As part of the volunteer work we had the opportunity to visit a local school and help with environmental education there. We taught the kids about different animals, the circle of life, water, pollution, poaching and the food chain over the course of six days. The kids were kind of shy at first but by the end they were more comfortable with us and they seemed really excited to see us when we came. The lesson would be in two parts with a snack break in the middle when we could play games with them and take photos (they loved to have their picture taken). By the time of the last lesson they waited for us outside the classroom to give us hugs while we straightened up the classroom. It felt really good to have a direct impact on these kids, and even if they forget all of the details of the lessons at the very least most of them will have a positive memory associated with the themes. Norman (the leader of this part of the project) seemed really happy with how the lessons went and had a positive outlook that we made a difference in at least a few of their lives. This work was admittedly the work I looked forward to the least, but in a lot of ways it was the most rewarding and I enjoyed it a lot.

That was the first two weeks. We left Masebe emotionally having made pretty close relationships with the people who had been mentoring us for the last two weeks to head on out adventure tour which was the second part of the month long trip with ISV. The adventure tour promised to be incredible, and it definitely lived up to that promise. We first went to a place called Glen Afric which was a great starting point. We got to meet some of their resident animals including leopards, lions, a hyena, zebra, ostrich, hippos, tigers and cheetahs. Then the next day we got to meet three of the elephants that live in the area; there was a mother named Three, and two teenagers named Hannah and Margie, one of which she adopted. We got to touch them and hug them. It was such a powerful experience I can’t really put it into words. That day we also got to visit a market and a cultural village where I tried ostrich and crocodile. Glen Afric was also a really neat place in part because at night you could hear their lions and hyena while you were in bed. Overall it was a pretty magical start to our tour.

The next place we went to was just outside of Kruger National Park. Kruger is one of the biggest national parks in Africa with 7,500 square miles of area. We spent a whole day in Kruger and saw a ton of wildlife. I felt like we were pretty lucky too, we saw four of the big five (lions, water buffalo, elephant, rhinoceros, but not leopard), four individual cheetahs, one of the rarest birds a southern ground hornbill, a carcass frenzy and a ton more. This was one of the parts of the trip that I was looking forward to the most and it totally lived up to my expectations. It was a really incredible day.

After Kruger we went to the base of the Magaliesburg mountains in the
Drakensburg escarpment. There we got to try out kloofing (the South African name for cliff jumping). This was a ton of fun and such an adrenaline rush. Fortunately I don’t have a fear of heights, but this was one of the more challenging activities for those who did have a fear of heights. We had to climb up some loose rocks, stand on top of waterfalls (and under some) and navigate some pretty rickety ladders. The highest jump we did was 11 meters which turns out to be about 36 feet. It was a long, long way to fall. Long enough that you could contemplate just when you would actually hit the water. It was a blast though and we all had a lot of fun. There we also visited a wildlife rehabilitation center called Moholoholo. We got to touch a baby honey badger and feed vultures there. We also learned about how important it is that the people have some kind of relationship with their environment.

Our penultimate stop was in Swaziland (new country!). We visited a candle making factory where we got to see some beautiful candles made by hand. We also got to go horseback riding, mountain bike riding, visit and orphanage and go caving. The orphanage was also next to a cultural village and we got to meet the chief (who was a woman). We got to do a little bit of Swazi cultural dance and singing before we went over to hand out food we donated to the orphans. It was a really humbling experience. These kids were so happy but they were so excited to have apples, oranges and bananas. We all left there feeling like we could all do with a whole lot less and give a whole lot more. Caving was one of the harder activities for me. It was really fun and I felt really proud of myself for doing it all even though it was a challenge. I also got to hold a spider that only lives in that one cave in the whole world. As hard as it was it was a lot of fun and we all made it through by encouraging one another and keeping a positive attitude.

Our last stop was in Ponta do Ouro, Mozambique, and we could not ask for a more perfect ending to a perfect trip. As soon as we got to the border between South Africa and Mozambique we switched vehicles from our gigantic bus to smaller cars that would navigate the sand roads that we took to Ponta do Ouro, a tiny little beach town right on the coast. All of the roads were just sand in the area of Mozambique that we were in. In Ponta do Ouro (tip of gold) we left our shoes in the room and spent the whole time on the beach doing things like learning to surf, swimming with wild dolphins, and scuba diving. Our group had one of the most incredible dolphin encounters of the year if not in the history of ISV. We were within arm’s reach of three dolphins, one of which was a baby, and they were amid a foraging lesson with a struggling little puffer fish (which was alive for most of the time we were there). We got to be with them for almost an hour, and at some point another dolphin showed up and we even saw a black tip shark (which was probably not 5 meters away from me). Of all of the activities caving and scuba diving were the most difficult for me. Scuba diving was hard mentally because I was really worried I was going to get water in my mask and just breathing underwater was hard to get used to. I had to keep telling myself that I was okay and I could breath. It was really beautiful though and I was really glad that I stuck it out. The whole trip was really special and Mozambique was an exceptional end to our trip.

