A Dialogue of Self and Soul

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Spiral of Silence

Into the abyss of greatness

Wielding your power

Creating The Fear from nothing

 Access into the minds and souls

of the endangered

Forcing a furious Fire

 Creeping upon Humanitas

Gnawing at its flesh

Feverishly feasting away

 Until Freedom will be unleashed

In the era of

this Anglo-Saxistential Angst

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Choose designer lingerie, in the vain hope of kicking some life back into a dead relationship. Choose handbags, choose high-heeled shoes, cashmere and silk, to make yourself feel what passes for happy. Choose an iPhone made in China by a woman who jumped out of a window and stick it in the pocket of your jacket fresh from a South-Asian Firetrap. Choose Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and a thousand others ways to spew your bile across people you’ve never met. Choose updating your profile, tell the world what you had for breakfast and hope that someone, somewhere cares. Choose looking up old flames, desperate to believe that you don’t look as bad as they do. Choose live-blogging, from your first wank ‘til your last breath; human interaction reduced to nothing more than data. Choose ten thing you never knew about celebrities who’ve had surgery. Choose screaming about abortion. Choose rape jokes, slut-shaming, revenge porn and an endless tide of depressing misogyny. Choose 9/11 never happened, and if it did, it was the Jews. Choose a zero-hour contract and a two-hour journey to work. And choose the same for your kids, only worse, and maybe tell yourself that it’s better that they never happened. And then sit back and smother the pain with an unknown dose of an unknown drug made in somebody’s fucking kitchen.   Choose unfulfilled promise and wishing you’d done it all differently. Choose never learning from your own mistakes. Choose watching history repeat itself. Choose the slow reconciliation towards what you can get, rather than what you always hoped for. Settle for less and keep a brave face on it. Choose disappointment and choose losing the ones you love. As they fall from view, a piece of you dies with them. And so you can see that one day in the future, they will all be gone and there’s nothing left of you to call alive or dead. Choose your future, choose life.

T2 Trainspotting

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Humpty Trumpty and the European Elections

Is Trump’s rise an indication for the changes about to happen in the rest of the Western world? The people will have to decide. But can we still trust the people to make the “right&#822…

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Forever Trying to Reach the Ears of God

Oh writing, good old writing… Whether it’s writing a letter, poem, novel or postcard; it’s all becoming kind of a lost art. Nevertheless, it still means a lot to me. Someone has to sit down, with a glass of whiskey (although this might not be necessary), and carefully think about his next sentence, pondering, cogitating. It’s nearly impossible to do nowadays with all the modern-day distractions buzzing and blinking around you, but when you succeed in escaping this black hole of technology, you start seeing again through the fog.

It hasn’t been long since I started writing creatively. I probably wrote my first poem when I was 19, so I was quite a bit older than the children and teenagers that come into Fighting Words. It was Oscar Wilde who ignited the literary flame in my heart. It was through his poem ‘Helas!’ (https://vimeo.com/75799512) that he spoke to me and I listened to him in awe. From the moment I randomly read that poem, it all changed. My heart was somehow beating outside my chest, exposed to the elements. I was inspired and it felt amazing.

To cut a long story short, if this flamboyant Dubliner wouldn’t have swaggered into my life ─ Oscar would never have simply walked in like some commoner ─ I would be a totally different person than the one I have become. But he did, and in doing so he showed me that reading and writing can give so much more meaning and value to one’s existence.  

Reading a book can give a bullied 10-year-old boy the opportunity to escape from his sorrows into this amazingly exciting world that some skilled writers can create and one single poem can completely change the way a heartbroken 15-year-old girl looks at the world. Give a teenager a pen and a piece of paper, and you give him the opportunity to rid himself of all those confusing teenage-thoughts. Writing a short story where he does get the girl or a poem where he can show who he really is, though it’s beautifully and scrupulously layered so that most people wouldn’t read anything into it.

It’s a big bad world full of twists and turns and people have a way of blinking and missing the moment, the moment that could change everything. What Fighting Words is doing, and I have been lucky enough to be able to play my part, is that they are creating those moments, making sure that those kids don’t miss them.  They are giving children and teenagers an opportunity to pour everything that’s in their heads onto a sheet of paper, to let them take control of all the madness that can go on in there and maybe even to find their Oscar.

