1st week of work...

So I made it through my 1^st week at my new job and all is going good so far... with a few minor exceptions which I’ll get to. Basically Habitat Dublin is fairly new and started up maybe less than 10 years ago. Because they too have been experiencing a financial crisis they haven’t been able to get mortgages for new home owners, nor been able to get land, thus haven’t been do any new homes recently. They did a few homes and some renovation work in the past but for the last few years their office (5 woman + myself now) has been focused on their Global Village Program, which organizes groups of Irish volunteers to do projects abroad. Anyways, so I’m the ‘Local Programme Manager’ and basically that means re-establishing our presence in Dublin and getting some local projects going! This will be a big challenge, and the plan is to start w/ some small refurbishment projects (lots of landscape work, cosmetic improvements like painting etc) and eventually do some legit renovations! I’m excited.

So the pics are of one of my 1^st projects which is for the St Vincent DePaul Charity. They have this old house on 30 acres that they use as a holiday/vacation home for elderly people. Basically groups come in and stay for a week, sometimes like boy scouts etc, but mostly elderly. Anyways the grounds are really cool, there are ruins of an old chapel and cemetery (actually a heritage site!), a river, farm, etc and we’re going to do some clearing, make some walking paths, gardens etc. and do some cosmetic work inside too.

In other news last Thursday my boss and I went up to Belfast to meet with the Habit Northern Ireland group and get some info/advice from them since they have a much bigger, more established program/programme lol. Anyways that was cool. Doesn’t look like there is a ton to do in Belfast but I did see the crane that built the Titanic! Lastly regarding Belfast I saw something else that shocked me.... ‘peace walls.’ I had no idea what peace walls were, how prevalent they are, and that they actually gate off different areas at night, weekends, or whenever there is tension I guess. I visited the Habitat jobsite and it was right next to a giant wall that almost resembled the external wall of a prison.... I don’t even know which side we were on! In other areas the walls have crazy graffiti murals. It was very, very interesting. Something cool about the Habitat branch up there though is that they focus heavily on diminishing the conflict in terms of group diversity, location of homes & families selected , public awareness etc. So that’s good.

Now to the aforementioned minor exception to my job going well... because I’ll be spending a lot of my time at job sites they want to get me a car. But by car I mean a mini-van (European standards- they look even goofier!) with a Habitat magnet logo! Yeah! So the other day my boss takes me into the park to practice driving... stick.... and on the left side of the road?!?! Anyone who has ever driven with me knows that this is a bad idea. A horrible idea. Needless to say I need a lot of practice. And my boss is going to look for an automatic, fingers crossed... I’ll keep you posted on my new ride!