I left Missoula in the afternoon, which gave me a whole day to feel anxious as I began the biggest adventure of my life. The first striking thing I experienced was the feeling of being totally alone in a new place. I felt empowered by this when I arrived in Salt Lake City. My first flight was short and there weren’t many people on it, but my second flight from Salt Lake to New York was much more crowded and uncomfortable. Once I got to New York I met most of the group that I would be spending the next month with while we waited for the really long flight across the Atlantic. While I was sitting there starting to get to know everyone I felt even more excited as I was just one more flight away from a place I had dreamed of my whole life; Africa!

Once we arrived in Johannesburg we found the rest of our group and our project leader, Leti. Leti was from International Student Volunteers (ISV, the organization I travelled with) and was there to guide us through our service project portion of our trip. (ISV was fantastic, I highly recommend them for an educational, culturally rich, and safe way to travel and make a positive impact in another country. Here’s a link to their website: http://www.isvolunteers.org/). After a somewhat lengthy bus ride (however it was much more comfortable than the plane) we arrived to our accommodations, Telekishi Cultural Village, where we stayed for the duration of our volunteer project. We had a tour of camp and learned about what was expected of us for the next two weeks (cooking, cleaning, and stuff of that sort).

An African Hoepoe, a bird we heard and saw on the reserve while doing bird point counts.

This is the leave of a thorny tree called sickle bush or Dichrostachys cinerea, we had to measure these for the habitat assessments.

The first day was an orientation which involved some bush survival and a run down on the type of data we would be collecting as our volunteer work. We were working with a group called Wilderness and Ecological Investments (WEI) and we would be doing bird point counts and habitat assessments in the Masebe Nature Reserve. The purpose of these projects was to assess the health of different areas in the reserve to help make management decisions with regard to where they keep the wildlife. The bird point counts help by giving an idea about what species are living where in the reserve and how many birds there are. Birds are great bio-indicators of the health of an ecosystem so this helps with determining if the space is being over used. It’s also useful in finding out migratory habits of some of the birds that use the reserve during the year. The habitat assessments were basically a measure of how much vegetation there was. If those measurements are compared from year to year it is possible to find out how much the area is being used by the wildlife.

I really enjoyed the work we were doing in Masebe. I was so pleased that we got to do that project because it is really what I want to do with my life and I can relate it directly to experience I have gained at home in Montana. For instance, earlier this summer I was working on a different bird project concerning Lewis’s woodpeckers, so it was a lot of fun for me to learn some new birds while I was on project. I also learned a ton of  tree species. I found the application of the information we were collecting to be interesting as well. Although it was cold in the morning (I know, I went to Africa and was cold, how about that?) I thought it was well worth it because we saw a lot of wildlife (zebra, wildebeest, impala, baboons, monkeys, even giraffe). We also helped with some other projects, like community outreach and invasive removal. It felt great to make such a positive impact in such a short amount of time. I will cherish every moment of this part of the trip for the rest of my life. I gained valuable experience that will be useful later on in my career as well.

In addition to data collection we helped out with some other project around the reserve as well including invasive species removal, thinning of other problem plants, and game drives. We specifically pulled an invasive called lantana which had originally overtaken a little marshy area. Thanks to removal efforts though it is much more under control now and the area is regaining its health. The other problem plant we thinned was the sickle bush (pictured above). It has some really long thorns and when it grows on the sides of roads it can pop tires, so we just cut some of the tree away from the road. There was also a community outreach aspect which I will talk about in another post.

The 8 of July 2015 was declared a national holiday in anticipation for the arrival of the Pope to La Paz, Bolivia. That about 80% of Bolivia’s population is Catholic, hospitals, schools and many businesses were closed so employees would have the opportunity of seeing the Papa, the Spanish word for Pope. Papa San Francisco was flying into to La Paz where he would spend four hours before leaving for Santa Cruz, the next city in his tour in South America. After arriving from Guayaquil, Ecuador it was planned that the Papa would be given a welcoming ceremony, later give a short sermon and then make his way down Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz, a main street that runs through the city of La Paz. This is the same street that I would see the Papa for a whole three seconds after waiting for over 5 hours, just like many others surrounding me and pushing their way closer towards the street to have a better view.

