Fantastic new year

Hi everyone, happy new year!! I hope it will be great...

For the past two weeks I've been enjoying the holidays and spending a lot of time at my parents' place. Reading some books, cleaning my room, playing some guitar and watch a movie. No soccer, no studying, no C.S.R. I visited Amsterdam twice, but I didn't really had time to take decent pictures of Amsterdam itself. That's really too bad, because now I'll have to go back at least once more ;) But I did take pictures of some Dutch art.

And I've been working a couple of days this last week, also Sunday night. I was supposed to be on a partyboat at 10 pm to start working, but they gave my the wrong address (in Amsterdam)... So I ended up walking for three hours, searching for 'my' boat in the different harbours, mostly in the rain. Finally, a bit before midnight, I was able to leave an very lonely industrial part of the city and I even found some cops! They felt sorry for me, and drove me to the right harbour. That's why I spent the first minutes of this year in the back of a police car :) Sounds interresting doesn't it? I bet none of you can beat my cool story... Anyway, my head touched the pillow at 8.15, while it still was a kind of dark.

Hope to talk to you soon. Lotte

Alternative christmas-bike-tree

Stroll

Midnight. Wandering along the streets. Thick fog. Magical.

Capitals.

So. It finally stopped raining and stormin'. Still the fourth soccermatch in a row got cancelled today... It's pretty silly, because it really isn't too important, but I was pretty nervous this week, because we were supposed to face the nr. 1 of our competition. All for nothing : ) But I've been to Amsterdam yesterday. Too bad my roommate locked his room, now I can't show you any pictures jet. We (my projectgroup and I) had a meeting with a guy from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, located in Amsterdams' zoo. We're executing an assignment about pelicans.... Afterworths I walked around in the zoo for a while and when it got dark I walked into Amsterdam, so the pictures aren't that great. If I can, I'll go back soon. Nobody will tell you when you get out of the train, but the canals overthere have a curve shape and all together you get circles. So when the rain had made me cold enough, I decided to start following the 'central station' signs. It took me quite some time to figure out why I kept seeing the same places over and over again! Haha, but I kept walking without asking, stuburn as I am... O, and some other news; my tickets to Malawi were booked today! I hope to leave to Lilongwe on March the 9th and come back from Nairobi on July 21st. JIEGHHOEGHHOOOEEEWOEIIIIWHAplafdidapdiedap...!!! And.... because there's no Malawian ambassy here in the Netherlands and it is smart to get your visa befóre entering the country, I'll have to visit Brussel, Belgium, soon. Since we're talking about visiting capitals anyway; my family (including myself) will visit Paris in January for four days, because my parents will be celebrating their 25th anniversery on the 22nd. This all, makes a visit to the travelpart of the local library, necesarry.

Think about it.

- Each minute 12 children under the age of 5 die because of malnutrition (FAO, State of Food Security in the World, 2003)
- The rich fifth of the humanity consumes 86% of total consumings (UNDP, 2003)
- Nearly one billion people do not have access to save drinking water (UNDP, 2005)
- More then 1,2 billion people make less than $1 a day, this is 23% of all living people (UNDP, 2003)
- An African gets $8 subsidy of the EU, a European cow $913 (UNDP 2003)
- Ten-thirty percent of birds, mammals and amphibians face extinction (bron: UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005)
- A third of all grane produced on earth, is used to feed cattle (World Watch Institute, 2004)
- To produce one kilo of potatoes, 500 liters of water is necessary, for one kilo of beef 10.000 (Colin Tudge, So shall we reap)

Just to even get me a bit more depressed then I already was today, I bumped into these facts. I just finished an article about fair clothes; in the way there was 'fair coffee' first, 'fair bananas' next, now you're able to buy 'fair clothes' on more and more places. I got this from a christian website that thinks it is time to turn right now, so these are probably the most depressing and negative facts that they could possibly find, I'm sensible enough to realise that. But still... they're true... I couldn't help posting them, just because it aint wrong to think about these kind of things. (And maybe act a bit different).
I know that my next shopping for clothes (íf that will ever happen in the first place... ; ) will be in a fair shop, and my sister will join me.

Enough thoughts.
Last weekend we celebrated 'Sinterklaas' with the seven of us, although today is the actual day remember his death, the weekend was just much easier. Sunday everybody was busy till the end of the day, finishing a poem or surprise etc. My dad had to buy some presents for me (I got a little board game, socks, a cd and the book 'I dreamed of Africa'), and write a poem and create a surprise (he got me a can filled with maggots, referring to my dirty way of living at Uniquestock...). It was good to get together and have fun; it was too late too fast. I can't wait to start reading in my new book, it's from a lady who emigrates to Kenya (to the South you get Tanzania first and then Malawi), but I first have to finish the four other books I'm reading right now...

Have a good night, whoever you are,

Lotte

Milking time

Mmmm, we had a nice party at C.S.R. yesterday... When I rolled into bed I realised that in Canada it would have been around time to wake up for milking. Anyway, have a nice weekend!

