Yvonne and Richard and their travels
Our Fulbright term at St Philip’s College, San Antonio, Texas
29/01/2016 Friday
On Friday afternoon we visited the Monte Vista Montessori school where we were met by a group of about forty children ranging from about nine to fourteen years old. They were a very lively and friendly bunch and, given the small space available, it made for an interesting experience as we looked at diversity through the use of games, puppets and concluding with the “Moose” song.
28/01/2016 Thursday
At the Interfaith Service over a week ago we were invited to breakfast at the Dialogue Centre by Mehmet. This centre is essentially part of a Turkish cultural organisation that is in many countries and the main purpose of which to have conversations that help to break down fears and mistrust between communities. More information here. There are similarities with NITECA. The organisation is non-profit gets much of its inspiration from the Turkish Muslim scholar, writer and educator Fethullah Gulen.
Thanks for a great conversation and a very pleasant breakfast.
27/01/2016 Wednesday
We had an early start this morning as we had to get to Drury Plaza Hotel on the River Walk for and 8:30 lecture on the History of Texas. This was given by Dr Allen Hamilton, a colleague in St Philip’s College. We joined about two hundred Road Scholars who were visiting Texas for a few days. Road Scholar is life-long education organisation which organises educational trips all over the world. Our group consisted mainly of seniors.
The two hour talk itself was very informative and very entertaining giving good background to current demographics and its political conservatism.
26/01/2016
We were invited to have lunch with staff of North West Vista College who were involved in the Alamo Colleges’ Internationalisation Programme. This involves, in part, educational trips to various parts of the world. Andy Hill’s trip to Corrymeela last summer would have been part of this programme. Our invitation came from Magdalia who is the co-ordinator of International Studies. We heard from staff about their part in the various programmes, we talked about Corrymeela and we met another Fulbright scholar called D.K Wu from Taiwan. He was present at the College to do research into Non-peer Education.
25/01/2016
The afternoon was spent at Boden Elementary School close to St Philip’s College with the school has a close relationship. The school is named after Atimesia Boden who was the founder and long time leader of St Philip’s College. She was recently made a saint of the Episcopal Church.
The school itself has a student population that is predominantly Mexican with large minorities of White and African Americans so many of the students are bilingual in Spanish and English.
Yvonne led us in a series games and activities reflecting what we do at Corrymeela. We had a series of 20 to 30 minute sessions with five classes from the more senior grades. We had great fun and the children too! Their responses were pretty similar to what one would get from children in NI showing similar interests and wishes. A large number had ridden horses! The Vice-Principal of the school revealed afterwards that she was pleased and some case surprised by the engagement of the pupils and teachers.
22/01/2016 Friday
A quiet day in the office. We got away on Friday afternoon to pick up a car near the airport so we now have wheels. The car is a Chevrolet Cruz compact car. Typical modern car but automatic which is a bit of a change. Having a left-hand drive car make getting used to driving on the right a bit more straightforward. On the way back to our apartment we immediately got into a traffic jam on the free-way so the automatic transmission came into its own.
23/01/2016 Saturday
We took off early to HEB for our first major shop for food and some household equipment. In the afternoon we went to Best Buy to purchase a TV and a Satnav for the car. I managed to get $50 off the TV so $150 ($105) for a 32 inch full HD TV seemed pretty good.
A couple of days ago Yvonne discovered the Yarn Barn about six minutes walk from our apartment. So a quick trip there late afternoon got her back into knitting puppets. She discovered that they had a knitting group similar to the Knit & Natter group in Ballycastle.
In the evening we were taken out to dinner by the President of the College Dr Adena Loston. During the evening she related her upbringing in Mississippi during the 1960s and her time as Director of Education at NASA in Houston. The restaurant was the Palm Restaurant. Richard had his first Texas steak!
24/01/2016 Sunday
We joined Matt Fuller at his church where he sings in the choir. We were given a very friendly welcome in Alamo Heights Presbyterian Church. The congregation was quite small and church was feeling the pressure of secularisation and population changes. After the service we went for lunch with the choir to a Taco restaurant and had a very friendly couple of hours. The music from the
choir itself was very good particularly considering the small congregation that it could draw on.
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.