Prior to the arrival of the Papa many billboards and posters strewn throughout the city greeted the Papa saying: Beinvenidos (welcome) Papa San Francisco, with a picture of the Papa smiling and waving beneath. The Papa himself is from Argentina, the first Pope that was elected from Latin America. As this was his first return trip to South America, and Bolivia one of three countries he would visit, the people of Bolivia were fervent for his appearance.

My roommate, Sara and I left our home stay after lunch and made our way down to the Plaza, ironically named Plaza San Francisco, where we waited among thousands of others for the arrival of the Papa. Shortly after leaving the house we became engrossed in swarms of people waiting for the Papa. People set out chairs claiming their space just like people in America might for Fourth of July parades. I have never been in such massive numbers before. No matter what side street we turned down or where we walked, there were people everywhere.

Many people were selling food, umbrellas Papa memorbelia such as flags and pins. I bought a pin with the Papa smiling on the front for one Boliviano, equivalent to about 15 cents. The Papa was supposed to arrive to the plaza around 4pm, but the sun began to set as we waited for the Papa in our little spot. The Papa was already 2 hours behind schedule. There was a news reporter not far from us saying the Papa was experiencing problems with the altitude. Many tourists before traveling to La Paz will read that the city is at an elevation of about 12,000 feet. When traveling to a high altitude such as La Paz many people experience symptoms as a result of altitude sickness. People around us began to wonder if we would even see the Papa because he only had one lung which would only seem to exacerbate the effects of the altitude, before he had to disembark to his next stop, Santa Cruz a city at much lower elevation in Bolivia.

My legs were killing me, we had left our homestay at about 2pm and now the sun was setting. I’m not sure how other people’s legs felt standing on cement for hours, but I was amazed by people’s desire to see the Papa. Little children, elderly women, people with casts or in wheelchairs all waited. Despite individual’s physical state it seemed all of La Paz, all 1 million inhabitants had flocked to this very street to see the Papa. When seven o’clock rolled around we heard word that the Papa was feeling better and he was making his way down Avienda and would be passing by shortly.

When the Papa drove by he was standing in the back of the car with a big oval shaped glass structure encompassing him (referred to as the popemobile). He smiled. He waved. Just like the posters we saw in town. We saw the Papa for about three seconds before he zoomed by. People were cheering, some crying. Many people holding electronic devices up trying to record the moment in which he would pass. People were joyful but also slightly surprised how quickly he passed.

The following day at work and classes, the only question that seemed to be asked was, “Did you see the Papa?” People talked about how crowded it was, how quickly it all happened, more interestingly was how people started calling him the “the Pope of the Poor.” How he had touched the head of women’s child and healed the infant. How the Papa promoted this and talked about that in his sermon, particularly about the “steps” Bolivia had taken to include the poor in the political and economic life of the country.

papa

Traditional medicine is still commonly practiced by many people in rural Ecuador. Traditional medicine is administered by a shaman, typically a woman who has been taught the skills by her mother and her mother before her. Each passing the skills on through the generations. Patients do not have money, they can pay in many other forms such as food products, labor, or other gifts.

During the third week of June, two other students from my program Emily and Cody joined me in a visit to Jambi Huasi, a traditional medicine clinic in Otavalo, Ecuador. We only spent one day in the traditional clinic as our other days were spent in nontraditional medicine settings.  Although I did not understand what was said during the visits with patients because the shaman spoke in Quechua, the indigenous language to this area, I was able to witness a very unique and special ceremony which a large percentage of local people deem meaningful in their history, culture, and still in modern day.

The morning we arrived to Jambi Huasi we were introduced to the shaman that would be working there for the day. There was already a father with his son outside the room waiting to be seen. He was brought into the room and explained that his son had been sick for a little over a week and was displaying symptoms such as a body aches, coughing, and was sleeping more than usual.

After the father finished explaining his son’s symptoms, he handed the shaman two eggs. The shaman placed the uncracked eggs in a bowl and picked several rocks from a lovely collection of rocks she had on the table in the corner. She leaned over the bowl and spoke words in way that appeared as if she was blessing them. She then put oil on the rocks and eggs and the boys head and began rubbing first the rocks then the eggs on the boys head, arms, legs, and torso to absorb the bad energy. She then placed the bowl on the floor and held the boy over the bowl and was shaking the boy as if she was trying to shake the bad spirits out of him, all the while chanting at the same time.

