Chinese Apples

What Is Community (and why we need to have a conversation about it) – Part 1b

2011-05-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, I really started a conversation with my last post about community, didn’t I? Thanks to everyone who stepped up to the plate and commented. I appreciate it.

I have a confession: I’m actually really bad at starting conversations. I’m much better at jumping into existing conversations and taking them in new directions. That I can do. But starting them is hard for me. People might ignore me, or think I'm weird or boring. Sometimes it just seems easier not to try.

I think community is like that, too. It’s a frightening thing to try and create some sort of social unit, by yourself, from scratch. What if no one is interested? Worse, what if everyone thinks you’re weird for trying?

I realized from a lot of the comments on my last post that a lot of people wanted a looser definition of community than the one I offered. And I think that’s fair. There is a more informal, ad-hoc kind of community that many people would like to have with their neighbors, their coworkers, the people at their church, their friends.

It’s not exactly the same kind of intentional, interdependent community that I have participated in. But it can lead to it. It’s a lot like starting a conversation. It’s the scary but necessary first step.

I'm going to call it ‘invitational community’: one person, or a few people, who are intentionally seeking opportunities for community. It’s one-sided in the sense that only the initiating party may be interested in community. The classic example which came up in the comments is getting to know your neighbors.

How do you get to know your neighbors? For some reason this seems difficult for a lot of us. I have had the ‘privilege’ of living in several apartment complexes over the years and discovered that despite the paper-thin walls and the scarce parking I almost never knew who my neighbors were. If I did have interactions with them, they were almost always negative ones which involved calling the cops or passive aggressive letters slipped under the door. Why is this? Has modern society really conditioned me to be neurotically anti-social, petrified of humans outside of my peer group?

I don't think we have to be quite so hard on modern society (or me for that matter!). The answer is more straightforward: there’s simply no organic way for me to interact routinely with my neighbors in an apartment complex. Even if I absolutely determine that I'm going to knock on doors and say ‘hi’ to people, this is likely to result in one or two awkward and strained conversations before lapsing into the occasional wave across the parking lot.

This is an important point about creating community: good intentions won’t get you very far.

After moving to my current neighborhood just three months ago I know my neighbors on both sides of my house and I didn’t even have to try very hard. The reason is simple: my house has a porch. In fact most of the houses around here have porches. And on a warm spring afternoon the thing to do between 6 and 8 PM is to sit out on your porch and enjoy the weather. So you’re out on your porch, your neighbor is out on theirs enjoying a beer, and you get to talking.

I’m lucky enough to live in a place that has space for organic interactions with my neighbors. If you’re not, you are going to have to create these opportunities yourself. And you might have to get a little creative. You might want to try getting a dog and walking it. Or… a cat.

Michelle has a cat, which she takes for walks. I dearly would love to see video footage of this process, but regardless, I think this is an absolutely brilliant approach to 'invitational community', aka getting to know your neighbors. It’s a surefire conversation starter. We can easily imagine a wide range of responses that Michelle might get when she leashes up Princess and takes her for a stroll:

"Is that a…. cat?"

"Wow, does it like being walked?"

"Did you train it?"

"You’re the girl who walks her cat! My husband has told me about you! So nice to meet you!"

If Michelle is persistent and lucky, she might find someone like that last person who is also interested in 'having a conversation'. Her invitation is accepted, the conversation is started. And suddenly her ‘invitational community’ becomes… something else.

But what exactly? Where do Michelle and her neighbor take it from here? They might choose, as most people do, to keep each other at a comfortable arm’s length. Or they might take the more daring step of opening their lives up to each other.

There’s a deeper level of community beyond invitational community. It starts with that, but it doesn’t have to end with that. It can end with a group of people who know each other very well, who are involved in each others lives, who care for each other and who help each other in need.

The kind of community I was talking about in my first post is exactly this kind of community. It’s a group of people who have committed to intentionally creating something together: interacting on a regular basis, sharing things, becoming more dependent on each other. Maybe even living together.

As crazy and radical and frightening as this sounds, I really do believe that this is something that a lot of people need, even if they don’t know they need it. Why else do we want to get to know our neighbors better? Is it just so that we can have them over for dinner every couple of months?

Or is it because we want to belong, want to have people who know us and care about us and are involved in our lives?

What's your reason for wanting to get to know your neighbors? Once you've started a conversation, what's the next step?

