Category: Fulbright 2016

08/03/2016 Tuesday

The Principal of St. Philip’s College, Dr Adena Loston, invited Andy & Mary Lynn Hill and ourselves to the annual awards dinner of the United Communities of San Antonio (UCSA).  Four people, including Dr Loston, were given Brotherhood/Sisterhood Humanitarian Awards at the ceremony.

UCSA is a charitable organisation that takes a stand against bullying, bias, prejudice and racism in all forms. It has a particular focus on young people.  In her address the organisation’s Chair, Megan Fisher Kruger, talked particularly about three of its programmes: Cyberbullying, the Youth programme in schools and summer camps for leadership. There certainly appeared to be a lot of similarities with what Corrymeela and other organisations in N.I. are doing.

The four people receiving awards included: Dr Loston, Principal of St. Philip’s College, Sheriff Susan Pamerlau, Major General Joe Robles and Dr Alice Viroslav. They are all involved in developing community in their different ways.  Susan Pamerlau is the first woman to be elected Sheriff of Bexar (pronounced bear) County.

MG Joe Robles told how he experienced racism when as a young soldier he was thrown out of restaurants because they deemed him but because they deemed him native american because of his high cheek bones. He is in fact white.

Dr Loston told a story from her childhood.  Her father was a fully qualified plumber who ran his own business serving largely white customers.  He instructed his children to write down everything that was said to them when customers called to ask for his services. This included any name calling including the “n” word. On going out to the jobs he took the child who had taken the original message with him. On completion of the work he informed the customer that they were getting a very special price. Of course the customers were pleased about this but what they did not know was that the price increased according to how badly they had spoken to the children.  Customers who had treated his children with respect were surprised, pleased and curious when he told them that there would be no charge!

08/03/2016 Tuesday

Well, we have been bumming about the beautiful weather that we have been having in San Antonio since we arrived on 11th January.  We have had many clear sunny days with temperatures often in the high twenties Celsius. These days have often been followed by cold nights. We had a couple of nights rain about three weeks ago that transformed the brown land into green.  In the last few days humidity has risen and we are now getting low pressure fronts coming in from California. So we now have dull weather with rain. Thunderstorms and a lot of rain are forecast for the next couple of days. Spring is on its way with trees beginning to leaf and flowers appearing. We are looking forward to seeing the blue bonnets which are beginning to appear in the hills. We have been told that spring does not last very long here.  We have also been told that the weather over the past few months has been unusually warm.

The San Antonio area is very prone to flash flooding and after significant events in the early twentieth century measures were put in place to control this.  The Olmos Dam was built in the 1920s not too far from down-town. In more recent times the dam has had several upgrades, flood gates have been built at each end of the San Antonio river loop and a flood relief tunnel has been built under the city. These measures have proved very effective.

 

 

04/03/2016 Friday

In the evening we went to Santikos Bijou Cinema to see The Lady in the Van.  It turned out that this cinema operated like a restaurant.  The cinema seating rows were well spaced out with with a table running the length of each row.  Menus were given out as you bought tickets and you could then order and eat at your seat.  Enjoyed the film.

05/06/2016 Saturday

Andy and Mary Lynne took us to see the musical Godspell preformed by students at St Mary’s University.  This was very well done.  Of particular note were three sisters, triplets, from Kenya who all had amazing voices and a big, warm latino Jesus. Thanks Andy & Mary Lynn.

05/03/2016 Saturday

Yvonne went with the Dean of Social Sciences Cindy Prior to the Education Service Center for the the annual APEX Summit.  APEX – Advanced Professional Enrichment Xperience.  This was a training experience for Adjuncts – part time lecturers who had not taught before.  Yvonne and Cindy did a session practical methodologies for transmitting learning. They did a practical session using trigger objects as a means of encouraging interaction and story telling.  Their second session covered the use of puppets in role play situations. In introducing herself Yvonne talked about Corrymeela and there was a lot of interest in the web site.

04/03/2016 Friday

The Hot Potato Dialogue is hosted at the Campus Ministries. This week the subject was bullying with particular emphasis on that affecting students and staff.  It was led by Robert De Luna who talked from personal experiences. Other students and staff also shared their experiences and some of the strategies that had been helpful.

After closure we had a hot potato lunch! Dare I say it but the potato was a nice change from tacos, tortillas and enchiladas! And that suddenly brings to mind Richard Loudon’s Mexican version of Molly Malone!

 

02/03/2016 Wednesday

Each Wednesday tea time Christ’s Episcopal Church holds a Two Tables event.  The two tables being the communion table and the dinner table. Dinner/tea starts at 5:30 pm and the Eucharist begins at 6:00 pm.  The address is usually an invited speaker who speaks for 30 to 40 minutes on some issue or theme.  So we were invited to give a presentation about Corrymeela. We used Power Point with plenty of pictures and music. Questions were about interfaith dialogue, our links with Coventry and what people take away from Corrymeela.

