All These Things That I've Done

Well one of the main reasons we came here was to help out with the Earagail Arts Festival, which has been an entertaining string of artistic events, performances, artist exhibits, and things of that nature. I've volunteered for a couple events so far, the first being at the opening art exhibition of local artist Locky Morris. His main thing seems to be turning to really simple material to make a big statement. One piece I found interesting was a piece of his living room carpet, on which his daughter took off the tag of her school uniform and dropped it; this piece of the carpet was encased in glass (with the tag still laying there) to preserve the memory of his daughter's first day of school. Simple, but an interesting approach to art... A lot of his art also represents aspects of The Troubles here in Ireland. I wish I had some pictures to show you.. but I don't.
Back to the exhibition opening.. Our job was simply to pour wine. Ok well, I've never poured alcohol for the public before and a normal person would use their common sense but of course I have all these questions. How much wine do I put in their glass? Can they have refills? How many can they have? Can I have some?
This was funny because one of the guys.. who had two or three glasses.. was telling us he hoped we got to have some. Upon telling him I was too afraid to ask, he yells "Are ye kidding me?? It's IRELAND!" Haha. It made for a nice cultural realization.

Following the exhibition, a group of us volunteered at the Carnival Parade which was kind of like a kickoff event for the festival. Well, my wine pouring mate was with me, but there was a whole group of people that were missing. I'm just like wow, they're really late..then all of the sudden they emerge out of the crowed in these insane, like.. ludicrous. outfits. I guess when they showed up some lady was like Aye! go get your costumes on! Haha. It's going to be real great when I get back to the States with this Irish accent. Anyway, so yes they we're dressed up like clowns, and I got to wear a neon vest. Our duties were simply to walk along side the parade to make sure people weren't going into the street and that everything was going smoothly. It was a great parade people were dressed up like crazy animals and dancers and there was music and dancing and huge floats. And we just walked all the way down the main street in Letterkenny and back.

These are two events I've volunteered at, and I've also attended some events. We checked out the carnival the next day at the park- first time discovering the park! That was exciting. It was mostly just grass and paths.. which lead my thoughts toward: well, this country doesn't need jungle gyms, sand, and swings because they're happy enough just running around in their extremely green grass and using their imagination. Just a cultural observation. Not saying they don't have parks with swings, but well, I haven't seen one. The next weekend we went to The Glebe Gathering, an event about a half hour away that was having another art exhibit for kids mostly. We took a tour of artist Derek Hill's house. He was a quirky guy. His house was filled with art work from artists all around the world, like a plate from Picasso, and a bunch of other crazy stuff like huge beetles encased in glass, beaded stools that his mother made, a victorian-like chair just for his dog, a decorated toilet bowl, a painting that changes color when the sun shines through it, etc. Very cool house. Then we went to Glenveagh castle and national park!! (one of 6 in Ireland). Yes, I've been in a castle now. We took a tour and I think we only got to see about 1/4 of the castle, but it was beautiful. and deer-themed. and haunted! and cursed. So I feel pretty lucky.

More recently, I went to a kids play called Star Boy, starring Joe Brennan, the topic of my documentary. He is a local storyteller and actually wrote this play without words to approach a different way of telling a story. It was cute, very good. I felt kind of ridiculous, I was literally the only one my age there. The audience consisted of parents and 2-9 year olds. I also went to see a performance by Solo Cissokho who is also a storyteller, and a musician of Souther Senegal in Africa. He played the griot (beautiful instrument) and told an old story from a village by his hometown.

That about sums it up for my volunteer and festival activities for the time being. Some fun cultural things that may be obvious but I'd like point out: They have a deep appreciation for their sheep here.. seriously, it's theme on the souvenirs.
Guiness is also a prominent theme in the culture, as well as music (much more so than in America); it is a much larger focus in the schools here.

Thanks for reading!

"Wait. Speaking of Jews... The goblins that work at the bank? Totally the jews of the movie."