This weekend was our trip to Belfast,
and it may be the treasured time I will have in Europe. This post will be long, and if you can't stick with it all the way I recommend beginning with the end. My evening was one of the best so far whilst in Europe.
We
woke up at 4:30am on Saturday to get to the airport...
Our flight was at 7:00, and we were all plenty bleary eyed
and delirious by the time we landed in Ireland. While waiting for the bus to
the airport, I ran into Dev. Catherine and I went to the airport with her and
we chatted about all sorts of things before boarding the plane. She told us
about her research in South Africa, the bullshit of some new-wave feminism
(Sheryl Sandberg we’re looking at you), and her unfettered love for sugar. We
also talked about the patriarchy, great times.
Before arriving in Belfast we made some beautiful nature stops, but our first
stop may have been the most important. At 10:00 am, a bunch of college
students, their professor, and an Irish tour guide, all stopped having eaten
little breakfast and having slept not at all. The solution (in true Irish
fashion) to our delirium was—of course—alcohol. We toured a whiskey distillery
and stopped for a classic morning drink. It was there that I learned Dev has
not always loved whiskey as she does now. When she first started drinking it,
she confessed, she thought it was the “devil’s juice” and “tasted like asphalt.”
Giant’s
Causeway and the Rope Bridge
We then traveled to the Giant’s Causeway, which was one of
the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen yet. I don’t know quite how to explain
just what it was like. I think I’ll settle for a jumble of pictures. You can
probably see--it’s like nothing else in the world.
After that we grabbed some lunch in town before heading for
the Rope Bridge. This bridge is a part of the mountainous terrain of Ireland,
and it connects one of the enormous mountain formations to the other. Just when
I thought it couldn’t get more beautiful, it did.
By the time we got on the bus, there was much exhaustion. We
had essentially been moving for twelve hours, with little sleep the night
before. Luckily, we were able to nap for the rest of the drive to Belfast,
which took about an hour.
THEN…the
evening
Upon arrival at our hostel, Vagabonds, students split off in
all different directions. I ended up eating a burrito and drinking some coffee
with friends before coming back. Most bars closed at 10, since it was Easter
weekend. This was actually a wonderful obstacle, because it brought everyone
back together in our very hip hostel.
When I got back from eating out, I saw that half of the
students from my program were chilling in the common space at our hostel.
People were drinking wine from the bottle and talking about all sorts of
things. I squeezed onto the corner of the enormous table, and that’s how I got
talking to Adrien. He was a Frenchman on vacation in Ireland for a few weeks.
He spoke with hesitant English, but chatted with me quite a bit none the same.
Adrien was very kind. We discussed his time in Mon Pierre and the job that he
doesn’t like, but pays the bills. He does photography and graphic-making in his
free-time. Rather than listing off his “hobbies”, he referred to these pass
times as “distractions”, an interesting linguistic accident. He hopes to travel
the world, but is still saving the money to do so.
I asked him about the National Front in France, an extreme
nationalist party with some alarming thoughts on immigration. He did not know
the name for the party in English, but recognized the name when I mentioned the
family that runs it, the Le Pen family. Initially I was uncertain of bringing
up the National Front, knowing that it might be a sensitive topic. Adrien was wonderfully
open about it all. He commented that he was impressed I knew the family, since
many Americans don’t know the name of the President, much less the Le Pens.
This was a dark insight on my behalf, knowing just how shallow my knowledge of
French politics is. Even so, I understood a lot of Adrien’s hatred for the
party. He spoke about the intolerance it spreads, and the protest he
participated in when he was 14 against the party’s politics.
Adrien also explained his dislike for Obama, despite
appreciating his “character.” Not closing Guantanamo, habitual drone strikes,
and the ongoing war in Afghanistan, numbered among his concerns. He wondered
about the wars in the US and asked me about my response to 9/11. The question
surprised me, though I suppose no less than my inquiries about the National
Front and burka-banning in France.
Later in the evening I walked out onto our hostel’s patio,
where many people were shouting, laughing, and drinking more wine. I sat with a
group of students from my program, along with others who worked and stayed in
Vagabonds. Many of the Carleton students drifted to bed rather early, we were a
sleepy bunch. By the time everyone else was in bed, it was just me, two Spanish
men named Javi and Ignacio, and an Irishman named Oisin (pronounced: Ocean).
Javi was by far the most boisterous, he would laugh and shout about most
anything, while Oisin and Ignacio were slightly more quiet. Ignacio in
particular, a bald and kind young man, was quite soft-spoken. He would often
begin his comments with an apology for his impeccable English.
So
then I brought up the gitanos (gypsies) of Spain…
Javi looked at me in astonishment. How did I know about
them? It’s certainly an important social issue, the separation and
discrimination against the gitanos of Spain. He prefaced his statements about
the population with “Shit, I don’t want to sound like an asshole” and “it’s a
difficult topic.” That’s because in Spain, along with most European countries,
the Roma, the gitanos, are one of the few groups that faces consistent and
blatant discrimination. As an oppressed people, the community faces significant
struggles with issues of addiction and crime. We discussed the ambiguity of how
to respect the rights and needs of this community, while avoiding stereotypes
and ongoing oppression.
The
unrest in Spain is really fucked up
As some of you know, there is deep economic turmoil within
Spain. Coming from the Northeastern part of Spain, Javi and Ignacio has
experienced this instability first-hand. The growing poverty and unemployment
is maddening, especially in the context of what they viewed as widespread
governmental corruption. Javi spoke of this with deep passion and sadness. He
told a story of seeing men and women live in tents near the trains because they
had nowhere left to go. These people, he said, were just like us. They had
lives, jobs, houses, but the economic crisis had swept all of it away.
It was in the midst of this story that the quiet comments of
Ignacio began to grow. “That is why violence is necessary.” With each new
frustration communicated by Javi, Ignacio would reply with clear resolve that
the only solution was violence. This bubbled into a louder argument about
whether violence was an effective method to affect change. Ignacio, quiet and
kind, shouted his anger. When I asked who the violence should be directed
against, he said simply: “the politicians.” He cited parts of the Arab Spring
as examples, of the necessity to rid a people of corruption and oppression.
Javi was unconvinced, though noted he was one of the “hippies” of Spain, and
certainly in the minority opinion on how to confront the government. I asked
Ignacio about how the violence would be controlled, and the concerns about
state-building if the protesters were to succeed. Egypt is a strong example of
this, and I recommended a documentary, “The Square”, to gain foresight in
modern revolution-making. Ignacio said that he could be President if the
government were to fall. Oisin and I agreed to be members of his cabinet.
I regret to tell you all, but at this time I decided to
go to bed. I thought it was later than it actually was, and figured I should
get some sleep for the craziness of the next day. But I didn’t go without farewells
from all of the guys. Javi repeated that he was impressed with my knowledge,
especially of Spanish politics. He thanked me for my input and confessed he was
surprised. He said there was a stereotype about Americans. “That we don’t know
geography?” I asked. “That we know nothing of other countries and their
struggles?” “Worse.” He said. “That you don’t care.” It meant a lot to meet an
American girl who knew about these issues, to which I reminded him that there
are a lot more of us than he might believe.
I lied awake in bed for a long time, just thinking of everything
that we had discussed. It’s true what they say about being abroad--the best education
comes from the random people you meet along the way.