You should never underestimate what you can do for a lot of kids by introducing creative writing, either as a reader or writer, to them. You catapult a completely new world into their universe and it can change them forever. I’m so grateful for being able to have been a tiny part of this amazing organisation called Fighting Words. It has been the most rewarding experience of my life.

 Signing off, yours truly,

Gerben

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Freedom

What does it mean to be free? Is anyone ever, truly, free? We keep searching for freedom and a lot of people proclaim that they’d like to be, or want to be, free. Those people, why aren’t they then? Are they lazy, can’t they be bothered to really try? After all, they wouldn’t be the first to blurt out some meaningless wish or desire and to do absolutely nothing to pursue said ambition.  

There are of course those who say they’re free and they don’t waste an opportunity to tell you. Ask them to explain why and what follows is often such a sad bundle of meaningless phrases that you’d very much like to give them a push. A push to freedom.

Because, ultimately, isn’t that what freedom is; death? Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, it is the most unrestricted man can be.  Life is full of limitations that, ironically, we designed and put upon ourselves. Abandoning the idea of an afterlife and going about it in the most logical way, death is nothingness. The moment you die, all your restrictions (whether they are created by yourself, your family or your government) disappear.

The downside here is of course that you couldn’t benefit from this, as death is an abyss of nothingness and thus you wouldn’t notice, or in any way experience, your newly found freedom. Is there no way you can be free in your lifetime then? It all depends really. Those that already think they’re free, live their life experiencing their own perception of freedom, never giving a second thought. They never asked the question; therefore they don’t need an answer.

Those that do ponder over these things are often left feeling confused, frustrated or even depressed. My own solution to this, as I consider myself one of those (over)thinkers, is to find your own freedom. There will always be restricting factors in life and it’s best to simply accept them and live within these restrictions. Every now and then you might give them a nasty look to show your disapproval or even give them a kick to see how far you can push them. Sure, you can try and change things, but ultimately the things you want to change will simply be replaced by the very same thing in a slightly different wrapping. That way the wheels of the bus will keep going round and round and you’re happily sitting on said bus, thinking you’ve changed it, while in fact it just got a paint job.

So find freedom in the little things you experience daily. You’re free to hear that annoying bird sing, free to get on a train where you can freely ignore everyone on it. Appreciating your little moments of freedom will make your life a bit less difficult and a lot easier to go through. Because in the grand scheme of things, man will never be truly free until he is no more. Carpe diem. Seize the day folks.  

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Stones and Thrones

It’s been a good while since I’ve written a blog, so of course it’d make sense to be writing one on my birthday. For the ones wondering whether it does indeed make sense, I myself couldn’t tell you I’m afraid.

I haven’t been idle during my absence on Tumblr though. I’ve done some exploring on the Northern part of this emerald isle. My girlfriend and me had decided to go to Belfast for a couple of days, because why not. The two major things that we had planned to do there was to go to the Titanic museum and to do a Game of Thrones locations tour, which would basically show us every corner of Northern Ireland.

Now I can’t honestly say I’m a fan of the series, having watched a total of five episodes, but the girlfriend is, in fact, quite addicted to it. So it was time to be the good boyfriend once again and do her the pleasure of going on this tour, although I knew from the moment I booked it that I would immensely enjoy the wonderful bits of nature that we were going to see. I didn’t care much for what happened at which location, but I did appreciate it that they showed clips of the locations in the series.

The first location that we visited was the Cushendun Caves. For Game of Thrones fans: the caves where Melisandre gives birth to the shadow baby.  These caves were slowly formed over a period of 400 million years. So it took some time to form these caves, but the result is absolutely stunning. It’s really wonderful to see how nature took it’s time to slowly sculpt its own sculpture in a way.

Next we went to my personal challenge of the day: the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. I’m not that fond of heights and the fact that this was a rope bridge stretching from the mainland to an island of the coast, with the wind swaying the bridge and the sea crashing on the pointy rocks underneath, didn’t make this a very attractive exercise for me. Instead of crashing down on the rocks below however, I safely crossed the bridge and I massively enjoyed it. It gives a certain thrill to walk over it and on top of that you get an amazing view and an invaluable sense of freedom (without letting go of the damn bridge).

As you’ve read, the caves were about 400 million years old. Compared to that, the Giant’s Causeway could be considered relatively new with its 60 million years of age. I didn’t quite know what to expect from it, because they’re just some old rocks. But I think I can speak for many sceptics just like me who went there, that in the end, we all leave in wonder.

