Discovering Northern Ireland: Our Corrymeela Retreat Weekend

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone it really means time is running out for me, here in Northern Ireland. Something I should have done before Thanksgiving, I am now finding the time to reflect and realize what this semester has meant to me. I also want to update you all on I have done in the past week.

Wow I just realized it’s a lot.

So last weekend, the rest of the Bluffton group that are in Derry came up to Corrymeela for our final retreat weekend together. Megan and I were filled with anticipation in being able to show/share with our group all that we have experienced here at Corry and why we love it so much. We even made posters the night before to welcome them all back. Oh and I can’t possibly forget that our Corrymeela volunteer from our first weekend here, Sean, came back to spend the last weekend with us as well! We all talked during the weekend and decided that he is basically part of our group anyway.

Our Programme Director, Mervyn, was the first to arrive and unknown to us he snuck in a box full of goodies for the weekend and a birthday cake for all 4 of the students who have celebrated their birthdays over here! It was so kind and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. After the group arrived we shared a meal together and got caught up on everything. We then went to our meeting room and talked a little bit before Mervyn read us a ‘bed time story.’ Some of my classmates don’t like his stories much because normally a cute, helpless animal dies in the end but I love them because he is an awesome storyteller and there is a deeper meaning in most of them. He then proceeded to show us the Birthday cake (chocolate with rich chocolate icing from a local baker in town!!) It was delicious to say the least. Mervyn left for the night and then some people who weren’t feeling well went to bed and the rest of us played games until midnight. First time I have played the game mafia and thanks to our awesome storyteller Andy it was a lot of fun.

The next day I got up and had porridge!! I was so excited and I really don’t know why but they make it really good here and I really like it. And sat around for the rest of the group to gradually make their way down to breakfast. Then we grabbed our packed lunches and got on the bus for a coastal tour for the day. Where we are situated we have previously gone to the west toward Derry and all the major ‘tourist sights’ but this time we went to the east and what is called the Glens of Antrim. I have heard that some people like it and others think it’s a waste of time but I personally felt it was beautiful. Of course pictures are to follow but it was a great way to spend the day together. We got stopped about three or four times during the day because of ‘traffic’ on the roads. Meaning really, one car with a flat tire that parked in the middle of the “two lane”-but actually no wider than most one lane roads in America, road construction, unloading of sheep to a field and something else I bet. It was just a very random day. Our first stop was at the top of a hill so that we could see the other side of Fairhead cliff and look over to Scotland. I believe it was called Merlough Bay. Mervyn said that seven different currents all meet in this area and it is one of the most dangerous places to try to cross, especially swimming and he knew at least one guy who did it twice. He showed us places along the way to our next destination of where the IRA and different paramilitaries burned out the families or destroyed houses, etc. and even one place that was believed to be the coast guard but they found out later that it was a secret underground base for British and American Troops during like WWII in trying to keep out German U-boats from accessing the channel.

We went on to a small town called Cushendun that had a beautiful beach with sea glass I think it is called, or at least I found a few pieces. Here we saw three swans, two adults and one baby, and a random goat standing by a statue of a goat…

After lunch we went on driving through the coast and the glens, apparently there are like 8 or 9 ‘glens’ or valleys in this region and they are very cool to see because instead of a normal hill or mountain, it’s a plateau on each side. I was speaking with my family via skype this Thanksgiving and told them that is probably my favorite part of Ireland, the scenery. It’s just so beautiful and there is actually a lot of variety around the whole of Ireland that surprised me. We ended at a park and walked down trails to the waterfalls. They were so pretty and it was just such a relaxing day. We returned to Corrymeela with a few hours to rest and get ready for our evening meal. We loaded up on the bus again and went to the Giant’s Causeway and ate at the Causeway Hotel. We all were dressed up and it was a nice, fancy meal for a change. It was a great dinner and very filling! We then returned to Corrymeela and loaded up in Taxi’s to head out to the pub to celebrate Josh and Megan’s 21^st Birthdays. Everyone came out and we had a great time. The next morning was our last and I had to help everyone pack up and clean up their rooms. Then we all met in our meeting room for our last discussion with Mervyn. We filled our course evaluations and verbally told Mervyn our opinion of the whole trip.

He was saying how Bluffton wants to take out certain parts of the programme for budget costs but we just don’t understand how they could do that. Every part of this programme has provided such an array of learning and changing experiences that if anything we wished we had more time here! We pay so much to go to Bluffton for a semester that we are away here in Northern Ireland that we just don’t understand how we could be short on money. Yes, Dublin is expensive but it’s so necessary to rounding out our understanding of all of the history we learned about the Troubles and before! Let alone Dublin is a completely different culture than Derry and Belfast also has many valuable sights….sigh…it’s just hard for us now, as we have experienced it all, to put a price tag on all that we have learned and all the ways in which this experience has changed each and every one of us so much! We have all grown and matured, gained confidence and communication skills, we have developed compassion for a community outside of our own, and realized how important the little things in life are. These are things you can’t learn from books, I can’t be taught to have compassion, but by the whole scope of this programme I understand so much more about what it really means to be a young woman of this world.

After our deep talk, it was time for the group to leave. They packed up their things in the bus and went back to Derry. It was sad to see them go, even though we knew we would see them again, and very soon actually. But this time it meant final goodbyes of the places we have come to love are imminent and real. Megan and I sat in Coventry as Sean and Andy left for Belfast and that was the final goodbye for Sean, though we are all hoping to be able to meet up again either in Ireland or USA! It meant that we really have to leave. So it was a bittersweet weekend, good times shared together and reflecting on the best semester of my college career, but saying goodbye to our good friend Sean and knowing that soon we would say goodbye to Ireland. Next post I will update on this past week. Sorry it’s so long!