Why We Need Community (and why I have to write about it) - Part 1

2011-04-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

I’ve meant to write down some of my thoughts about Community – what it is, and why I think we need it – for a long time. But something has always held me back. And I think that that something is fear: fear that I don’t know what I’m talking about. After all, I only spent nine months living in an ecumenical community in Amsterdam. Many of the people I lived with had spent years there and even been born there. What do I really know about it? Any way you slice it, I’m a rank beginner.

But. I have in fact begun. When I signed on to be a volunteer in a half-way house three years ago, I was like most twenty-first century adults: I had no idea what community was, and more importantly, no idea that I desperately needed it. And I imagine that most of the people reading this now will be in the same place I was then. So maybe it’s worth sharing what little I know.

Even though I’ve been back in the US for two years, I find myself still thinking about community living constantly. One reason is simply that I miss it. But another is that now that I know what it is, I see the lack of it everywhere; it’s a yawning void in the hearts of my generation, an unmet need that we don’t even know we have.

Throughout history most humans have lived in an intimate proximity to each other: in large, multi-generational families under one roof; in tiny villages where everyone knows everyone; in tribal groups setting up tents together in the wilderness. Not so anymore. Now we consider people living in communities to be eccentric at best, freaks at worst.

Which is too bad, because I think that people were really intended to live together. And the fact that we no longer do is what makes us feel lonely and disconnected in the modern world.

So I am going to write something about community living here not because I’m an expert on the subject, but because I have experienced it and most people have not. And because it’s something that so many people are missing. Even if, like me a few years back, they don’t even realize it.

What is ‘community’?
‘Community’ is actually a word we throw around pretty casually. When someone says “my community,” they might mean anything from the neighborhood where they live to the Greater Jacksonville Metropolitan Area, a region of around 100 square miles with over a million people living in it. Honestly, I feel that this might be stretching the definition of ‘community’ just a little. For starters, I think in a community you should at least know everyone’s name. Sorry, Greater Jacksonville Area. I don’t know most of your million souls personally, so you don’t get to count as part of my community.

I’m going to dial it back a little. When I say ‘community’ throughout the rest of this post, I’m going to be referring to something very specific: a group of people living in the same space and sharing time and resources among themselves. My community has to be mutually interdependent on each other so that they stay involved in each others lives. And despite great strides in telecommunications technology, we haven’t eradicated the need for physical proximity to really keep in touch with people. So my community needs to live, if not in the same house, at least on the same street.

Mind you, they don’t have to live in a compound in the middle of a desert. For some reason the communities that get all the press anymore are the weird ones where the members wear funny clothes, grow their own food and share wives and children. Are those communities? Sure, and Libya’s a vacation destination. But you don’t see many people buying tickets.

If you want a picture of what an ordinary community looks like, it’s best to start by thinking of a large family. In fact families are communities, the one form of community that most of us are still familiar with. ‘Community’ is just a broader definition of family that doesn’t require all the members to be related. But just like your family it’s chaotic, loud, somewhat dysfunctional but somehow completely indispensable.

Once, community living made a lot of sense: it allowed large groups of people to pool their resources to acquire food, raise children, and defend their families against enemies. Technology has freed most of us from having to worry about these kinds of survival needs on a day-to-day basis. It has opened up a lot of choices to us that ordinary people didn’t have throughout most of history. And that’s a good thing. But unfortunately, when given these choices people seem to consistently choose to go it alone and not to participate in any community. And I think we have lost something very valuable in the process.

We’ve lost a sense of belonging, of having our own place in the world. We’ve missed out on being surrounded by people who care about what is going on in our lives. We’ve passed up the chance to learn from our elders and share in the growth of young people by rubbing shoulders with them daily.

Instead we’ve compartmentalized and sanitized our lives, refusing any relationship that is not on our terms. We have peers – friends who are into the same kind of things we are into – and we have significant others – expected to all by themselves fill our need for human connection – and everyone else we pretty much keep at arm’s length, except for obligatory holidays spent with family.

In a sense it’s hard to blame people – relationships are messy. Even the ones we choose inevitably seem to go south and cause us a lot of heartache. Everyone has had that roommate or that friend of a friend they just didn’t click with. Who would willingly choose the endless drama that would doubtless result from living in a community, the equivalent of having dozens of roommates?
These fears aren’t entirely unjustified. Get a group of people together, force them into close, daily contact and sooner or later those little annoyances and frustrations will bubble up into arguments over the most insignificant of things.