It’s such a unique rock formation, formed by years of volcanic eruptions, at the same time standing as a natural rampart against the unbridled ferocity of Atlantic storms. It has something mysterious about it, and you can’t quite grasp how something could be formed in such an odd yet marvellous way.  

Other sights we got to see were the charming Ballintoy Harbour and the “Dark Hedges”, which are basically a lot of old trees. Nice trees though. I could go on forever about every sight that we’ve seen during the tour, but describing it really wouldn’t to the beauty any justice.

If you’re in Belfast, it’s almost obligatory to go to the Titanic museum. I found the beginning a bit dull since they were banging on about the linen industry in Belfast and the important industrial developments before Titanic. I get that in order to know the whole picture, it’s a story that needs to be told, but I couldn’t really fake any true enthusiasm regarding the linen industry. It was however very interesting to see how the Titanic was build and also to see the working conditions the shipbuilders were forced to work in. It was truly appalling and a lot of them became deaf due to the constant hammering on metal. The most impressive part was the sinking. The museum had put up animations showing the stages of the sinking of the ship on screens and during that you heard the actual survivors describing the events as they happened; truly impressive, a moment that makes you stand still in silence for a while.

As we had Belfast as our base I was able to compare it to Dublin and I must say that I definitely prefer Dublin. Dublin seems more alive and vibrant, whereas Belfast is greyer and a bit duller. I’m sure it’s a nice city when you truly get to know it, but for now I’ll keep drinking my Guinness in Dublin.

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Even in Westminster they're reading my blog. Hopefully it's not MI6.

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1916: A Terrible Beauty is Born

Easter 2016 is nearly over and it’s been 100 years since the Easter Rising of 1916 in Ireland. Its impact is beautifully described by one of my favourite poets W.B. Yeats in his poem ‘Easter 1916’, most strikingly by two repetitive sentences: 

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

It was Easter 1916 and Ireland was still ruled by Great Britain. A group of Irish republicans had clearly had enough of this and beginning on Monday 24th April, and lasting for six days, an armed uprising began. They seized multiple important locations in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish Republic. The taking of these locations went rather smoothly, mainly because the British were completely taken by surprise.  As the week progressed, the fighting in some areas became intense, characterised by prolonged, fiercely contested street battles. In the beginning of the rising, about 1,000 rebels faced just 400 British troops. However, by the end of the week reinforcements had been drafted into the capital and the 1,000 rebels were by then facing 18-20,000 soldiers, bringing with them heavy artillery.

Of course the Irish rebels didn’t last long against the enforced British army. By Friday, much of central Dublin was devastated and the leaders of the rising had no other choice but to surrender unconditionally. Little did they know that it wasn’t until after their arrest that the real rising would be taking shape.

Along with the rebel leaders, many others were arrested and in a series of courts martial beginning on 2nd May, 90 people were sentenced to death. The rebel leaders were to be made an example of and the following were all executed in just 9 days:

3 May: Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Thomas J. Clarke

4 May: Joseph Plunkett, William Pearse, Edward Daly and Michael O'Hanrahan

5 May: John MacBride

8 May: Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Sean Heuston and Conn Colbert

12 May: James Connolly and Sean MacDiarmada

The majority of the Irish population did not support the Easter Rising, but the brutal way the British responded massively increased public sympathy, both for the rebels and their goals.  One shining example of how far the British would go to “serve justice”, was the execution of James Connolly.  Connolly had gotten severely wounded during the uprising and he was already dying. Despite this, the British still wanted to execute him. Unable to stand upright, Connolly was tied to a chair and then shot.

The British realised the effect that these mass-executions had on the people of Ireland and they stopped them after May 12th. But it was too little too late. A seed had been sown; the wheels of revolution had already set into motion.

The history of Ireland is quite complicated so I’ll stop here for now. I promise to write more about Ireland’s history following the Easter Rising in other blogs. For now; don’t feel too guilty about all those empty chocolate wrappers surrounding you.

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Forcing Light Through the Darkness

Waking up to the news that the country of my girlfriend and her family ─ a country and people that I’ve grown to love ─ is being brutally attacked by terrorists, upset me deeply. Luckily, they’re all safe. I was pretty shaken this morning, overcome with emotions. I went for a long walk to the beach 45 minutes away and sat on the rocks in silence, somehow trying to clear my mind and sort out all the thoughts going through my head. After a good 30 minutes surrounded by nothing but the sound of the incoming waves kissing the sand and feeling the salty wind on my face, the fogginess in my mind had cleared up a bit.

