Day 3

In which I wake up at 7am, take a shower and eat a late breakfast followed by some child protection training and a late lunch, after which some laundry is done and hung outside to dry whilst a number of us hike through the boggy hills to the bay and play on the beach, whereupon it begins to rain and we scurry to put our socks and shoes on over our wet sandy feet and tromp back through the bog (I without a rainjacket) and bring the clothes in from the line; and in which I video-Skype with my parents (for the first time in 3 months), enjoy a delicious dinner, play a funny word game, and diddle around on the guitar before dashing back to my bedroom in the rain at 11pm.

Camas

After a train, a ferry across the Irish Sea, a taxi, another train, a night at a hostel in Glasgow, a train through Scotland's gorgeous mountains and valleys and lakes, another ferry, a bus, and a 30-minute walk, I have arrived at Camas Tuath (North Bay), Ardfenaig, Bunessan, the Isle of Mull, Scotland - 25 hours after departing Kilcranny House.

Life at Camas will be quite an adjustment after life at Kilcranny, most noticeably as regards my personal independence, proximity and transportation to towns/cities, and access to the internet.  Because I'm living here with a staff team of 12 people, the daily schedule and chores are more structured (things will of course get even more different as soon as we begin having groups of young people in beginning in a couple of weeks!).  The Centre is situated at the end of a mile-long track, a half-hour's walk from the main road, and the nearest small towns are 5 miles away in either direction, requiring a bicycle or use of the camp van or the infrequent bus or a hitch.  We have internet access here, but only one on one computer which is shared among the staff and which is also the office computer used for work.

The team here is wonderful, and very musical, and I love having our tasty communal meals together.  We have staff from different parts of Scotland and England as well as someone from Australia, two of us from the US, and one from Sweden.  After our trainings this week and next, I'll be able to tell you more about the kinds of programs we'll be leading with the groups that come!

For now, I'll just close with a brief description from the Camas brochure:
"Camas is part of the Iona Community, an organisation rooted in the Christian tradition of social justice, action for peace, and an open and inclusive spirituality.  A commitment to providing a positive experience for young people and others experiencing poverty and social exclusion is at the heart of all our work, including with youth groups, young offenders, homeless people, and those seeking to overcome addiction."
And the mission statement: "Together we seek to enable growth in love, respect and awareness of ourselves, each other, God and the environment."

RHUBARB

these past few days my diet has consisted primarily of spinach and rhubarb.  they are the only two crops in the garden that are ready to harvest.  i didn't plant anything else early enough in the greenhouse... :(  in any case, i've been eating a lot of spinach & lettuce salads and sandwiches with hummus, and baking up a rhubarb storm in the kitchen!  unfortunately for him, Mike hasn't aquired the taste for rhubarb yet, because there's LOADS of it in the garden...
two weeks ago it was a rhubarb pie. 
so far this week i've made:
rhubarb crisp
rhubarb coffee cake
strawberry-rhubarb pie
and have plans for a rhubarb custard tart.
i won't have time to make rhubarb sauce or jam, or that would definitely be next on my list!

i certainly can't eat all of these things singlehandedly before i leave in two days!  i guess i'll have some happy co-workers... 

this is why Europe is cool:

it has ancient things.
like 500-year-old castles.
and 1000-year-old monasteries.
and 5000-year-old megalithic sites.
LOTS of them.

I've been having fun exploring them, particularly now that we have a car to drive!

Dunluce, Enniskillen, Kinbane, Carrickfergus...
Dungiven, Bonamarghy,...
stone circles and cairns and raths and forts and tombs and crannogs...

and you'll find them unexpectedly off the side of a road, on a cliff's edge, in the middle of a neighborhood or a field with sheep grazing on it, not listed in the guidebook, sometimes without a signmarker.  just there.  still.  300, 900, 2000, 5000 years later...

Being from Oregon, I remember thinking structures from the 1800s were super-old, and things from before that were ancient!  On the East Coast, I loved seeing things from the 1700s and was awed by things from the 1600s.  (I've been plenty exposed to Native American dwellings, artifacts, structures, etc., which of course are much much older than any of that, but I'm not used to "western architecture" that's as old as that).

Kids in school complain about history class all the time - but as far as the United States goes, there's so little history to learn compared with countries in Europe!  (if you're talking official US history and "Western civilization," which is generally what's taught, with maybe a few global history/ancient civilizations classes thrown in for good measure).

Here, it's kind of disappointing to come across a castle or church that's "only" from the 15- or 1600s!  (a regular house, like a fisherman's cottage, that's different...).  Now, 11th or 12th century, that's more like it!  I'd be really excited to see something from the 4- or 800s...and a stone circle from 5,000 years ago would do nicely...

Of course, it's all fascinating to look at, but it really doesn't have much of an impact unless you know the stories...which I guess is why historic buildings in the US can be just as cool as historic buildings here - because we know the stories about the events that took place there; the people that were there; and that's what gives it meaning, no matter what era it's from.

still...









pretty cool, huh?

to build a forest...

back in January, Conn got excited about trees.  so excited that he applied for a free community tree pack from the Woodland Trust - a pack of native trees for wood-burning: cherry, rowan, birch, ash, and oak.  420 of them.

it fell to Mike and me to carry out the project.  to figure out where to put them, how to lay them out and space them, choose a method for planting, and organize/lead group tree planting events.  and figure out what to do with all of the extra ones!  because what Conn didn't know when he ordered them was that only 200 of them would fit in the field he had allocated for them.  there was a lot of excitement but not a lot of forethought put into this decision...

the trees were delivered on March 10.  it took us two more weeks before we were prepared to plant any of them.  on Monday, April 18th, the last of the trees were finally potted (we managed to get about 300 around the site!  the remainder have been potted).  In between, volunteers and friends of Kilcranny came by to help plant them, and we had three groups from the community: an eco-club from a local elementary school, a pre-school playgroup, and a teenagers in a job training program. 

the group plantings were exciting because i got to use skills that i haven't had a chance to since last summer, and the folks here got to see me in a different role, too.  organizing logistics, coordinating an event, leading a group...none of them was perfectly smooth and flawless, but they all went over well and everyone had fun!  the most chaotic by far was the 4-year-olds playgroup, which included parents and baby/toddler siblings and totalled about 50 people...

we invited people to make dedications, to name a tree in honor of a person, place, or concept, and it's been a really great aspect of the project, particularly to see the young people getting excited about dedicating a tree to someone they love or to their future children, or to peace -- they will not just have a cool memory about planting a tree, they've formed a meaningful connection between themselves and the earth...

so Kilcranny (which is Irish for "church (cille) of the place of many trees (crannagh)) finally has its own Cranagh!  Plus a row of cherry trees near the entrance and a tree-lined path around back.  And two volunteers who have finally figured out how to work together.  :)