And yet, with the right community, the right perspective and a little patience most of these problems can be overcome. And then through it all you might discover as I did that there’s something incredibly rewarding about sharing your life with others.

Part 1 of 3. Part 2 coming soon. If you're interested in reading specifics about my time in Amsterdam, check out the blog I kept while I was there called Chinese Apples. My friend Brenda also writes about community living on her blog So This Fits How?

Community Life

2009-07-09T15:29:00.000-07:00

I have finally returned to Florida, the Sunshine State, which is ironically in the middle of one of the wettest summers on record. But I still have a backlog of posts about life in Amsterdam to get up. So for the time being this blog will continue. Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading!

I thought that people might appreciate a pictorial glimpse into the day-to-day life of the OZ 100 Community in Amsterdam, and it's surrounding environs. I can provide that! My last few weeks in the city I made a concerted effort to photograph some of the ordinary, every day bits that you normally take for granted, living there. Now that I have returned home and had a chance to go through my pictures, I realize there are some huge gaps in the pictorial record. But we'll just have to do the best we can with what we have.

(For more, check out this post for pictures of the canals, markets and more street pics, and this post for some shots of our chapel)

The open window was my room. I had a small room which didn't lend itself well to be photographed and was in a state of perpetual chaos, so there are no extant pictures of the inside. Actually, though, it was one of the best rooms in the Father House. It was certainly large enough for my needs, it had its own sink, and most importantly, as you can see here, it faced the inner courtyard and not busy and loud Oudzeijds Achterburgwal, where the drunken football fans never sleep.

We continue our tour down the spiral stair and into the courtyard. These metal steps are a source of fascination for one particular Oudezijds toddler and thus a source of endless terror for his mother. 'Bove' (bohv-uh) is the Dutch word for 'upstairs' and not coincidentally one of the first two syllable words this small explorer mastered.

You can tell it's summer because someone has stashed their canoes in the courtyard. If we could tilt the camera slightly downward we would also see a profusion of tables, chairs and benches, perfect for barbecues on warm summer evenings.

Down a flight of steps from the courtyard lies this long corridor. It serves a number of purposes: wood storage, access to the workshop and bike shop, tool depository, entrance to the KruisPost Medical Clinic, and...

...as the all important fietsenstalling. Basically, a garage for bicycles, which one can roll out the door, up the ramp, and onto Oudezijds Voorbergwal.

Out on Voorburgwal we find the front entrance to the KruisPost.

The KruisPost serves a heady mix of tourists, uninsured immigrants and homeless people. I occasionally worked in reception there and it was always an interesting experience. Our visitor book, which lists nationalities of the patients, reads like a roll call at the United Nations. I actually learned the existence of a couple of nations I had previously had no idea of while working there.

The kauit, or common room, is another room that is difficult to photograph. It has a low roof and quickly becomes crowded when there are people in it, which they usually are. For all that it is the place that visitors first enter, many of them people off the street looking for the coffee and tea we serve mornings and afternoons (and maybe a warm place to sit as well!).

Scott and Katy came to visit me in March. Here I ply Katy with some hot tea.

This is a slightly historic picture. It may be one of the last photographs of the old chairs in the Kayuit! They had a lot of personality, by which I mean they were very uncomfortable. The new orange ones are a great improvement, plus they are from Ikea (naturally!).

Before we head out on the street, I had to share this with you: a rather informal attempt at drying some extra laundry on a sunny day! This was not, I should note, my laundry.

This street runs perpendicular to Oudezijds Achterburgwal and Voorburgwal (literally, 'first wall' and 'second wall', the two main thoroughfares of the Red Light District). It runs straight down to the Dam Square. As you can see here, the Dam is often host to a small fair, complete with rides.

Almost home! This rather seedy looking corner is how I knew where to turn for my house in the middle of the RLD.

It's not just a pretty name: the street does feature plenty of red (and pink) neon. But if you want to see it at its best, you really have to see it at night.

The lights are on, the crowds are noisy and the girls, of course, are in their windows. It's a crazy scene, like something out of a fevered dream.

The storefront with the red awnings is actually a prime window location for several girls. But what do tourists stare at? The swans in the canals, mostly. Maybe they just don't know what else to look at.

And to be fair, the swans are beautiful.

