Traveling seeker in British Isles

February 19th, 2006

Trying to get out of the Hostel

Noeline had gotten very sick with a throwing up sickness and it kept her in bed for 7 days. She was so ill that the first time in her life, she had to let the animals go without food for one night. She wouldn’t let me come and take care of her and she was quite worried that I would come down with the dreaded illness. A few of her clients at her job also got it and a few of her co-workers. It was very hard on Noeline, not only the illness but also the fact that she hasn’t been sick in 20 years! She had had numerous down time due to cancer and thrown out backs, but not the run of the mill illnesses.
I was so glad that I hadn’t gotten it- which was a great surprise to me since I seem to get everything else that is in Ireland. I hate being sick all the time and I feel like a big baby. Plus, having throwing up fits in a hostel with paper walls is not good for business! So I stayed in my little box of a room and was happy that I was feeling well.
I had worked on a Resume (called a CV in Ireland) and made up flyers for my quest for finding an elderly person to trade room and board for in house help. I got them all done then had to figure out how to download it to a CD – because I couldn’t print from my machine. What a pain in the ass! But I was determined to figure it out. The day that I was leaving for Ireland my cousin Joey Mahoney came over to show me how to do this. But I was so out of my mind that I was in over-load and not one new thing was being let into my brain, so even though I could understand it and do it when he was there- the minute he left, it was gone. And I have not been able to figure it out since, so I have been waiting on Anthony. But Anthony is always running here and there and I haven’t gotten him to show me how. But I finally did it and now just had to print it and then make copies. But I again was dealing with where to get it printed and then copies. I do so miss all the convinces that the States offer in this area. There are very few places to get this type of thing done and then it cost an arm and a leg. There is really only one place for copies and it cost .25 cents for one copy for one side! What a rip off! And that’s AFTER you have to find a place to make the original print.
I worked on it all night and was so proud of myself. I finally got it done the night before Noeline was going to pick me up for my weekend work and she was picking me up later then usual so that I could do some “job” work.

In order to leave for Noeline’s for the weekend I have to strip my room and redress the bed, vacuum (they call it hover here) and remove everything and clean the bathroom. Then pack all my stuff and remove it- I had removed all the unused items earlier in the week when Anthony came and got me – so one of the big red monster backpack was gone. But since Tom moved into the staff room, I had to make sure all my stuff was removed to give him room.
But before I was able to get this all done, I had to run to the Expensive Internet café and get my completed CV printed. So I planned my day to fit it all in………
What I didn’t plan on was Alfia! She left a note for me to help Hannah with stripping and dressing beds and clean the bathrooms. Shit! I didn’t plan on all this extra work or time, so I was behind the eight ball the minute I woke up. I couldn’t refuse Alfia- so I was running around with my head cut off!
I whizzed through the bathrooms and stripping the beds and left Hannah to dress them and Hoover. Got all my stuff packed and stripped my bed and put the room back in order and emptied the trash. I told Hannah that I had to run to the Internet place and would return. I had worked myself into quite a tizzy by this point.
I got there and the dam CD didn’t have everything on it- it had the night before but not now! Shit! Then I couldn’t get the computer to read it. I tried everything that I had in my little (and I mean little) bag of tricks. I finally asked a young guy that worked there to help me and he couldn’t get it either! God, why does everything have to be so f’n hard!?!?!?
I am mad that I didn’t get this done, and I’m also not looking forward to Noeline when I see her. See Noeline is a self-made woman. She has had to do everything on her own since she was a child. She is a fighter and a do-er. Which are great traits, but she is also a person that expects everyone else to be the same way. (A lot like my sister Traci). They don’t see obstacles, they only see challenges and they push through. She doesn’t accept defeat- and she won’t let me either. So she will give me a hard time if I don’t have all the calls made that she thinks I should or the CV done and printed. That’s just Noeline- and I am dreading seeing her because I didn’t get it completed!
I was again defeated and I was just so coiled up- I had to calm down! I saw that I had a few minutes to get something to eat. It would calm me down and also with Noeline, you never know when or if you will eat again. So I took the time (and money) to get something. I went into a sandwich shop that I had never been in before and was looking around trying to get the lay of the land. Then I heard a little voice call out my name. I turned around and little Mary was there with a friend at a table having lunch. I was just not myself and I felt extremely pressured with time and not knowing what they even served here, so I wasn’t very friendly.

I finally ordered a ham sandwich. There is something you need to know about sandwiches in Ireland. They barely resemble a sandwich in America. They do ask if you want white or brown bread (I do not care for brown bread) then they ask if you want butter or mayo (my grandmother used to put butter on our sandwiches’ YUCK!) Mayo please. Now the thing “called” a sandwich comes with only one piece of the thinnest piece of meat that is humanly possible. It is so thin, that I THINK it’s ham, but it could be just about anything. It comes with nothing else. Two pieces of bread, with a trace of mayo and a paper thin piece of something- slap a 4.50-euro price tag on it and call it a sandwich!
Then I order a soup-, which is not really soup. It is more like warm to hot baby food. You could not figure out what was in the soup if your life depended on it. I have had all kinds of soup in a variety of places and I have never been able to tell the difference between vegetable, or potatoes and leek, or creamed potatoes. They all look and taste the same. And what ever is in it is so ground up you could not figure out what was in it! It tastes good, but the most important thing is that it is HOT. I LOVE HOT ANYTHING!