Writing this blog feels weird. I was planning to write this blog about the Easter Rising of 1916, since I visited an exhibition on it last week. But due to the events of today in Brussels, I decided not to. I’m going to write about all the fun I had last week around St. Patrick’s Day.

So instead of writing a blog about another bloody event 100 years ago or ranting about Islamic extremism, I decided to do what the people of Belgium are good at and what I love them for; focus on the positives and get on with life. Thus I decided to look back on some fun things that happened last week, which will hopefully bring some light in the darkness for some.

So last week, my long-time friend from The Netherlands, Tycho, came to visit me in Dublin for a couple of days. As they say, you haven’t properly experienced St. Patrick’s Day, until an Irishman had committed in your face. And I kid you not, we were on the bus from Dublin to Bray, and the bloke behind us projectile vomited over Tycho’s back and seat. Welcome to Ireland. The damage wasn’t too bad; only his coat was defiled. The guy himself was the biggest victim. His whole beard, hands and lap were covered in sick. Somehow he thought we were German and he kept repeating: “Es tut mir so leit”, despite us saying we weren’t German.  Anyway, we managed to clean the coat pretty easily. Not a bad first day in Ireland I must say.

We also went to the Comedy Crunch, a basement under a pub where there are free comedy shows (and free ice-cream!). I love this place, the people who organize it are great and I always try to take people to this place some way or another. Besides that, we also went to the Irish Whiskey Museum. We are both whiskey admirers, so it seemed the place to be for us. We got a tour by a great tour guide and he told us everything about the history of whiskey in Ireland. It turns out the Irish really REALLY love whiskey.  In 1781, private distillation was banned by the UK government. Where the other countries in the UK had a couple of hundred illegal distilleries following the ban, Ireland had a couple of thousand. Don’t mess with their whiskey people.

March 17th meant it was St. Patrick’s Day. Celebrating the man who brought Catholicism to Ireland and apparently drove all the snakes out too, while he was at it. Nowadays it’s mainly about drinking a lot and having fun, I like to compare it to Koningsdag (King’s Day) in The Netherlands.  We were advised not to go to Dublin and not to go near Temple Bar district on St. Patrick’s Day, but we’re stubborn. So we went to Dublin. And we got near Temple Bar district.

It was incredibly packed in Temple Bar district and we weren’t able to get in there. We were however able to get in a pub at the edge of the district and we enjoyed ourselves there. We managed to smuggle in some beers, being the greedy Dutchmen that we are, and enjoyed the music and atmosphere. What stood out to me, is that there was absolutely no trouble whatsoever and no one was drinking in public; very different from King’s Day in that way. I loved it.

This is it for now, next time I will write about the Easter Rising, that’s a promise.

Peace and love.

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Rebirth

Since my last blog, one of the things I’ve done is visiting Kilmainham Gaol (jail). In July 2014, I had already visited this jail turned museum, but it left such a lasting impression on me that it didn’t bother me at all to pay it a second visit.

In a way, the Kilmainham jail represents modern Irish history. I’ll take you through a couple of periods.

During the Great Famine (1845-1852), the prison was still relatively new and small. As a result of the terrible hunger during this period, a lot of people committed (petty) crimes to get into jail on purpose.Why, I hear you ask? Well, at least you’re assured of a meal when you’re in jail. This went on to such an extent, that during this period there were 9 times more people in Kilmainham Gaol than the capacity allowed, there were 4-5 prisoners per cel and loads more sprawled all over the corridors. 

After the Easter Rising in 1916, where Irish rebels rose up against the British rulers, the rebel-leaders were held prisoner and executed in Kilmainhan. The Rising itself wasn’t actually that popular among the people of Ireland. The mass executions that followed, however, led to a reaction of disgust and Nationalism. Eventually this led to the rise of Sinn Féin and the Irish declaration of independence. I promise to explain more on the Easter Rising in one of the next blogs, coinciding with its centenary commemoration. 

The tour itself was impressive. Stories like the ones I described above, as well as being in the cells of famous prisoners. The personal messages that they scribbled on the walls still hauntingly lingering there in 2016. 

