Meet My Friends, part 4

From Jessica and Kevin’s flat, we move less than a mile down the road to the next volunteer’s house. The two other boys on the team, Joel and Alex, share a house in North Belfast. Their place is bigger than the marrieds’ and fairly easy to get to from the city centre, so the whole team often meets up there for movie nights, dinner, etc.

Joel is from Michigan, and went to university at Albion. He’s the token Methodist of the group (the rest of us being from Presbyterian backgrounds). Joel is fairly reserved and has a very dry, sarcastic wit. After team meetings in the city centre, most of us go shopping (or more accurately, one person has something they have to get and everybody else comes along). Joel goes to a coffee-shop and reads the newspaper while waiting for the rest of us.

Joel works at two sites, Cooke Centenary Presbyterian and The Vine Community Centre. Cooke Presbyterian is in South Belfast, not far from the city centre. It was once located in a Protestant working-class area, but the demographics are changing. Many of the members currently live in middle-class areas outside of the church’s neighbourhood. The Vine Centre is in an impoverished Protestant/Loyalist area. It is only a few blocks away from an old jail, in an area that has seen a lot of trouble. Many people struggle with drug dependency or mental illness. The Vine provides a nursery and preschool, afterschools programmes, a legal advice centre, and many other services to the neighbourhood’s residents.

My flatmate, Emyli, discovered a few months ago that Joel shared her love of NPR. Their conversation often turns to talk shows and NPR radio personalities. Emyli downloads NPR shows online (as do I) and is planning on bringing some of them with her on the team retreat next week so Joel can listen to them. 

Kevin and Joel, the two computer guys, with their Macs.

Word of the Week: craic. It’s pronounced “crack.” There’s really no translation for this word, as it’s used several different ways. The closest would probably be “fun,” but that’s not right. If some event is enjoyable, it’s said to be “good craic.” Similarly, a group can be “good craic.” You can also say, “what’s the craic?” which would roughly correspond to “what’s going on?” or “what’s up?” -- to which I have not yet figured out how to respond. Example: On Valentine’s Day, I helped out one of my teammates at a Habitat for Humanity build. There were several church groups there, and it was good craic.