I didn’t sit at the table that Mary and her friend were at, I didn’t feel that I could make conversation, I was completely flustered and then when I had to pay 8 euros for this crappy lunch, I was pissed on top of it! We were only 6 inches from each other and it was awkward to be so close and not talk. I just sat there and tried to calm down.
Sweet Mary asked me how I was doing and of course I told her that I was having an awful day and needed to hurry back to be picked up for the weekend. She asked if I had any leads on jobs and I told her I had. I told her there was a job for a receptionist at Newport House Hotel in Newport and I was hoping to go there on Monday. And of course, sweet Mary offered to give me a ride and would wait for me to see if I can get an interview and bring me back. Isn’t she sweet! I’ll tell you, this new family of mine was very good to me! To remind you, Mary is my cousin Liam’s wife, he’s a builder and works all the time and little Mary (she’s 4’something) doesn’t work, she has a lot of health problems and she has no children. So she makes herself available to many different people. She talks with the sweetest little voice and has a very thick accent. I don’t always understand her either because of the volume of her voice or the high pitch accent, I don’t know which. She also dress’s to the nines! Very fashion conscious (the same with Geralyn)
Back to my exit from the hostel….

So I wolf down the crappy “sandwich” and soup. Mary and her friend had already left and I scurried over to the hostel to finish up my packing. By the time I got all packed and pulled all my stuff down the steps, I was out of time and I still hadn’t dressed my bed! I had to ask Tom if he could ask Hannah to do it for me and I would owe her. And I dragged all my stuff up the hill to be ready for Noeline to pull up.

Noeline got there, she had been off to pick up a dog from somewhere and with the way that Noeline drives, the poor dog had thrown up all over the back of the wardens truck. And that’s where I have to put my stuff! YUCK! We got it in somehow and I folded myself up like a pretzel and forced my self into the front seat (still full of all kinds of shit!) And we were off. OF COURSE, Noeline asked me if I got all my calls done and what was the results? Did you get your CV done and printed? NO. What do you need? A printer. She pulls over into a driveway and said dial this number. It’s to some guy that has a computer, he’s very busy, but he might be able to help. I tell her that Pip has a computer and printer, maybe we could ask her. I call Pip and she say’s no problem. Car starts and off we are. See- nothing stops this woman!

We get to the house and start sorting and packing up all kinds of stuff for a woman that we call “Mrs. Twins”. She lives in Ghana. She has 6 sets of twins! (I will have to tell you her story- but later). Noeline had gotten a call within the week that told her that Mrs. Twins house had collapsed. She, her husband and all the children were living without even a roof over their heads. So our mission that weekend was to get as many containers as we could pack up to send to her. (Even though it may take a year or more for the containers to reach her) This quest was also a way to get all the stuff that has accumulated in Noeline’s house OUT! Which is a very good thing. She has piles and piles of stuff that needed sorting and folding and has cupboards overflowing with stuff for Ghana. So it gave us a focus.

I will be downloading lots of information on Ghana in the coming weeks. I would wish that everyone would pull out a map or globe and look up this little country. It is in Africa, along the Ivory Coast (where the most African’s were taken as slaves) it’s in the west of Africa, and it does touch the water. It is between two other very tiny counties. (I don’t have a map in front of me as I write this- but keep looking and you’ll find it). It is an extremely poor country and it doesn’t get an attention from the newspapers or people that raise money. This little country has been Noeline’s focus for many many years. She helps 4 of the poorest villages.

Ghana is the real reason that I am helping at the “animal farm”. Noeline is trying to make a difference to people’s lives and I want to do the same. It’s certainly not easy, not the life, not the feeling of over-whelm, not the work- but it is worth the feelings of doing something that really will change peoples lives.
Noeline is priming me to go to Ghana, to take photos of their plight and to write about it. But right now I’m too much of an American pussy to experience their life- I’m not hardened to the climate, the hardship, the flies, the very difficult existence and of course the disease and the way that I’m so emotional…to see these children that have nothing, that sleep on the dirt, that don’t have anything but rice to eat- only one time a day, to see the poverty, and to witness leprosy and deformity’s…. I’m just not able to deal with it- but with Noeline, I’m sure that I’ll get there- weather I want to or not.

So as the day goes on, Noeline and I decide that maybe I should just stay on for a while. She knows that the Hostel time has come to an end and she thinks we can get some good work done. So I stay. I’m out of a Hostel and into a COMPLETELY different way of life….but can I live through it?

Have to run….lots of work to do.

Love Kym

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 25th, 2006 at 5:18 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.