Yvonne and Richard and their travels
Thursday 21/01/2016
In between Philosophy classes Andy Hill whisked us over to St Mary’s University to take part in their Heritage Day Mass. This was, in part, to support Aaron Tyler who had just received a Heritage award.
Aaron has brought classes to Corrymeela on several occasions including spring 2015. He is currently Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University.
19/01/2016
We took part in three of Andy Hill’s Introduction to Philosophy classes. There were nearly forty students in each class from a wide variety of ethnic, religious and cultural groups. Also a great range in age and experience. Many were looking to improving their qualifications to get better jobs or get back into to work. One student is due to deliver her baby before the end of the semester! Good luck with that Andy!
Andy introduced himself and told his story about how he got involved with Corrymeela and then handed over to us to tell our story and say a little about what Corrymeela is. The class then introduced themselves and said a little about where they were from, what they were aiming for and what they had been doing prior to their studies. We plan to participate with the students in these classes in the coming weeks.
17/01/2016
Sunday afternoon we went to St Gerard’s RC Church (Redemptorists) to take part in an Interfaith service to celebrate MLK. As one would expect there were inputs from all the main faiths including prayers, hymns, dance, sounding of the shofar and an address from the first black judge, Justice Jason Pulliam, in San Antonio. Theme was Faith, Hope and the American Dream. The service was certainly hopeful and concluded with singing “We have a dream”.
After the service an amazing meal was served in the adjoining hall; chilli, fried chicken, lasagne and salads as well as some wonderful biscuits (cookies).
We met Mehmet, a Turkish man, whom we had met at Corrymeela with the the class from St. Mary’s University in the spring 2015. He runs the Dialogue Centre in San Antonio which is a Turkish organisation similar to NITECA in Belfast.
18/01/2016
We joined a march of some 200,000 (Correction – see Andy Hill’s comment) people from the MLK Bridge to St Philip’s College along MLK Avenue. It was beautiful weather for walking and it took place at a very leisurely pace. Many different people took part including the Buffalo soldiers, a regiment of black soldiers that took part in the civil war, a Seikh drummer, churches along the way handing out water. (Photos to follow).
16/01/2016
We spent Saturday in down town San Antonio starting with a visit to the Alamo. We took part in a one hour guided tour which was very expertly conducted. This gave us a very good idea of the layout of the Alamo in the context of the two remaining buildings and the conduct of the siege by Santa Anna and his Mexican forces against about 140 rebels. While the siege lasted for thirteen days the final battle lasted only about an hour and a half with the male rebels being wiped out and many Mexicans being killed. For Santa Anna this was a “minor” event but a few weeks later he met his demise at the hands of Gen Houston and Texas became a republic. The independent republic lasted nine years when, after going bankrupt, it was annexed into the USA. See Google or http://www.history.com/topics/alamo# for more information if you are interested.
The tour and the site was very busy. I was impressed by the fact that our guide conducts tours in the height of summer when temperatures are over 40C! The audio tour was also interesting giving a view of life in the compound.
We got to the River Walk again, this time in daylight. The down town part of the river walk is flanked by hotels, restaurants and pubs. I noted an Irish pub and a British pub facing each other from opposite sides of the river! Plenty of greenery including oak trees that would have been around at the time of the Alamo battle.
Tuesday 12/01
After a rather sleepless night trying to sort out the jet lag we got up early and had a wander around the neighbourhood. Plenty of night clubs! Met Andy Hill for lunch at Luther’s our local cafe. We then went to St. Philip’s College to find our office and meet some of the staff in the Department of Philosophy etc. We got a very warm welcome.
Next was a shopping trip to get in some supplies only to discover how huge and spread out San Antonio is with its 1.5 million inhabitants. We had a bit of challenge round prices, sizes and measures.
Yvonne is wearing her sun glasses already. We have had clear blue skies and temperatures in the low 20C.
Wednesday 13/01
After a gentle start we had an early lunch with Andy and Matt Fuller who had just returned from NI.
Thursday 14/01
We were introduced to more staff at a seminar on “Ethical decision making” led by Andy. This was part of programme of staff development. The topic discussed was gun law and recently introduced “open carry” and its implications for educational establishments.
This was followed by lunch for all of the staff in the College. We were introduced along other new staff. This was followed by a line dance initiation for the new staff! We then had a four hour tour of the campus. They cover an impressive range of vocational and academic courses leading to qualifications from certificate to first degree level.
In the evening we went in to down town San Antonio where we saw the Alamo and ate at a restaurant on the impressive river walk.
Friday 15/01
This started with a department meeting mitigated by some culinary treats from the oldest bakery in Texas.
We have been billeted in Tobin Lofts which is a block of student apartments. It is modern and comfortable and includes two en-suite bedrooms and good sized living and kitchen area.
This is all very nice but we will see what it is like to live in a student community when they all return next week!
Matt Scrimgeour collected us at 7:45 on a cold but fine Monday morning and we made Belfast International Airport in very good time! The airport seemed unusually quiet so we got through check in and security by 9:00. The flight to Newark left on time at 11:10 and we arrived 45 minutes early. Again we were through immigration and security very quickly which gave us a 4 hour wait for the connection to San Antonio where we arrived at 21:30 local time and on time.
Temperatures were 2C (8:00) Ballycastle, 1C (14:00) New York and 1C (21:30) San Antonio.
We had a right Texan welcome from the Hill family (see pics):
A very good, if tiring day’s travel.
As Andy Hill has already pointed out to his FB friends Yvonne and I are heading for San Antonio, Texas on Monday 11th January. We will be taking up a Fulbright Scholars in Residence post in St Philip’s College organised by Andy. We will be flying the flag (‘fleg’) for Corrymeela, sharing some of our learning and learning about life and issues in Texas. If anyone is interested in following what we get up to we have set up this blog. We will be using this rather than FB as many of our friends and relations do not use FB. Please feel free to comment.
We will be back in NI on 2nd May. Chris and Mary Anne Busch are house sitting for us.
It is almost exactly a year since we got the offer of the post and yet the time has flown. We are now rushing around trying to tidy up the loose ends and make last minute preparations. We will be able to get to the Community Weekend and the Dedication service before we go so we hope to see some of you then.
We are looking forward to some warmer, drier weather but who knows what it will be like with the way the climate is at the moment.
04/12/2015 Visas arrive
04 December 2015
22:11
Passports with visas pasted in arrived by Royal Mail this morning. Quicker than we expected!
We had a Skype with Andy. Matt Fuller was also present. Both looking forward to marking term papers!
01/12/2015 Visa
02 December 2015
13:07
So we are on our way. Yvonne and I turned up for our Visa interview at the Consulate General’s Office in Danesfort, Belfast. We arrived to a waiting room containing about fifteen people and it soon became evident that we could be in for a long wait. While handing in our documents and being finger printed was dealt with fairly quickly it looked like interviews were going very slowly. However are interview came round within the hour and it appears that the documents provided by Fulbright meant that there little further work to be done in the interview so we were bumped up the queue.