Belvoir

The pro invited his students to play 9 holes of golf this evening. I thought the 20 pound fee for the night would include instruction as we went round the course. Sadly, he walked with the first years and left the second and third years to play on their own.

The good news is I was with friendly women on a beautiful course on a beautiful night. The bad news is I played abysmally. When I hit a shot right, I hit it farther than any of the women I’ve played with. But that happens so rarely. More often, my balls sail into the woods on the right, never to be seen again, or they go a humiliatingly short distance. I had hoped to get my game further along before mom arrives--but that isn’t going to happen before Wednesday.

The sad thing is I could have gone to Derry tonight for an old boys cricket game against the current team at Foyle and an old girls hockey match against the current side--followed by a BBQ. That would have been so much fun, however I was determined to get the most out of my six lessons by playing tonight with the pro. Except I didn’t. First world problems when people with a firm claim on asylum are being treated like criminals. It really is sickening to read the news out of the US. In the UK, asylum seekers spend years in limbo as the Home Office ties them up in bureaucracy--demanding paperwork you may not have if you fled a war zone. Young people who have fled war a variety of traumatic situations thought they’d be safe once they got here. When they have to deal with the uncertainty of not knowing if they will get asylum, some of them kill themselves--The Guardian had an article on four young men who have recently killed themselves. The only way to deal with the trauma of the past is to move on to a hopeful future. They are being given that chance.
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