Work

Isn't it strange to only feel good when you're working really hard? And not feel so good when you're being a lazy ass? Lately, sometimes, some days, some weeks I'm horrible. I think it is for the first time in my life that I'm having a hard time doing what I'm supposed to do. Don't get me wrong, it's only for my study and all the assignments coming along with it, I can hardly get started with some days. It's just, I know that everything will be alright, even when I'll miss the deadline. I can always finish it afterworths and it feels like I really don't care sometimes. And there's so many other things to do, read books, read about Malawi (there's way too much on the internet...), so many hours to sport, so many more chords I still can't play decent enough. So many emails to answer and send new ones, so often I have to get my desk/room organized a bit. So many friends to meet. O, and not to forget, so many hours to sleep! Basically I can be busy for a whole day, doing nothing. Sometimes I wish I could be more like a cat; they are réally doing nothing at all and they do enjoy it só much. Somehow I can only enjoy doing nothing for a short period, and only after I worked hard enough. I guess that's healthy in a way...
I don't know if I'm telling it the right way, and if you understand what I mean... It isn't as bad as it sounds, I'm getting there (slowly) without any major delays, so far.
But I turned it all around again since yesterday, I'm working hard, not sleeping enough and I'm feeling great!! I've worked till 3 am last night, after I went spinning for the first time in my life (never ever sweated thát much and my shoulders and neck are sour; sweet!), got up early, studied some more, followed a lesson and after this post I'm gonna eat, train (get só tired... : D ) and study some more. Today we had a meeting with on of our teachers about the Malawi plans and I would call him enthousiast, so that's great!! He needs to talk to some collegues first, but we'll hear the 'go' or 'no go' tomorrow. I'm gonna bet for the 'go'.
Mmm, supper is almost ready, I can smell it!

News

My roommates and I got a letter from the Duwo today, the organisation/company that we're renting our rooms from. As I might have told you, the house where I'm living right now (and all the houses in the street) will be broken down, because they're gonna build a tunnel for the trains. The date that we had to leave our little home was June 30th,.... till today! They're not able to make it, so I can keep living here till March 31st 2008.
So that canges things quite a bit. I was planning on leaving my room in March, when I'm leaving for Africa, and never move back again. The house wasn't going to be here anyway. But now I can try to rent it to somebody else for the months I'll be gone, and move back into my room after. I haven't decided what to do yet, it'll depend on what I want to do after this. Maybe I'll try to get a master in another city, than I'll have to move anyway... But, we'll see, I first have to get through this week. And with the start of the weekend, I'm gonna roll into the next stress; Sinterklaas. I still have to buy a present, write a poem and creat a surprise (can't find a dicationary, so it might be something different for English reader than I mean).

Have a great day!

P.S. Sinterklaas is comparable to Santa Claus, except for the fact the our celebration is based on a guy that really lived one day, and Coca Cola didn't make him up : )

Needles

Here you've got the pictures of last weekend, when I was in Belgium

Taken on Saturday, close too Coo, where the waterfalls are.


Upstairs, on of the freezing rooms

In theory, we were able to bring a horse along, but we couldn't find one back home. Henri (the guy on the right) and I found this huge Belgian horse along our way. The last picture is taken during our hike through the dark forests on slippery hills.

My Africa adventure really got started today. I visited a docter to get my first set of vaccinations; yellow feaver, hepatitis A & B, tyfus and DTP. My two arms ánd two legs got needled today, I need to go back in a month ánd afterworths. There's an order for fifty malaria pills as well. I even might get a needle against rabiës, but that's a really expensive one. It's exciting, it got started now...
Strange to realise that the 0,5 ml injected in my muscle will prevent me from getting sick, or keep the symptoms acceptable.

Hitchhiking and trains

It's almost 4 pm right now and so far I've only been busy with Malawi-things. My two friends and I had a meeting today at the office of the organisation Ex-change, in Hilversum. They keep contact with a christian organisation in Malawi, that will help us once we're there. Most time today was lost by traveling by train; we were at the office for an hour. We discussed about the assignment(s), financial aspects and we listened to the stories about Africa and Malawi. As far as I know right now we (Veerle, Leonie and I) will create an inventory of the current agricultural situation in Malawi. It'll contain a lot of traveling in the area surounding the capital, but also one or more weeks to the North and one or more to the South. That's an unexpected way to see a lot of the country! And Malawi has a length somewhere around 1000 km....
By the way, I went to Belgium last weekend with my bible study group, from the student association. We got to know eachother a lot better and we had a lot of fun! Five people went by car and four went hitchhiking. Henri and I went hitchhiking and started early afternoon with the sun shining down at us. It took a lot of time to get out of the busiest part of the Netherlands (de Randstad), but we arrived at 11 pm in Stavelot/Somagne after six lifts. And, against all odds, we found two guys that rented a house very close to ours, so they dropped us of at the door. The one we rented was one out of four, and that was the whole village! It was in the French speaking part of Belgium, in the Ardennes, with a hilly landscape filled with bush, agriculture and nice villages. We visited the highest natural waterfall in Belgium on Saturday (nine people in one poor car), we walked for some hours, played games, kept the fire burning (it was pretty cold and the very old house was isolated badly/not, and fire = fun), visited a Roman Catholic, French church on Sunday and played more games (it rained all day). Henri and I got sick of being inside and left for a too long walk, we didn't want to turn around, so we left the path and hiked through fields and bush till we found another trail. But it got dark and we ended up walking through a very dark night, without lights on the most slippery trails/bush you've ever seen! We lost the trail again in the dark, so we had to trust our feelings and went up hil straight through the bush. All of the sudden we heard a big 'snap', but the animal (or something like it, we weren't able to see a thing) didn't run away... After some seconds, we decided to go left, in case it was one of those wild pigs...
We went to bed pretty early on Sunday, to be able to start hitchhiking on Monday while everybody was driving to work etc. We were in Maastricht (the Netherlands) a bit after 11 am in three lifts, from where we were able to use the warm train for free, because we're students. Pictures will be there soon, now I'm first gonna do some studying, bible study tonight and more studying at night afterworths; I have to study sómetimes...

Mess

Sorry, I messed something up a bit. The storie about my vacation to Texel can be found in post 'Texel 1', so just scroll down.