The observant among you will have noticed that, since
leaving the Philippines, and more recently arriving in Northern Ireland, the
frequency of my blog posts has declined significantly. Given last year’s word
count, those still following are probably breathing a sigh of relief, but for
myself, if no-one else, I wanted to reflect on some of the reasons I have been
here nearly a month, living a multitude of new experiences and have, for the
most part, written nothing about them.
I guess the most straightforward excuse has been lack of
time. While I can’t deny there have been days when I have reached the end of
the day feeling like I have done remarkably little, that remarkably little has
filled the hours quite thoroughly. First during induction, and then since
starting work almost a fortnight ago, the days, and evenings, have soon filled
up: even if that has often been with the important business of socialising and
enjoying new friendships
But it is not quite as simple as that.
Another factor has been the social nature of life here.
Coventry House, home to the one year volunteers, and a motley collection of
others is a sociable place. It is a place where there is always something going
on or someone to chat to. It is a place where there is much silliness and
banter, but also space for more serious discussions and reflection. It is a
place where all the things I would figure out and reflect on and share on my
blog last year, I now share in conversations over a cup of tea.
And then there is the challenge of what to write and what
not to write. Whether or not anyone is actually reading this, it is, at least
theoretically, in the public domain. There have certainly been many benefits of
assuming I have an audience: not least forcing me to rationalise my thoughts
and being something vaguely approaching concise.
But there are challenges too, which have become more
apparent here than they were last year. From day 1, I have been determined that
what I write should not just be fact (if such a thing even exists) or a mundane
record of what I have done and where I have been: it has been intended to be a
personal reflection on and response to the experiences I have lived. In the
Philippines that didn’t seem too difficult. My cultural observations, my
reflections on life were from the perspective of someone on the outside looking
in. I was a white westerner commenting on my experiences of my own culture
meeting with a very different one: my position as an outsider was never in
question. I couldn’t, and I hope didn’t, ever profess to see things as a
Filipino would.
Here, it is a little more complex. Northern Ireland is much
closer to home and, on the surface at least, the cultural similarities to my
own life abound. This is, after all, my own country. It is easy to think of
coming here as coming “home” and for both myself, and others to assume I speak
as an insider ... but while it is certainly less foreign than the Philippines,
a few weeks here has been long enough to make it very clear that this is not my
home culture either: Here, I am, if not a total outsider, at least someone on
the edge. I am caught between not really belonging and speaking from within,
but not really being foreign and speaking from without. It is a cultural
complexity which I have found makes the business of writing about here more
difficult than I expected.
But don’t worry, I rarely find I am without words for very
long ...
