we read authors who wrote about/of/in the cities in which we were currently staying, so the Belfast curriculum included Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Seamus Deane, Glenn Patterson, and other Northern Irish writers. I'd read Heaney and Deane in my Irish Lit class in the spring, but being in Belfast while reading them totally changed my understanding of their works as I became familiar with Belfast's politics, past and present.

Our first trip was a coach tour of Belfast's murals and then Stormont. I'm sure that you've all seen pictures of the murals, because at this point in time they're Belfast's biggest tourist attraction, for better or worse. We drove down the Falls Road first, which is the Catholic section of West Belfast. Peter showed us the International Wall, which is a series of murals dealing with events outside of Ireland. There were quite a few anti-Bush/anti-Iraq war murals, some Israel-Palestine themed ones, and one showing support for the Basque separatist movement, which was especially interesting for Bonnie and I since we'd spent 4 days in the Basque country with Tamara's family. Many of these murals were works in progress. Other murals in the Falls Road area depicted Republican themes and could be associated with Sinn Fein and occasionally the IRA. The strangely surreal thing about these murals is that they're often painted on the gabled sides of row houses, so you'll see this row of decent looking houses and then turn the corner and see a masked man holding up a rifle staring down at you. It's a reminder of how sectarian Belfast was (duh) and actually still is - there's a huge wall, taller than the Berlin Wall ever was (I can attest to that as I saw its remains in Berlin over spring break), that separates the Catholic from the Protestant neighborhoods.

The main Protestant area is the Shankill Road area, and, as you might expect, the murals there are largely Loyalist/Unionist in nature. Some motifs include lions & unicorns, the Battle of the Boyne, Oliver Cromwell, and the Red Hand of Ulster. It's really hard to describe the murals like this, so I suppose that you'll all just have to see my pictures to understand what I'm talking about. I will say that it felt really strange to be driving through neighborhoods and occasionally getting out so that Peter could tell us about the murals and history in the area, especially when he told us about how he'd been standing with a group of students talking about some Loyalist murals one day and telling the story of a particular paramilitary man who used some nasty means of killing Catholics when he noticed two taxi drivers listening with great interest to the way in which he was spinning his tale. He said he got out of there fast, since taxi drivers are notoriously known as being "reformed" paramilitaries. A number of us felt uncomfortable during this portion of the tour because it was such a touristy thing to do; Peter would have the coach driver take us through purely residential neighborhoods so he could talk about what had happened in those areas during the heyday of the Troubles. It just felt like we were disturbing these people's lives as they were probably trying to move on from that part of their past.

After we'd seen a large amount of murals, we drove through Belfast's seaport area. There are two large yellow cranes which are permanent landmarks of the city, despite being rather an eyesore. The new plan for Belfast is to re-imagine it as the home of the Titanic, since it was built in Belfast, and to design a new "Titanic quarter" which is supposed to be a big tourist attraction in years to come. People we've talked to on this matter seem skeptical about its future success, but it's interesting to see how Belfast is trying to reinvent itself in the eyes of tourists.

Then we headed to Stormont, Northern Ireland's parliament building where the Assembly sits. We were given a tour and then met up with Micky Brady, a Sinn Fein representative from Newry and Armagh. He talked to us about the current state of politics, Sinn Fein's position, and the like, and then some of us asked questions. That Sinn Fein is working alongside members of the DUP in parliament is a major step towards peace, and Micky Brady seemed very optimistic about the future of these inter-party relations.

That night, a few of us walked for 2 hours along the Falls Road to go see The Commitments, which was being shown outdoors as part of Belfast's August Feile, or festival. We'd bought tickets in the city centre that afternoon and had gotten to see the city a bit, which was nice. But we arrived in Belfast right at the beginning of the Feile, which provided us with many things to do - some kids went to concerts, etc. Anyway, the walk back after the movie had ended at midnight was not so nice, however. But we booked it back and made it to Elms Village in an hour and a half. Interestingly, the Basque separatist mural I mentioned earlier, which we'd seen earlier in the day, had clearly been painted at some point during the evening because it was actually completed when we were walking to the movie and it had only been partially painted in the morning/afternoon.

So the next day we had class, and then at night I walked down the Falls Road yet AGAIN to St. Mary's University because there was another Feile event being held there, this time an international fair. I was a bit disappointed; although there was relatively inexpensive food, there were only a few overpriced craft booths. Making purchases in Belfast is a killer because they obviously use the pound here, as opposed to the Republic of Ireland's euro, and the exchange rate for the pound is utter crap.

Afterwards we walked down to another school to meet up with the rest of the group to attend another Feile event, West Belfast Talks Back. This was arguably one of the most interesting things we did/saw in Belfast. It was basically a debate between West Belfast politicians. There was a woman from Sinn Fein, a member of the DUP, the current police commissioner, and this older male journalist who said whatever the hell he wanted when he wanted. The audience was mainly Republican, which was apparent in the way they seemed to show most support for Sinn Fein (I hate to be patronizing, but please remember that the term "Republican" in Northern Ireland/Ireland refers to left-leaning people who support the formation of a full Republic of Ireland by having Northern Ireland "break free" from the U.K., to put it in its simplest terms.) Although Peter said that this year's debate was nowhere near as heated as it had been in the past, we were still all a little shocked at the nature of some of the audience's questions. One main theme of questioning was about the possibility of a Truth Commission to explore collusion as well as British soldiers' culpability in a number of murders during the Troubles. The DUP rep and the police commissioner both seemed in favor of letting the issue go (even though there are roughly 1800 "unsolved" murders) while Sinn Fein supports the creation of a Truth Commission so that the families of those killed can have some sort of closure. All in all, the debate was absolutely riveting and really opened our eyes to how, even though there's a peace agreement and even though Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness are working together these days, nobody's anywhere close to forgetting what West Belfast and Belfast as a whole has been through. As a side note, I have to say that hearing one grizzled older man shout, "I'm a proud IRA man!" and having the DUP member respond with "And I'm a proud Orangeman!" was just really, really disconcerting.

Okay - I have written WAY too much already, and there's more to come, but I'll stop for now. I apologize for the length, but Belfast is a fascinating place. When I'm home I'm sure that I'll end up talking about it much more, too.