After she finished with the eggs she cracked them in the bowl. The way in which the yolk cracked would be interpreted by the shaman. She would then know the sickness the individual had and if the eggs and rocks had worked at absorbing the bad energy. During this whole process the shaman is speaking in Quechua, rending the body of bad spirits and or energy.

After the boy and his father left we were excused for lunch and told that after we returned we would be able to see a Cuy ceremony. Cuy is the Spanish word for Guinea pig, an important and sacred animal to indigenous people of Ecuador and many other South American countries.

Returning after lunch, we were led into a different room this time, but similar to the first. The shaman already had Guinea pig selected. We were told that the Guinea pig had to be of the same sex as the patient being seen. The patient that afternoon was a young woman who told us prior to the ceremony she was in the middle of treatment for parasites.

The shaman first began by saying a few words in Quechua. Then proceeded to take the live Guinea pig and rub it over the woman’s body, arms, legs and torso. The shaman continued this process until the Cuy was no longer moving and squealing. The shaman than sat down over a bowl she had prepared earlier. With experienced hands she made one vertical and two horizontal incisions on the anterior side of the Cuy.

She quickly skinned the Cuy and began examining organs such as the liver, kidneys, heart, intestines and stomach. If there was anything wrong with the organs of the Cuy that would indicate the problem of the individual. After the Shaman finished examining the Cuy. We all noticed the intestines of Cuy moving in the bowl beneath. This Cuy had parasites.  The Shaman had inferred that because this Cuy had parasites the woman in the room with us must also have parasites, which in this case she did.

Going into this project of building the Android Physical Therapy fitness app, I did not know how difficult it would be to balance an independently driven project with the hectic nature of summer. The progress has undeniably been slow but yet steady. Not only am I learning about Android programming, but I am learning more about myself. Previously, I have struggled with working on coding projects and assignments in a structured and sensible way. I struggle with procrastination and then as the deadline approached, I would finally feel the surge of motivation. At that time, I can be extremely productive in a short amount of time. Previously, working on coding in a compressed fashion, helped me generate the most cohesive program.

Making this app has made it clear to me that that is not the best way to complete a project in a job setting. With this research/internship, I have had to set my own deadlines and goals throughout the summer. At first my sights were too high and I had to moderate my expectations of myself. In a very real sense, I am learning as I progress throughout the project. Working as a programmer is incredibly different from doing programming assignments. Several days a week, I set aside time to work on the app throughout the day. I have had to allot time and give equal share to research, learning through informative videos and reading, and correspondence with the client in addition to actually coding the app. I still have so much to learn about the Android programming environment, and every time I use it, I learn new shortcuts and ways to improve style and accessibility. There has been a much steeper learning curve than I anticipated, and I am incredibly grateful for my Java programming background and experience with XML.

I am pleased with the current progress on the app. Even though I have to learn how to implement new aspects or to use computer jargon-“methods and controls”, you only have to learn how to do it once and then can reuse that knowledge over and over again. Hopefully, as the semester begins, I will be able to meet with the Physical Therapy professor who is the client more regularly. The summer has been a difficult time for coordinated communication, but I am sure that will be remedied in September. I believe we are on track for the prototype presentation in the spring of 2016.

Lisa H. Morgan

I arrived at Sojin’s (one of my best friends from the USA) Milan apartment block before she did. Night was coming on and as I tried to match Sojin’s previously sent picture to the buildings around me, I heard voices coming from the street gate. Upon closer observation I realized it was Sojin and her roommate searching for their keys after their journey home from Florence. It was a bit ironic that I let them into their gate. We headed up to their apartment chattering away.

Sojin and I in front of the Milan Duomo, the Italian word for cathedral.

The next morning, after a visit to Soj’s school, we had paninis and then shopped all afternoon. It was so great to walk around in the Italian sunshine, giggling with Soji, eating gelato, and marvelling at the stylish Italians that were everywhere. Milan is not your sandstone Italy with piazzas and jolly, big bellied Italian chefs around every corner. It is a big city, with a more modern and industrial feel. I enjoyed being there, it is different face of Italy.