Next post: What's so great about living in a community anyway?

Be Prepared

2009-06-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

Know Your Amsterdam Weather

Having now experienced Amsterdam in all four seasons I thought I would catalog some of the weather types that a visitor to this city might expect to encounter:

Rainy
Damp
Wettish
Soggy
Thinking about raining
Will probably rain later
Looks nasty enough to rain, but no actual precipitation
Cold
Cold and windy
Colder than it should be, it's May dammit!
Snow falling but not sticking to the ground
Hailing
Snowing/Hailing
Hailing/Raining
Snowing/Raining
Snowing/Hailing/Raining
I'm just going to stay inside and open a bottle of wine
Cloudy...ish
Sunny, sort of
Not sure
Ambiguous
TBD
Decent biking weather
A bit chilly/damp, but still bikeable
Misery on wheels
I'll take the tram today
Raining tourists

Ah hah! I kid Amsterdam. We've actually had a few strings of quite nice days recently. But the weather around here? She is fickle!

The Red Light District

2009-05-04T05:39:00.001-07:00

A woman with bleached-blond hair just road down the street on her bike singing at the top of her lungs.

Saturday morning there was a guy standing in the bridge over the canal in only his underwear, holding up a cardboard picture frame that had 'object' written on it.

Things are never dull in my neighborhood, I tell ya.

Orange and Black

2009-04-30T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Queen's Day in The Netherlands, a major national holiday. I will have a full post with pictures up later, but as lovely as the day was in Amsterdam tragedy struck elsewhere. The Royal Family was in a parade in Apeldoorn when a rogue motorist ploughed into the crowd. Apparently he was trying to hit the royal bus. He failed at this, but several people have died and many more were injured.

It seems very strange that anyone would want to attack the Dutch royal family, but these are the times we live in. Please pray for the families of those affected by this tragedy on what should have been a day of celebration.

The Other Way To Learn A Language

2009-04-27T03:07:00.000-07:00

The accepted way to learn a language, and the method that I am diligently pursuing, is to pour over books, listen to audio, ask a teacher questions and take notes in class. This is one way to learn, for instance, Dutch. It is not the only way.

The other way? It appears to be simply playing computer games with a friend.

We have a new boy in the community, Brogan. He is Prossi's oldest son, but he has lived in Africa until now. He speaks English, but not a word of Dutch. I think he has been a bit lonely here because the children here speak only Dutch for the most part, so it is difficult to play with them.

But I have good news for him: he'll learn, and probably much faster than I can.

As I write this he is playing computer games with Norai. Norai speaks no English. Brogan speaks no Dutch. But these boys are nonetheless communicating with each other: arguing over which game to play, taking turns at the keyboard, and encouraging each other to try new techniques. I'll wager that within the day Brogan will know the meaning of 'jij bent'* without ever having cracked a textbook.

* Essentially, 'your turn'.

At The Park

2009-04-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

I stole an hour during lunch and explored the Oosterpark today. Lucky you, I took a camera!

Like most parks in A'dam, this one is very bike friendly. Typically you ride around until you find a likely spot, then chain your bike up behind the nearest park bench.

No, not litter. This is my lunch! $3 Subway Club, special of the day. With spicy sauce! Eat fresh, baby.

I put my back against a tree and enjoyed the view while I ate my sammich. Plenty of ducks were sailing by.

Along with the occasional dog.

Have you ever seen such blue skies?

I was far from the only person enjoying the perfect weather.

Some people might ask, "Why make a statue of a boy riding a goat?" Here in The Netherlands we ask, "Why NOT make a statue of a boy riding a goat?"

It's about 18 degrees Celsius today. In Florida, that means it's time to roll up your long sleeves.

In Amsterdam, that means it's time to put on shorts and a t-shirt and catch some rays.

In fact there were many folks decked out in swimwear.

The fences keep the city out.

Hope you enjoyed this trip to the park almost as much as I did!

In posts to come - visits from friends and some more exploration of the city.

Not the Cheese, But the City

2009-04-17T02:00:00.001-07:00

In March, I took a trip to Germany.

Germany is not far - it's less than two hours to the border by train (you must remember that The Netherlands is only about twice the size of the state of New Jersey). You roll across flat, green farmland bisected by muddy ditches. The occasional trees cluster around the occasional farmhouse. Everything is compact, including the tiny, shaggy ponies which one occasionally sees grazing.

