Learning

Kyle is a curious guy. Everything is interesting. I told him that if I had one euro for everytime he said the phrase "That's a big farm-- it has three barns", I would be a rich man. He asks questions about the schapen (the sheep), but half the time ends up saying the dutch word for "ships" (which, to be fair, is phonetically similar). He wants to know about tractors, cows, highways, shops, fields, soil, beer, and farm financing to name a few.

I have learned something from Kyle over the past week-- that the only way to find out about things is to not be afraid to ask questions. And over the past few days we have not had a shortage of people with answers.

On Thursday, Harm Frans had the day off work so he drove us to Emmen to visit the dierenpark (zoo). Harm, being a banker in the agricultural sector, fielded many questions relating to Western European farming on the way.

The zoo was an excellent crash course in wildlife photography for me, so hopefully by the time we get to Tanzania I will be able to take some good wildlife shots.

At the zoo, we met penguins who had learned how to escape their enclosure by following the tourists out.

We also met a baby seal (born June 1) whose mother was teaching it about the perils of the water. The baby wanted to go in the water, but its mother vehemently opposed its every attempt.

After our trip to the zoo, we drove back through Germany on the Autobahn. Yes, you can drive as fast as you like. Yes, we drove quite quickly. Yes, it was fun. But to temper our enjoyment of the Autobahn, Harm took us to a place where the lessons of speed were sorely learned-- the Emsland district of Germany, where 23 people were killed two years ago in a crash involving a magnetic levitation train. The train, which has the capability to travel at 450km/h, has been non-operational since the crash, but services are scheduled to begin again this month.

After visiting the memorial, we traveled to the German town of Papenburg, where the largest cruise ships in the world are built. We saw the massive floating hangar where the ships are kept and saw maintenance being done on an older vessel. In the town center, we visited a 17th century cathedral and had an excellent German lager-- Diebels. I would also like to take this opportunity to recommend a phenomenal dark beer with caramel overtones-- the Belgian "La Trappe" double dark beer. Annemarie suggested it to me, saying it was one of Harm's favourites.

Back in Holland, we stopped by for an amazing meal at the Shu Fu State, a wokkery where guests can create their own meals using a buffet of raw ingredients and sauces. We ate too much, but loved every mouthful.

Our next stop was the house of Jaap-Jan and Christianna Frans, the newlyweds recently returned from their honeymoon in Italy. We saw their wedding pictures and had coffee with them. Christianna is a special education expert who diagnoses and treats children with learning and behavioural difficulties (which conveniently fits with the theme of this post), and Jaap-Jan is a web designer who educates companies on optimizing their web content.

On Friday, I bought a little pot in Middelstum. Actually, it turned out to be far too big for the spot where it was supposed to go on Annemarie's windowsill. It was meant to replace the one that had crashed to the ground when I clumsily opened the window while Annemarie was at work. Annemarie liked it all the same, and so I was off the hook.

Kyle and I also biked to Warffum, where we visited a museum-town representing life in Northern Holland circa 1900. We then visited the home/museum of Henk Helmantel in Westeremden. Henk Helmantel is an amazing painter (I took a no-flash picture of one of his most famous works), but his unassuming appearance meant that we mistook him for the museum gardener and so we missed out on an opportunity to talk with him about his work.

On Friday evening, Annemarie's brother Koos picked us up from Huizinge, and we went to stay at his home in Uithuizen for a couple of days. We met his two sons, Ferdinand and Jasper, who are both heavily involved in farming. Despite the fact that we know no Dutch, and Ferdinand and Jasper know a limited amount of English, Kyle and Jasper managed to talk about tractors for well over an hour. Jasper has a collection of miniature tractors that greatly impressed Kyle.

Have you ever wondered how potatoes are grown? What kind of soil they need? What sort of processing is involved in getting them to your supermarket? We had all of these questions answered on Saturday morning. We first visited the Bennema farm, where an (apparently modest) 1.7 million kilos of potatoes are grown every year. The Bennema farm was huge. It had three barns (four, if you count the double barn twice).

Next, we visited a company called Land Juweel (Land Jewel), a potato processing facility dealing with 15-20 varieties of potatoes and producing one third of the Netherlands' supply of packaged potatoes. Here, the potatoes are washed, sorted, selected, and automatically packed into 1, 2, 5, 10, or 20 kilo packages. Each night the massive warehouse is emptied onto trucks and carted off to supermarkets all across the country. They gave us free T-shirts.

A dairy farm in Kantens was having a huge open house, complete with cow-related works of art. We toured the production facility and admired the automatic milker (which the cows can enter at will). The cows can feel when their udders are full, and they politely line up outside the milker and wait their turn.

In the afternoon, we had a wonderful family barbecue-- all of the de Jonge family came out, and we had beautiful weather, that is until the storm blew in. It rained for half an hour, and in the evening we saw a gorgeous sunset. So many of our relatives spoke perfect English, and they took the time to include us in their conversation, so we felt truly welcomed. I also understood a suprising amount of what they said in Dutch, no doubt an artifact of the time I spent with my grandparents as a child. Jaap-Jan received a call from a friend in Bosnia in the evening, congratulating him on his marriage. Of course, he had to speak German to his friend, which he said was a challenge after speaking English all afternoon. The Dutch have really inspired me with their amazing command of language. Marije, Annemarie's daughter, is studying Russian at the University of Groningen, and once she has completed her studies, she will be able to speak fluent Dutch, German, English, and Russian. It gives me confidence that I will be able to figure out French within the next four years.

And that brings us to Sunday, Zondag, church-day, where we were this morning. I sang in Dutch. I have no idea what I sang, but I sang it with my heart. We celebrated holy supper (for my non-Christian friends reading this, holy supper is a celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ). It felt remarkably like church at home, and so, spiritually nourished, we are ready for the next leg of our journey. But not before a day in Amsterdam with some crazy football fever.

-Josh

P.S. I will try to write every 3 days or so. I've had lots of internet access in Holland, but when we get to Africa it's anyone's guess. Thanks for reading everyone, and if I don't respond to your comments it's because I have limited time-- but I do read the comments and I appreciate them a lot.