New Volunteers and Irish Boys

Kate and Jose arrived very early Wednesday morning. We were all slightly groggy, but awake and ready to meet our new housemates. Kate was first, and I knew right away that we would get along great. She wants to travel as well as spend a lot of time in Dublin, and that is something I've really wanted to do. I haven't been able to do it much due to the lack of interest from the other housemates who've been here for a while. I am so happy to have a travel buddy! She also expressed interest in meeting local people our age, so I was thrilled to hear that.

Jose came shortly after Kate. He is from Spain, and is still learning English but he is doing well! I think that living in this house will help him. We all spent some time together in the kitchen as we waited for Khadija to arrive. She had the plans for what we were to do for the day. She also needed to meet with the newbies and do paperwork with them. After that we all walked to the village to show them around. It was fun to be able to show them things because it made me feel like I'm not so new anymore. We all separated for a while, and I took Jose and Kate to the Malahide Castle. Kate was impressed, but I think Jose has seen many bigger and more beautiful ones in his life. We spent time in the house after that, and watched a movie. They were pretty tired from the long day, so we decided not to take them to Gibney's that night.

Yesterday morning was another early day for us sleepy volunteers. We all met in the kitchen and waited yet again for Khadija to come with instructions for the day. We split in to two groups. May and Bohye went to a home to visit a few of the members. Erin, Kate, Jose, and I went to a home called the Cara Cheshire. There, we met up with seven members who live in the home, among about 20 others. The only member I was familiar with was Michalina. It was so good to see her! And I got to meet a man named Sean Maloney, who is very popular at the CASA house. I've heard so many stories about him and it was good to meet him. Sean suffered a brain hemorrhage about 20 years ago. He is very friendly and vocal about his story. He had to relearn how to walk, talk, move his arms, eat, etc. His memory is very poor, so he'll often say the same things over and over again. When I mentioned something about his sister who lives in the states, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "HOW do you KNOW that??" haha It was adorable! He has an amazing attitude regarding his memory problem and never gets upset if we remind him that he already told us something. He took Kate and I on the tour of the hospital. When we were finished he said, "Would you like a tour?" I enjoyed spending time with him very much and I look forward to seeing him again when he comes to the breakhouse.

Kate expressed that she wanted to go to Gibney's later that night. We convinced Erin to go with us. It was our goal to meet some Irish people, boys in particular. ;) We went inside, but soon realized that most everyone was outside. So we went out there and scoped it all out. We made small attempts at conversation, but with no success. There was one group of guys that sort of talked to us, but then quickly went back to their own group. I assumed they had no interest in us American girls. We were about to leave, when I accidentally bumped into someone and he thought that I thought he was pushing me out of the way. So he was like, "No, no I'm so sorry!" That was the beginning of the rest of the night. We talked to him and his friend David for a while. They bought us all drinks, which of course made us love them even more. David spent a lot of time convincing me that their town is much better than Malahide and that we must come sometime. Apparently it's only 10 km. He's the captain of a rugby team (I think he wanted me to be super impressed, but to his disappointment, I wasn't going to praise him for that) and he told me that they were playing the next day. He insisted that we should come, and that he'd come pick us up to see the match and go to the party afterwards. I was pretty skeptical of him, and I teased him that we don't know him and he could be crazy. But he and his friend seem very cool and I really don't suspect anything from them. So the other girls seem interested in going to the match tonight. It could be fun...we'll see though. He asked for my number, and told me he'd call me today. I made a joke that he probably wouldn't call, and so he called me last night and this morning just to prove that he would. I think he took me a little too seriously. :P A little later a guy from that group I mentioned before, the one that snubbed us, came over and started talking to me. I wasn't having any of it. He asked how we like Malahide and I explained to him that it was lovely, but the people weren't very nice! When he looked playfully offended, Kate and I explained our attempts at conversation. He looked embarrassed at this point and told me he just needed a few drinks for courage before talking to us. He tried to get us to come to a party in a town a few minutes away, but of course we weren't going to go with some guys we just met. But they are from Malahide, and so I think we'll bump into them again soon. He got my number as well, so we'll see.

We left there around half one feeling very successful of our night out. I really hope that we can make friends with some of those guys because they are local and probably know a lot more people and a lot of cool places to go.

Today is another working day. We did a little office work this morning and soon we'll head out to do another visit. I am familiar with two of the members, but I don't know the others. We're taking them to a pub, so that should be very fun.

I suppose that's all for now. I miss you, Oregon!
Love,
Claire