Our Neighborhood.- Helen's view point

In some ways our neighborhood looks just like any other neighborhood. It doesn’t look wealthy and it doesn’t look poor. The streets are fairly clean – not as clean as Iceland – but pretty good. Nothing shocking or too different from what I’m used to. Then I see a huge mural on the side of the building that says I am now entering Loyalist Sandy Row - Home of the Freedom Fighters with a drawing of a man in a mask holding a weapon. Now this is different. It seems out of place somehow. It marks the beginning of tidy 3 story brick townhouses and I’m not sure if I’m allowed to walk in that neighborhood, so I don’t.

We wander into a local pub which is one block from our house and it looks like what I assume is a “working man’s local”. I feel like I’m in a British TV show. Television is the only place I have seen pubs that look like this with people speaking like this. Fairly lively conversation is taking place at the bar, which has no bar stools, and I can only make out a word or two. This is English, right? There is no vibe, no stares, it’s all very OK. We order a couple of pints from the bar and are immediately included in the conversation.

“Are ya gonna watch the bonds?”

The what?

“The bonds.”

“Watch what?”

“The bonds”

Oh, the “bands”. Then we are told about all the Orange Men bands that will march by the pub tomorrow. There will be food and fun for all.

On television that night we hear about East Belfast riots where the bands were marching. Hmmmm…. This seems to be a throwback to the years of the “troubles”, with the majority of the population wanting to move past the negative and just celebrate the more positive historical meaning of the marches. So, the next day we go to the corner and drink ale and watch the bands. It was all very pleasant. People buying us pints and telling us, “This is part of our Protestant culture”.

I asked Sandra - a pretty woman who works at the bar - when the kids in the bands practiced. Was it after school? For some reason this was very amusing and she told her two friends who also found this very amusing. I admit, I don’t get the joke, but this was very amusing.

It was an interesting experience that the people around us went out of their way to make pleasant. With the exception of one older, militant man…………well, the USA has them too.

That was our introduction to our new neighborhood.