EVS-Welcome to my second month in Black Box/ Moon Base

Welcome to my second month in Black Box/ Moon Base

It is incredible that I have been in Belfast for two months now. The Moon Base/Black Box is a fantastic project. Such great activities and such an amazing team! Each day you learn something new and you meet new people.

During this month new activities were organized in order to enjoy and to have fun in an inclusive environment. At Moon Base each day of the week is devoted to a certain activity: Monday (Black Moon walks), Tuesday (Creating connections), Thursday (Moon Music), Friday (Feel Free Fridays). The activities are varied depending on what the group members want to do and everyone is free to propose ideas.

Monday walks usually take place in Belfast visiting different places: this month we went to Waterworks Park, Botanic Gardens and the Christmas market.

On Tuesdays arts-based activities are carried out and these include painting, music, storytelling, music among many others.

On Thursdays, a music workshop takes place and the atmosphere is fascinating due to the creativity, diversity and the sounds played with the different instruments. We are also working on new tunes with a great variety of rhythms.

Besides, other activities were carried out: this month, Phillip came to visit us with his apple press. He is a permaculture specialist, eco-warrior and nature keeper and we could taste fresh apple juice. Another activity was our Monday trip to Holywood at Camphill community where we helped to plant some trees. We are also preparing some innovative projects such as the ‘Global discussion Group’, which was introduced for the first time this month and it went great and we all think it is a good idea to talk about universal matters. In January we are also starting a “book club” in order to share reading together. This month I also did a presentation about myself to the group so they can know me better and some of them might be interested in doing their own presentations and this is really amazing.

Regarding my life out of work, if the weather is nice we try to go for trips to visit different places in Northern Ireland or just for a walk in Belfast. One weekend we decided to go to the Giants Causeway and the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. The weather was with us and we had a good time with splendid views. During our trip, we also visited Ballintoy Harbour, Ballycastle and Portstewart. Another weekend I went to Derry, although the weather was wet, we could visit the town, the bridge, some of the murals, the city walls. I also went to the Ulster Museum at Botanic Gardens. On Wednesday 20^th of November, some volunteers went to the promotion day at the Titanic Exhibition centre. The promotion day was about promoting different kind of activities/courses/volunteering programs in order to enrich your studies/future. Most of the people that attended the event were from schools, I met some volunteers that I didn’t know before and the atmosphere there was nice and welcoming.

To sum up, the Moon Base is a very open project full of energy, creativity and imagination. I can say that I am really enjoying my placement, my life in Belfast and I am eager to continue being part of the team.