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May God Be With You

Fun fact: ‘dia dhuit’ is Irish for ‘hello’. Literally translated it means: ‘May God be with you’. Often when people think of Ireland, one of the first things that pop into their minds is religion. But is Ireland, 2016 years after the supposed birth of Jesus Christ, still that religious?

Official statistics show us that this might indeed be the case. A recent census points out that a staggering 84.2% of the population of Ireland still adheres to the Roman Catholic Church. If we add up the people who adhere to other Christian branches, the total percentage of Christians turns out to be 89.6%. The percentage of Atheists in Ireland turns out to be slightly smaller. 5.9% of the Irish population doesn’t believe in God. So for the first time in my life, I am, in fact, a minority.

Does this mean that I will be burnt at the stake for reading a book written by Christopher Hitchens? Probably not. But this mass-following of the Christian faith does have some effects visible here in Ireland. There are, for example, quite a lot of teenage mothers pushing their prams through the streets of Dublin. There are some causes related to religion here. Firstly, it’s widely known that the Catholic Church condemns the use of birth control. Secondly, abortion is still illegal in Ireland.

A nice example is a phenomenon called “The Pope's Children”. The visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979 coincided with a baby boom which peaked nine months after the visit. These children were born early in 1980, coinciding with the biggest growth of the Irish population since before The Great Famine, 135 years before. During this visit he reminded the religious people of Ireland of the ungodliness of birth control and so it happened that a lot of people abandoned their condoms and birth control pills when they got home, resulting in the aforementioned a baby boom.

Back to 2016. Those ± 4 million God-fearing Christians, are they really that God-fearing? From my encounters with Irish Christians, I’m going to answer ‘no’.  A lot of them say that they are, for example, Catholic. And when you ask them if they actually believe in a God, the creationist theory or even just go to church every once in a while; most of them will answer that they don’t actually believe. They simply have the religious label because their parent or their parents’ parents are Catholic.  An example that most (or at least a substantial number of) Christians in Ireland are not that devout, is the legalization of same-sex marriage in Ireland via a referendum last year. You can bet your life that legalizing abortion will be next.

Ireland is still very much a Christian country but mainly in its history, names of schools and on March 17th (as is the rest of the world). Don’t let the statistics fool you; the decline of Christianity is also felt in Ireland. It’s just a shame that (young) women are still victims of its outdated and sexist ideology.

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Last week I went to see a memorial commemorating The Great Famine in Ireland between 1845-1852. It led to more than 1 million deaths and a million more emigrated, mainly to the USA, explaining the big number of Irish-Americans.

The statues made a huge impact on me. You can see the desperation in their faces and it makes you feel incredibly sad.

For more information on the famine, I’ll happily refer you to: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

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*Talking about going to the barber shop* John: "What do you want done at the barber's?" Me: "My hair." John: "Well aren't you the fucking funny one."

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Writing, talking and sitting in silence

If I want to write something, whether it is a poem, a new chapter to a novel, an essay or a blog; I need a stimulus. A stimulus for me can be multiple things. Sometimes I simply need someone to tell me to sit my bottom down and write, sometimes I listen to some music and a glass of whiskey has proven to enhance the flow of the creative juices.  No one here is telling me to do anything and whiskey cannot be found in my room, since I decided to start living (relatively) healthy. Thus this blog has been made possible thanks to David Bowie, Foals, The Doors, Arcade Fire, et al.

I love to write (fiction), but that doesn’t change the fact that it almost never comes easy to me. I know people who can bang out pieces of text in the blink of an eye, while I force myself to overthink every sentence, every allusion. Where on earth am I going with this? Well, I see those exact character traits (though one can debate about whether they are in fact character traits) in the kids at Fighting Words. I greatly admire the ones who can put their heads down and write without looking up once and I almost want to scream out them: “How can you do that!?” And then there are the ones who can be maddeningly anal about their writing, like me. And of course it’s my job to tell them not to overthink everything, to settle for the first thing that pops into their minds, not to mind their spelling etc. There are moments where I just want whisper to them: “It’s okay, we just care more. Join me in the ‘Slow Poets Society’.” But I don’t. I sit there like the hypocrite I am. Oh how torn I feel inside sometimes.

