A few days ago I was asking peter about growing up in the south..in the republic of Ireland..and what’s life like there for a protestant?…is the religious discrimination and prejudice as apparent as it is in the North?…when he answered no..the questions continued…would it be best for a protestant to grow up in the south than in the North?…He answers yes because then you learn to live alongside catholics peacefully..and maybe its because in the south protestants are the extreme minority and they do not pose a threat to the Catholics residing there?…people fascinate me…and people allow fear to drive their actions and their thoughts and that fascinates me even more!

This past weekend peter played the role of a tour guide to Laura’s friend Graham..and drove us around Belfast..to Falls road (catholic)…and the Shankill road (protestant)…and I realized that even though I do know a bit about the conflict..i still have sooo many questions…and my questions are simply never ending!…poor peter…what is he getting himself into?..haha!…but these questions peter had the answers to…and it just made me think about the purpose of the peace wall and the propaganda behind the murals...


Another bit from Lauras blog…The peace wall... It separates the Catholic Falls Road from the Protestant Shankill, and it's much easier to think about abstractly. I kind of wish I were living on the Falls side: the accent is prettier, and the street signs are in Gaelic as well as English. Yet history makes it so these are two apparently irreconcilable worlds, separated by a wall that does little more than remind people that "they" are on that side and "we" are on this side, and that it should stay that way. I asked Peter if we could pull a Reagan/Berlin Wall-style coup and just start tearing it down. He said that he thinks it mostly does more harm than good, but that when things get touchy and people start throwing petrol bombs over it, he's not so sure. So the wall remains.

another photo of the peace wall...it stretches for ages and the two communities are simply divided by this wall! Will things ever change if a wall remains and even though the wall may act as a form of protection for the two communities...doesn't the wall continue to remind people of the past and where the present is going as well?
When are people going to realize that the separation and the wall should be a thing of the past? But then again, I am mererely an outsider looking in on the absurdity of the whole situation...and what i deem absurd may seem sensible to others..so who am i to say?

Some things written on the murals….and the peace wall

the one on the left says...“Perhaps no class has carried prejudice against colour to a point more dangerous than have the Irish and yet no people have been more relentlessly oppressed on account of race and religion.” Frederick Douglas










The one on the bottom left was on the peace wall...and it says, Violence is for those who have lost their imagination… justice and peace are found not through vengeance,
but through forgiveness,

courage, and love. (honestly though..how true is that! People are soo quick to be violent, and it takes more time to think about avenues of justice and peace…and i just want to say TAKE THE TIME!..)









this one was one of my favorites...also on the peace wall..They drew a circle and counted us out, they thought us a thing of nought, but love and I had the will to win, we drew a bigger circle and counted them in …God is love…keep drawing bigger circles!

so thats a glimpse of my life here...the challenges that are presented to me...Belfast at its finest...