Slowly, the landscape changes. The land rises, and it's not all in use. The houses get a bit larger and more assertive. Trees range freely over the hillsides. Now we're in Deutschland.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The way to travel cheaply in Europe if you're a poor student or a poorer volunteer, is to have friends in places you want to visit. I have a friend named Shu Yi who teaches at a university in Muenster. Her flat was unused while she was away in America for a few weeks. I have another friend, Deasy. She speaks fluent German, and wanted to visit Muenster. So Deasy and I planned a trip there to visit our friend who would not actually be in attendance.

We had to change trains twice, but we made it to Muenster in good time. The light was failing, but there was still plenty of time to walk around the city.

Muenster is a small city, as cities go. Small, but centered around a huge church, with a second, nearly-as-amazing one close by. I've noticed there seems to be some sort of inverse proportion law at work in Europe between city and cathedral size.

The inner ring of the city is quite old and reflects what it must have looked like in medieval times. That's it pictured above, at night. Below is the same street leading up to the smaller but more modern of the two cathedrals.

When we ventured inside this church we had an amusing encounter that would prove typical of our interactions in Muenster. The older woman who showed us around kept attempting to speak to me in German, even though I don't speak a word. Meanwhile Deasy, who is fluent (but, admittedly, looks Indonesian - because she is) was generally left out.

Doesn't she look German to you?!?

Anyway, Deasy's knowledge of all things Germanic included knowing the whereabouts of a lovely 'gasthuis', a really old-world style restaurant. It was such an amazing old place that you'd expect it to be swarmed by tourists and run by the state preservation agency. But no, it was just a typical German restaurant with antlers on the walls.

I apologize for being in all these photos, but Deasy was hogging the camera.

The other thing to see in Muenster, besides the churches, is the Rathuis.

Despite it's unfortunate pronunciation, this is actually German for 'town hall'. And this town hall happened to hold special significance - the Treaty of Westfalia was negotiated there. This treaty, among other things, made The Netherlands an independent nation!

Deasy and I make some noise in the Hall of Peace. The hall is lined with portraits of the original delegates and their represented lords.

On our second day in the city we finally ventured into the Dom, the huge cathedral in the center of town. This is a building that is actually too big to be captured fully on camera, by a tourist, standing on the ground. It is truly massive, though, and really old.

It was a gray, chilly day, so there weren't many tourists. Lucky for us. The interior of the Dom holds a secret, which we got to explore all by ourselves: a beautiful, quiet graveyard in a courtyard at the center.

I like the way German's think about food. They are pro-meat, which is a stance I can get behind. And they eat jelly donuts for breakfast. Everything is cheap to boot!

Also? This is a small beer in Germany:

Everyone we saw in Muenster was either old or young. Must be because it's a college town. How would you like your university to look like this?

With such a perfect backdrop, Deasy and I couldn't resist hamming it up a bit.

Finally, some more scenes from the streets of Muenster (which doesn't lack for churches - I guess Muenster actually means 'church'?):

This last is me heading for the exit, or possibly the underground WC. Cheers!

Pasen

2009-04-13T13:29:00.000-07:00

Easter weekend - a busy time here in the community. Every other year the community celebrates Easter (Pasen, in Dutch) internally. The off years people do things with their own churches.

Preparations really began way back in late February, at the beginning of Lent. As a community we observed Lent by not eating meat together six days of the week. We also skipped desert and ate in silence (well, at least an Oudezijds Silence, which is like a normal silence but with more crying children), although classical music was played during the meal. On Sundays we had normal, meat-intensive dinners with talking.

Last week, Pasen started in earnest. To the normal morning and evening prayers we added a midday prayer and I guess what you would refer to as ~~vespers~~ compline. There were also other special services.

Thursday was Passover, and that was a big event. The entire community came together for a huge meal/service that included scripture readings and foot washing. The prohibition on meat was lifted for that meal, and I have to say that the food was surprisingly delicious! Even though the meal contained all the traditional passover ingredients, like matza.

Friday was of course Good Friday. Among other events and special prayers, an art teacher visited us and helped people draw the stations of the cross. I didn't participate, but the resulting art (charcoal sketches arranged on the chapel floor) looked cool.

Oh, did I mention that I was on Weekend Team? Usually this duty is a two-and-a-half day affair, but this time it went from Thursday night to Monday night! Fortunately we had six people to cover things, so it wasn't too crazy.

