Neighborhood Watch

Oh I have been so slack about blogging these past few weeks and I do promise to make it up to this lil' column with pictures and interesting facts about B'fast. For now, though, I have a hilarious short tale of life in West Belfast. My tale needs a little background info first.

During the times of the Troubles many residents in West Belfast (around the Falls Road area, in particular) formed a sort of neighborhood watch or self-policing groups. Because many of the Catholics in this area did not trust (or some say could not trust) the police in Northern Ireland, these groups were called in to settle disputes between neighbors and such. OK. Fast forward to last month. At the volunteer house, we received a letter from an address on the Falls Road. The seal for the group was in Gaelic so I hadn't a clue what it was all about. The letter said there had been an "incident" concerning our house that needed to be dealt with straight away. The letter looked like a joke, honestly, and just sat in the house until it was thrown in the bin. Two days ago, another letter arrived about this same "incident." Good heavens. Had one of the housemates gotten into a row with a neighbor? Did someone complain about our uncut grass? I brought the letter to work and someone phoned about this "incident."

Turns out one of my housemates (who will remain nameless in this space) has been showering and then drying themselves in front of their open bedroom window. I can't even begin to express how utterly hilarious this scene of events is. I wish I could have heard the call go into this neighborhood organization about the "incident." I can hardly keep a straight face when I think about it now. Especially when I thought about the tone of the letter and the constant reference to the "incident."

Kind of gives new meaning to the idea of a neighborhood watch.