The End of Week Three?

Only a week left to go? Time is flying by. Our time in Hellevoetsluis was great! Thank you to everyone for all of your hard work in planning our time there. Our farewell party Friday night again brought fun and tears. The kids at the party took it upon themselves to start teaching me Dutch. Well, at first they were just trying to get me to say long words and then were laughing at me. So I had them go back to the beginning with the alphabet. I was surprised to learn that their alphabet song is to the same tune as ours (twinkle, twinkle little star). I wonder if it's the same in every country. Anyway, they were great teachers and I'm surprised at the number of words I've learned over the past few weeks. Last week someone accidentally said something to me in Dutch and I responded without realizing the language was different. Then we both realized what had happened and started laughing. The Dutch language is a very difficult one with two sounds that Americans don't use at all. I'm able to do one but no matter how hard I try I can't seem to pronounce the other. It is the sound the ui makes in Hellevoetsluis.

Yesterday we left Hellevoetsluis and landed in Rijnwoude, a small town near Leiden. Thankfully, the coordinators of the club we are visiting expected us to be exhausted and planned an easy schedule for yesterday and today. I slept ten hours last night! It was definitely needed. Today we went antique shopping in the Hague and I found a cute little coffee/tea set. We then had dinner at Hans and Jane's house. Hans was an excellent cook and we had a great time. Our schedule for the week looks great. Tomorrow I'm starting the day with a biking tour of the area and then I'm off to the High School in Leiden. The weather is back to cold again :(

Deja-Vu Hellevoetsluis

It's typical dutch. These poffertjes are like miniture fritters. They are the same as the ones I used to eat growing up in Jamaica, sans the powdered sugar. They gave me the same belly-ache too, because you cannot just have one. Delightfully painful though :-)

Containers and More Containers

This morning we took a boat tour of Rotterdam. Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe and was the largest port in the world until 2004 when Shanghai outgrew it. The amount of goods that comes through here is unbelievable...more than 300 million metric tons. The ships ( about 30,000 a year) and barges (about 110,000 a year) are massive.

April Fools

Breille was the first Dutch city to be liberated from the Spanish after the 80 year war. This happened on April 1, 1572, and will be forever known as the day the dutch made a fool of the Spanish general. Hence April 1st is known as April Fool's Day.

Crude

Our team visited the Maasvlakte Olie Terminal with Monika and Hans. This is one of the world's largest crude oil storage and redistribution facilities. The share holders in the facility include some of the major oil companies, like Exxon Mobile and Shell, and they have their own pipelines leading away fron the tanks for easy retrieval. A storage tank (seen in picture) can store 120,000 cubic meters of oil, which is enough to fuel 90,000 cars for 1 year (I wonder if that meant smart cars or SUVs :) There are 36 tanks located here, you do the math, that is a lot of crude. Clement Saaltink, the Safety and Environment Supervisor, gave us a wonderful tour, we actually were inside one of the tanks, and then admired the views from the top of another. Some of us (I will not name names :-) faced our fear of heights, so kudos to you both.

Also, many thanks to drs. Harry van der Meijden (Wassenaar RC), Headquarter Director of Royal Dutch Shell, for the insightful history and tour of the Shell headquarters in the Hague. We had a great time and we felt your enthusiasm and dedication to your work and your company.

Tomatoes in Glasshouses

Today we visited a tomato Greenhouse, which they refer to as Glasshouse. There are glasshouses all throughout the Netherlands but there is a high concentration of them in this area. It is quite a complicated and interesting operation. I had no idea what all goes into getting produce into our grocery stores (kinda the feeling I had a flora holland about the process of flowers). The seeds are not put into soil, but into a kind of installation. The installation has water and nutrients put into it. The tomato vines are hooked to wires and grow up to about 10 meters high. Someone has to continuously watch over the plants. They wrap the new vine around the wire, they cut leaves from the vine, they make sure they are not damaged, someone checks the ripeness, etc. All of this is done by hand by about 40 people. There are also bees which help with pollination. This is just the growing part of it all. Then it has to all be weighed, measured, wrapped, and delivered. They sure make some great, juicy tomatoes!

I learned that almost all vegetables should not be put in the refrigerator. They should be kept at room temperature. This actually keeps the taste fresher.

It's Typical Dutch I

Today, I received my first lesson on eating herring from Monika. It went down rather well might I add :-)

The GGD (Intermunicipal Health Department)

Thanks to Jorriena de Jongh for arranging this visit to the Gemeenschapplelijke Gezondheidsdienst Zuidhollandse Eilanden (GGD), the intermunicipal health department serving 15 municipalities. Jorriena was my hostess while in Hellevoetsluis and is an alderwoman for this town. Her primary focus is health care, youth and culture, among other very important ssues.

I was keen to learn about current programs in overweight and obesity prevention. One such project was a primary school based anti-overweight/obesity program called Maatje te Veel (A size too much). This program engaged not only the students, but also the parents, teachers and the community. The program focused on nutrition education and making healthier choices. So far the program seems to be well received by the participants. Hopefully it can be expanded to other school in the future. (Picture: Deborah Cook and Jorriena de Jongh sitting in the lobby of the GGD)

Dry Docks

Hellevoetsluis has a beautiful marina that reminds me of Annapolis, Maryland. In this marina, there is a dry dock which was built in 1801 and is still in use. The pictures show this dry dock, as well as a modern dry dock in the Port of Rotterdam. Of course there are differences in how these two docks operate, but nevertheless, the difference in scale is astonishing.

The Delta Project

The Delta Project was developed due to the great flood of 1953 claimed 1,835 lives and 200,000 livestock. Upwards of 47,000 buildings were destroyed and 72,000 people had to evacuate their homes. This was an enormous undertaking by The Netherlands to secure the country against flooding with a series of dams and dyke reinforcement. These large barrier systems are quite impressive in their construction and just their sheer magnitude. The Dutch have lent their knowledge and expertise to the United States to try and solve its water management problems in Louisiana. Let us hope this collaboration will produce a system that is as successful as what we have seen here in The Netherlands.