This week at Fighting Words, some (young) adults with learning disabilities came in for a workshop. Most of them had Down-Syndrome and some were in the autistic spectrum. I’ve never worked with these kinds of people before and I wasn’t really looking forward to it to be honest. I know they’re all amazing people but I just don’t know how to act around those people and I feel highly uncomfortable. Anyway, I saw it as an opportunity to learn. I must admit they are amazing people, with a great sense of humour. But still, I would feel uncomfortable spending large amounts of time with them. I don’t know what it is; I’ll let you know when I find out, if ever. I got to work directly with an autistic boy of 15 and thanks to what I’ve learned in Didactics (Onderwijskunde) I got through the workshop without any problems. We had some nice short conversations and he was genuinely grateful for my help. I left that day feeling great.

That evening I joined my classmate Jaleesa to her landlady’s bookshop where playwright and columnist Hilary Fannin would be reading a passage from her memoir. To be honest, I had never heard from this lady before but it seemed like a good opportunity to mingle with the locals and to brush shoulders with people from the literary world (and there was also free wine). From what she read I can conclude that I do like her style of writing but I didn’t find her a necessarily interesting person. Hence I didn’t speak to her but I did have a great conversation with a man from South-Africa who has been living in Dublin for nearly 25 years. We spoke about literature, life, food and beer. He used to have a Dutch girlfriend, so we also spoke a bit about The Netherlands. And then something freaky happened. The first place my girlfriend took me when we were still ‘just friends’, was park Middelheim. A lovely park with statues scattered across it like the leaves freshly fallen from the voluptuous trees. I still remember that moment vividly; mainly because it was the first moment I stared directly in to those hauntingly beautiful green eyes. Anyway, I digress. I turned out that is also was the first place his Dutch girlfriend took him to! Talk about coincidence. I guess something unexpected can always happen; you just have to open your eyes.

Speaking of which; I had the shock of my life last week when I was on the bus and a man sat next to me. When I looked out of the corner of my eye, I recognized the bass guitarist of U2; Adam Clayton. I assume some of you may have some questions. But no, I don’t know why on earth a multimillionaire would be on a double-decker bus and no I didn’t dare speak to him. All I know is that I’m sure it was him (I’m obsessed with little facts and factoids about my favourite bands, so I know what U2’s bass guitarist looks like, sadly enough) and that I stepped out of the bus slightly bewildered.

That’s all for this week. Please let me know if you’re all already bored out of your mind by my blogs.

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Good times with the girlfriend in Dublin.

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The Twisting Mauritian from Brighton

My girlfriend’s been here for nearly a week now and in her presence hours always seem to last mere minutes. It feels like yesterday when I picked her up from the airport and held her tight for the first time in a couple of weeks, which seemed like ages ago. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are my days off, so we made good use of that.

We went to see a film in Dublin; ‘Spotlight’. I won’t tell anything about the plot, for we all have Google and it seems like a waste of time for me to butcher the story into summary, but it’s really worth your while to watch it. I left the cinema with a mixture of anger and bewilderment as a result of watching it. So what do we do to solve that? We have ourselves a delicious beef & Guinness stew and then off to the pub!

We went to a pub in the Temple Bar district called ‘The Quays’. We had visited this pub before during our holiday in July 2014 and, from what we remembered, we had great fun there. There’s always live music going on in the pub. Don’t expect indie artists to perform their unknown songs, we’re talking about cover bands here. But since I’m in a pub, with a cold pint of Guinness in my hand, I don’t mind drunkenly singing along to ‘Wonderwall’. It’s all good craic.

We got talking to a couple of people, two of whom were from Brighton, England. They were father and son, here in Dublin for a weekend, and we had good fun talking to them. The father, 65, emigrated from Mauritius to Brighton 30 years ago. When I got back from the toilet after making room for some more stout pints, I found my girlfriend twisting with this elderly man. You really can’t leave her alone for a minute…

In the weekend we also went to the beach in Bray for a refreshing walk, which turned out to be a bit wet. Soaked to the bone we took refuge the pub with (officially) the best Guinness in the world; ‘The Harbour’. We had ourselves some toasties and beer, and watched some football. In this weekend we also made sure we had some lazy times gaming in bed. You won’t hear me complain.

Since my last blog I’m really finding my place in Fighting Words. I sincerely feel a part of the team and working with the kids and teenagers is still a joy. Next week I’ll go more in depth on working with the children. For now I leave it at this, for the mountains are in sight and my train has nearly reached my stop.

Love you all, Gerben        

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Kids at Fighting Words, a mural at Bray train station, Dublin Airport