suicide prevention meeting

Tonight I went to an open town meeting about the (incredibly) high rate of suicide in Strabane district, and the prevention measures being planned. It was called by a young girl who lost her sister to suicide about a year ago. She has taken action to spearhead this issue, and talked about various things in a non-focused way. One is, she sought counseling to work through her grief, didn’t have a good experience, didn’t feel better, and thus concluded the town needs more trained counselors, so she herself is going to get trained. When Jeff invited me to this meeting, he explained all her erroneous assumptions made him worry about what her ‘battle cries’ will stir up. For one thing, she is on this mission without having consulted local agencies and professional services. She is raising her voice about the need for a hotline and a 24-hour drop in center. Jeff told me the Koram Centre had a hotline and only got 73 calls over the 3 years it was running. The one sensible thing the girl talked about was needing support groups for families impacted by suicide. Such groups don’t yet exist here. 

moving to the town

Hurrah! I am moving into a permanent place in Strabane, right around the corner from the Koram Centre. I am renting a room in a health care clinic from Michael McGonagle, who practices Tui Da (Chinese massage therapy). He rents office space to other therapists (currently a reflexologist, a hypnotherapist, and a person who does Neuro-Developmental Therapy with special needs children) but Strabane has a high rate of unemployment, and it’s a hard place to make a living in by means of a holistic healing practice. Michael grew up in Strabane, but left when he was 15 to go on and become a jockey in Dublin, and eventually raced and won races in England. He was severely injured while riding, and says much of his recovery was due to Tui Da and other Chinese therapies. Renting this room will help him sustain his business (during the slow winter season) and seeing as I’ve been interested in holistic therapies for a long time now, I don’t think there could be a more suitable place for me.

Sion Mills

On my 7th day here I moved to a new temporary lodging in Sion Mills, which is 3 miles south of Strabane (I never thought it would be this difficult to find a place to rent!). Sion Mills is a historic linen village and flax-spinning mill town also on the border with the Republic of Ireland.  The industry has died here, but a historic society managed to save and renovate the old mill building, and set up a scenic river walk, which I will walk to this Sunday.  I am renting a room from a man named Gordon, who is the partner of Bernadette, the Koram Centre’s receptionist 

Sunday, 20 January 2008

People are so warm and welcoming here. On my third night my host told her son to just set the table for three. “We won’t have any guests coming tonight,” and then realized what she said, laughed, and followed with, “Ai, did you hear that, Barbara? It seems you are part of the family now, not just a guest!” I have been observing interactions and I feel so much warmth in their sense of humor and lightness – It feels very comfortable and loving. Family members and co-workers rib around with each other and so forth. It’s called having “a good craic” and when someone is poking fun, they’re “taking a hand to you.”There are family ‘skeletons in the closet,’ but no one seems to be keeping many secrets about taboo subjects. People who I have known for less than a day will tell me about all their family issues— openly talk about alcoholism, suicide, teen pregnancy, religion, politics, immigration, and just about anything else. I believed people would be open, but didn’t realize they would be so readily. I thought it would take a little time for them to warm up and trust me, but so far people have been telling me their life story right off the bat.

First weekend in Derry/Londonderry

My second day in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland has been wonderful. I took a walk around the city wall with my host, Marina. It is the bastion that protected the people when the town was under siege by the British in the 1600’s. This city has a long complex history. Its location is in County Derry on the northwestern border, and was originally a monastery in the 6th century. Much of the city has been destroyed over the years, but the oldest building- Anglican St. Columb’s Cathedral still stands there. Also from the wall you can see the border with the Republic of Ireland. The name Derry is taken from the Irish ‘doire,’ which means ‘place of the oaks.’