The meal is an important part of life in this church.  There are volunteers whose mission is to provide the food so a lot of the events take place round a meal.  Breakfast is available on Sunday mornings and dinner/tea at the Two Tables events.

 

29/02/2016 Monday and Tuesday

Yvonne brought 12 dressed puppets from home to use in class. She has been busy making 4 more as some of the classes are very large (40 students).

The work with the puppets has ranged from workshops where the puppets were used to consider identity and belonging in two Social Psychology classses to presenting a play to raise issues round fair trade.  The play, “Paying the Cost”, was written specially by Yvonne for a Humanities class and coincided with the beginning of Fair Trade Fortnight.

The use of puppets has gone down very well with teachers intending to make more use of them in their classes both for raising issues, stimulating discussions.  This and the methodologies we have been using have helped to develop and improve interpersonal relationships in the classroom.

29/02/2016 Monday

With Super Tuesday coming up tomorrow Bill Clinton was campaigning today in San Antonio for Hilary. Andy, Mary Lyn, AJ and I headed to the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center Theater in the hope of getting in to hear Bill speak. The doors to venue closed in front of us so we sat in a small patio area and listened to the speeches along with about 50 others.  We got glimpses of Bill coming and then leaving as well as some of the atmosphere.  Outside the ‘craic was mighty’!

Here is Clinton’s speech recorded on my mobile phone. Bill starts about 11:20 in.  There is plenty of background street noise and comments from the crowd round where we were sitting:

Earlier in the day we had an interesting discussion with an African-American colleague who declared himself a signed up Republican. He was very disappointed at the tone of the Republican campaign at the moment and bemoaned the lack of serious debate about policies.  When asked if he could see himself voting Democratic it was clear his loyalty was with the Republican party but he would wait and see how things would turn out in the summer.

27/02/2015 Saturday

This week has been mainly about preparation for going into classes at St Philip’s College as well as a presentation about Corrymeela during the Lent evening service during the coming week.

Yvonne will be in a Social Psychology class looking at Identity and Belonging and also a Humanities class looking at how quotations inspire us.  For this second class Yvonne has chosen a quotation about Fair Trade and will use a puppet play she has written.  (Fair Trade Fortnight starts on Monday).

Saturday night (27/03) we took a table with Andy and Mary Lyn Hill at the Annual Dinner of the San Antonio Chapter of the Fulbright Association. We were joined by Dr Adena Loston, President of St Philip’s College, Cyndy Prior, Dean of Social Sciences at St Philip’s College, Matt Fuller also St Philip’s College and Migdalia Garcia from North West Vista College. Matt, of course is well known in Corrymeela and Magdalia has been to Corrymeela as a group leader with Andy.

There were about 90 guests at the dinner consisting of Fulbright Alumni and Fulbright friends. The distinguished guests included a retired Ambassador and two Congressmen.  The first speaker during the meal was Gerónimo Gutiérrez CEO of the North American Development Bank. This bank is a Green bank set up by the US and Mexican governments to develop and support green infrastructure along the US/Mexican border. Much of the work has been in the area of securing and protecting water sources and development of green energy production.  Money from the governments is used to leverage private investment.

The main speaker was Congressman Joaquin Castro who has followed in his father’s footsteps as Democratic Congressman for San Antonio. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and he spoke about some of the issues that he has been working on recently. There is definitely a big contrast between the desire to develop cross-border relationships with Mexico and the rhetoric that is coming from the Republican camp and Donald Trump in particular. The speech was certainly optimistic and inclusive in tone.

The Argyle Club served up a good meal in very comfortable surroundings. I had a sense that it may be leaning towards its 19th century past.

Yvonne and I are now exactly half way through our stay in Texas.  How time flies when you are having fun! We have met lots of wonderful people from all sections of this very mixed community.  As in N.I. people, generally, get on very well together and, as in N.I., there is still much to do to break down all the barriers.

24/02/2016 Wednesday

This week turns out to rather quiet but we still managed to get out on a cultural visit.  Andy took us out to Bandera, “Cowboy capital of the world”. This is a small (pop. 860) but busy little town. Our main purpose of the visit was to go horse riding and eat (again!).  We went out to the Twin Elm Guest Ranch where wrangler Jim got us saddled up and led us out on a trail for an hour or so.  The horses were very gentle and just followed each other in a line. This was a first time experience for me and something that I have always wanted to do. Our trek took us through little wooded river beds and across the Medina river.  There was evidence of the massive flood of last summer but today it was sunny and cool with signs of spring and a little more green after the rain of the previous two nights. What a wonderful way to experience nature but from the back of a horse!

After the riding we went back into town for lunch at “The Old Spanish Trail” restaurant.  The décor honours old western movie stars.  We ate in the John Wayne Room. We then visited the General Store before getting back for Andy’s lecture.

Eating in the Old Spanish Trail