The beginning of the end, and a new beginning
When we were planning this Irish adventure, I had a pretty precise plan about what I wanted to do here. I planned to get a semi-flexible (preferably social work) job, travel when we could, meet people, join a youth group, and enjoy Ireland. Seems fairly simple, no?
Man (and woman) proposes, and God disposes. It turns out that we landed in Ireland in the middle of the worst recession in at least a generation. People told us it would be bad, but you really have to live it to get it. I looked high and low for a social work job, and actually interviewed for two, but nothing came of it. Not having had the chance to really talk to very many people in the field, I’m not totally clear on it, but it seems as though Ireland just doesn’t have the number of social agencies that Canada does. That’s a whole other conversation, but between the smaller number of organizations and the very little money available from the government for any of them, jobs in the social work field are few and far between.
So I looked for non-social-work jobs too. Reception, secretary, retail, coffee shops, day cares, and on and on. And got absolutely nothing back. Maybe one or two emails of acknowledgement, but not even an interview. The ads for even these entry-level jobs ask for 2-3 years experience. Chris’ job hunting has been fairly similar. Essentially, there are no jobs in this country.
On the plus side, being unemployed has allowed us a whole lot of time to travel. We’ve done a ton of little day trips around Cork, plus London, France, Dublin, etc. It’s been really cool to be able to say ‘Hey, let’s go somewhere’, and be in London a couple days later.
Meeting people has been a lot more difficult than we anticipated. In the past (in Germany, Edmonton and Kelowna), I’ve made really god friends through church youth groups, and so I was hoping that the same would happen here in (traditionally Catholic) Ireland. Not so much. Again, a whole different conversation could be had but the basic summary is that it seems like nothing happens at a parish level here. No parish council or committees or youth groups. We found a young adults’ prayer meeting that we’ve attended quite a bit, but it’s not home. Add to that not working outside the house, and we haven’t met a lot of people, Irish or otherwise.
When it became fairly clear that we would not be able to find the jobs we wanted here, we started talking about coming home early. At first I was really opposed to the idea. I felt like leaving early meant giving up, and forfeiting this chance that we might not have again (the ability to just pick up and move without many strings attached). Slowly, through a lot of conversations and continued non-response to my job applications, I came to accept that the Irish adventure was not exactly working out according to plan. And as much as it’s fun to travel, it does cost money. And the in-between times of sitting at home in Cork not doing anything were getting to me. Plus, the idea of spending Christmas alone (that is, just the two of us) is a little sad.
So, after a whole lot of pondering and wondering and talking (if absolutely nothing else, the last three months have allowed Chris and I to have some really great conversations), we’ve decided to come back to Canada. In time for Christmas. We actually booked our tickets tonight, and will arrive in Edmonton on December 16th.
I don’t want it to seem as though we hate it here. There are some things that we aren’t enjoying as much as we’d hoped, but I am still so glad that we came. I’m trying to make this concise, because I could go on for a long time about our experience here and everything we’ve done and learned. Let’s have a real, in-person conversation about it sometime. But it really has been a rewarding experience. There are lots of things that I’ll be sad to leave. But just thinking about everything that’s waiting for us when we get back to Edmonton puts a really big smile on my face, which is how I know that we’re doing the right thing.
See you all before Christmas.
