I signed near Bill Clinton

One of the most enduring benefits of travel is the way in which in tends to open your eyes to the world.  Visiting new places and seeing how the people there live helps to give context and face to otherwise impersonal news stories.  I cannot, for instance, read a story about the plight of a group of people in Africa without thinking about my friends in Zonkizizwe.  Similarly, where before I probably would have hardly glanced at this Washington Post article on a recent surge in sectarian violence in Belfast, I now find it somewhat haunting.  I think about Bobby, our Catholic cab driver and tour guide, and about the little boy and girl, playing soccer in front of a giant, graphic mural in one of the Protestant neighborhoods, giggling and arguing over who would kick the ball next.

A soaring "peace wall," 11 meters high and more than five kilometers long, separates the areas of Belfast where the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods directly intersect.  Gates in the wall close every evening, in an effort to keep small incidents from flaring up into a more serious situation that could threaten the stability of the peace.  As illustrated by this latest riot, even with these precautions and after more than a decade of peace, tensions remain quite high.