The next day we had some cannolis, then went to meet the five year old Lupa for his english tutoring session. This consisted of Soj, Lupa, and I running around Lupa’s very nicely decorated flat with matchbox cars and puppets yelling in English. Soj does this every week, and Lupa’s very pregnant mother seemed to enjoy the two hour respite from her busy boy. I was pretty excited to see yet another example of Italian living, this time in the city. Lupa and his three siblings shared a one and a half story flat with their well to do parents.

That night we went to Apperitivo, where one buys a drink and with it gains access to a buffet full of noodles, veggies, and pizza. Pretty good dinner if you ask me.

The next morning I awoke at five, hugged Soji goodbye and scrambled into a taxi to the train station. Four hours later I arrived to my hostel in Biassa, Italy. A town fifteen minutes from the coastal Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre are five brightly painted fishing villages that cling to the coast of Italy. My family visited them when I was younger, but other than a brief flashback of a beach, I don’t remember the trip.

Cinque Terre was by far my favorite place in Italy. I started in Moterrossa, the northern most village and hiked along the coast to Vernanzza, my favorite of the five villages. In the villages, I wandered the small streets, poking into artist’s shops and caught glimpses of locals. I ate more gelato and enjoyed the sunset over the ocean then headed back to my hostel around 9:30.

Monterossa

Back at my hostel, the chef prepared the most amazing pasta dish for dinner. and for a good price. While eating, I met two girls from California, both teaching english in Madrid, Spain. We talked about the U.S. and what we missed. One was adamant that she never wanted to go home, they just do it better in Spain, according to her. The other agreed with me, that although the US has many problems, it is still great to be an American. No matter how shiny a country appears, there are always things to be reckoned with underneath.

Bright and early the next morning I hiked from Rio Maggiore to Manarola, coming across many farmers tending to their terraces of grapes and olives. I wondered Manarola, then caught a train to Corniglia, the only village that isn’t right on the water. After exploring Corniglia, I spent the afternoon on Monterosso’s beach, using stones to write words in the sand.The beach was deserted save me and a group of local teenagers. They came over to look at my stone words and one boy and I got to talking.

Monterossa is home to 1,000 people, this boy being one of them. He trains to La Spezia everyday for school and when I asked him how he likes all the tourists, he just smiled and said, “you get used to it”.

The next day I hiked four hours to Porto Nouva, another town on the coast, then made one last trip to the Cinque Terre to enjoy the sunset.

Florence was my next stop. It rained alot. Pretty much the whole time. As an epicenter of Renaissance architecture and art, I roamed the streets buying leathers goods, and marveling at the statues littered throughout the city. Michelangelo’s David was beautiful and I saw works of art by Boticelli and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Pretty amazing culture wise, but by this point in my trip I was getting tired, it was cold and wet, and I missed being with my family on Easter Sunday. My mood would lift at my next stop, Roma!

After living in Ireland for so long, it has gotten easier to forget how far away from Montana I really am and Dublin has felt like home to me for a while now. I think a large factor in that is the similarities Ireland shares with Montana. Everyone only shares one degree of separation with any given stranger they might meet while grocery shopping and several small towns hold small populations of tight-knit communities. This is particularly apparent when you start traversing the country with someone as popular (or at least well-known) as Michael Healy-Rae.

It may be this “small town similarity” that forces politics to go about the election game in such a different way than what we are use to being subjected to in the United States. Rather than candidates making their presence known on TV, the radio, and social media, they literally and almost exclusively rely on going door to door and personally asking people for votes. Simple, effective, and honest. I am going to miss this.

My relatives have been asking me if this internship has helped me decide what I would like to do with the rest of my life and my answer is always “no”. Irish politics are incomparable to what we do in the states and I could not decide my future career off of the work I have done here in Ireland, despite the similarities between Montana and Ireland. I did however, learn a tremendous amount about leadership from my time here in Ireland and how to be a proper politician. I also learned that I do not have the patience to listen to people complain about their neighbors to me all day so at least we can rule city council woman out of the picture.

Ireland taught me more than I could have imagined in the two months I was here and I am very thankful to have had this opportunity. I will be back some day.

Putting six months of your life into one blog entry is a tough task to do. Although words don’t do justice to the feelings of being in the moment and experiencing everything first hand, I will try my best to describe certain experiences traveling, studying, and living abroad in the “organized chaos” that is Chile.

The school portion of my study abroad has been spread thin. Having class 3 days a week, hardly understanding professors for the first couple months, and having all classes cancelled for 3 weeks due to student strikes have all contributed to a strange learning environment. My sparse school schedule has allowed me to seek education by a different means. Education can come in many forms, and for me, the most valuable educational experiences have not occurred in classrooms.

