Lessons of a Tour Guide

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve worked with a couple of groups from the States who were visiting Belfast. It’s been a while since I’d seen anyone newly over from the other side of the Atlantic, so it was interesting to see life from their perspective again. I had forgotten how many things over here seem different from life back home, how hard the accents can be to understand, and even how prevalent the signs of sectarian division are.

Last week, a group from my university came to visit Belfast. (It was the same group that I met in Dublin the week before.) They were only here for a day or so, but I showed them around some of Belfast. I took them on a tour of murals in the Shankill (loyalist) and Falls (nationalist) districts. I’ve seen these murals at least three or four times by now, so I’ve started analyzing them more intellectually. But the students from Fox had the same reactions I’d had at the beginning – being disturbed that someone could have ever painted such blatantly sectarian scenes. It reminded me again of why I chose to come here in the first place.

On Monday, I went to Friendship House with a few students from Queens University in Charlotte, NC, who were also here on a school trip. We spent time with the primary-school kids at the afterschools club. These kids all have strong accents and strong personalities. It took me a few weeks to understand them enough to hold a conversation with them. And this is another one of those differences I’d forgotten, until I had to translate for the university students.

I think it just hit me this week how different it’s going to be when I go home. (For those who are wondering, I have no real plans for what I’m doing when I return.) I still have just over two months here, so I’m trying not to think about it too much yet. But I’ve gotten used to life over here, and I’ve grown to like it. I will be sad to leave when the time comes.

Word of the Week: having kittens. It’s really more of an Irish expression than a Northern Irish one, but it makes me laugh every time, so I include it anyway. Someone “has kittens” when they get very worried and worked up about something. For example: “If the organizer knew everything wasn’t going according to plan, she’d be having kittens.”