By far the most educational and rewarding memories I have made in my time abroad have come from traveling. Hitchhiking around Patagonia for 2 months with the hordes of other travelers, rafting the class V Futaleaufú River, and road tripping with the roomies have been some of the most memorable experiences in my time here. Although all of these adventures required planning and traveling great distances from my current home, Concepcion, sometimes the best trips and memories come from impromptu Wednesday evening or Saturday morning explorations close to home.

To some (okay most), Concepcion wouldn’t be considered an attractive city. However, just minutes away from the center of the city lies some of the most pristine coastline that central Chile has to offer, free of trash and the ever-present “flaites” (Chilean teens that listen to reggaeton at obnoxiously loud levels and leave their empty beer cans/bottles behind when they are done). As this is my first time living in a large city, it is sometimes easy to feel trapped due to lack of car and bicycle. This is where those weekend excursions or spontaneous weekday getaways come in handy for me. Breaking the daily routine of school and “studying” is the key for me to keep that excitement factor up in living in such a strange and unfamiliar environment. Although I am technically here to study and go to school, I have learned substantially more outside of school, through conversing with locals in broken Chilean Spanish than I have in any classroom.

Upon arrival in Chile, I felt completely out of place in my new living situation. Finally, after six months, I consider Chile home, if only for another 5 months. Although inconvenient at times, I find comfort in the organized chaos of this unique country and the habits that its citizens practice. I shudder to think about returning to Missoula and having to change my internal clock from Chilean time (at least 30 minutes late to everything), to U.S. time.

Glacier Grey in Torres del Paine, Patagonia

Safety boat waiting below class V rapid “Throne Room” on the Futaleufú River in northern Patagonia.

Before coming to Dublin, I had only done a minimal amount of research on Michael Healy-Rae. I knew he was an independent representative from County Kerry and I found a lot of pictures of his late father, Jackie Healy-Rae. My second day at work I learned that he was the only member of the Dáil to vote “no” on the same sex referendum in Ireland that was passed two weeks before my arrival and he is a pro-life activist. While he does not go around preaching these values and arguing with people who have different beliefs, my time canvassing with him and Timothy O, Chief of Staff if you will, down in County Kerry proved to be one of the more difficult things I have done. My patience and anger management was tested unlike any other trial I had yet to meet and I learned a lot from the experience.

It is easy to forget that Michael is one of the most conservative TD’s in Ireland and that we hold very different views simply because he is outstandingly charismatic. In this way it has been extremely easy and pleasant to work with him. His office mostly deals with local constituent issues, as I mentioned in my first blog entry, and therefore I have not had much of a chance to see him rally behind national issues. However, while canvassing in Kerry I was able to see how conservative the county is and heard more people’s opinions on national issues, particularly the referendum.

55% of Kerry residents voted yes for the same sex referendum and 45% voted no. Michael has always prided himself in being an honest TD and refuses to be swayed by popular beliefs. Back on my second day of work when we were discussing the referendum, he told me that it was not that he cared if someone is gay, he voted no because he was not in favor of formalizing that union to include marriage. Although this is not my opinion, I was at least relieved to hear he is somewhat open-minded and acknowledges that it is okay for people to be gay, something that a lot of people still do not accept.

While we were canvassing, his “no” vote was referenced more often than I expected, usually with praise, by many of the residents in County Kerry. I knew Kerry was conservative so this did not surprise me. What made me reflect on the responsibility of a TD or Senator or any representative was when he explained that he was the only TD to vote no because the others were afraid to vote against the popular support of the referendum in their respective counties; he was the only TD to not only vote no but to also go against the consensus of his county (“it would have been against my personal beliefs”).

I understand not supporting something that you simply do not believe in and I commend people, especially politicians, who stand up against companies, policies, wars, that they fundamentally think are wrong. On the other hand, if the majority of the constituency who chose you to fix your nation believes that same sex marriage should be legalized, is it not your duty to vote yes? Granted, the final voting margin was slim and the yes’s only barely surpassed the no’s in the grand scheme of things but the majority of his constituents were in favor either way you slice it.

On our last night canvassing in Kerry before coming back to Dublin Michael asked if I knew what “TD” actually stood for. I embarrassingly admitted that I actually did not. “Teachta Dála” he responded “it means ‘Messenger of the people'”.