Saturday night something very special began - an all night prayer vigil, "Paaswake". From 8 PM to 8 AM there were hourly readings. The chapel was kept darkened except for a light on the spot that was designated our 'tomb' - a gate against the wall, adorned with flowers. I didn't go for the whole night, since I had duties that required being awake the following day, but I did get up early Sunday morning so I could sit for a couple of hours.

At 8:30 the wake ended and the Easter Service began. The chapel was (quickly) converted from a place of dark solitude to a place of light, filled with candles and draped in white. Once we had stuffed the entire community in there it seemed like a real fire hazard, but fortunately nothing inappropriate caught fire. The service was long and elaborate, but very nice, with a lot of singing and liturgy. I liked the way that it followed on from the wake, with a general theme of light into darkness. At the end, we all trouped out onto the main street of the red light district and sang a hymn. There weren't many souls stirring out there at that hour, but for those that were I bet that that's something they don't hear everyday.

And then, it was time to celebrate. Breakfast was a huge buffet, with enough that everyone could stuff themselves on whatever they wanted. Eggs, pannekoeken, bacon, you name it. There were chocolates and confections and half a dozen children under foot. It was glorious. Brenda commented, "I love Easter!" And I know what she meant. It really felt like we'd done something, that we'd been on a journey and arrived. That's a feeling you don't get if you just celebrate Easter Sunday by dressing up and going to church that morning.

Sunday evening was a very big dinner which was amazing and which I blame for my subsequent convalescence today.

Oh by the way, Monday is a national holiday here. Yep, everyone gets the day after Easter off. It was very nice weather and I'm sure everyone who wasn't feeling bloated to twice their normal size enjoyed it. Ah well!

Anyway, that was Easter in the community. Some semblance of normalcy now returns. It's really truly spring here now, too, so I anticipate that the next few weeks should be pleasant.

Rites of Spring, Part II

2009-04-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

A short follow-up to yesterday's birthday post. I just was really surprised and touched that so many people around the community knew it was my birthday. I was quite ready to let it sail under the radar, but I can see that that is not an option around here!

I had no 'plans' for festivities. Quite the opposite, actually, I had several real life things to get done. But at Annalijn's prompting I decided that seeing a movie after dinner wouldn't interfere with anything. Besides there's a cool little theater along the Haarlemdijk that I'd seen Benjamin Button at and which I wanted to return to. It's called The Movies and it is one of the oldest movie theaters still operating (Have I written about it before? I can't remember). It's quite small, with only six screens that aren't much bigger than what you can do with a projector at home. But it's cozy and the atmosphere is great.

Anyway I hadn't seen Slumdog Millionaire yet, nor had Annalijn, Matthias, Rose-Anne or Elizabeth. Now, these are all Dutch people, more or less. They've all spent way more time in Amsterdam than I have, at any rate. But none of them knew where The Movies was! So I had great fun leading them through the streets of the Jordaan on bikes (Rose-Anne perched precariously on the back of Matthias' cycle since she didn't have her own) and teasting them about the fact that an American was giving them directions.

I promised them I'd blog it too, so here it is.

The movie was decent (I wasn't floored or anything but I was pleased that I could parse out most of the subtitled parts - which were in Dutch, natuurlijk). On the way back I got french fries from "Chipsy King". It was a nice way to wrap up a fine spring day.

Rites of Spring

2009-04-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday.

It started slow, because I slept in. A motion to get up and go down to breakfast did not pass parliament, and it was tabled until after Chapel. Eventually I did escape from under the covers, took a shower, and got dressed.

While I was dressing I heard a great deal of movement in the corridor outside my room. These kinds of noises usually precede chapel or a meal as everyone rushes down at once, but I was baffled because it wasn't chapel and it wasn't mealtime. I opened the door to see what was going on, and found myself being serenaded with "Lang zal hij leven" by about half the community!

If you've never heard the Dutch birthday song, this should give you a pretty good idea of it.

Other fun things: Malte dropped by from The Mission House, bringing me a nice gift signed by everyone there, and a birthday card from my mother arrived - exactly on time!

Meanwhile, spring (or 'lente') has officially come to The Netherlands. It's been deliciously warm, with at least one shirt-sleeved day and many more that require not even a light jacket. Buds appeared on the trees along the canals on Friday and they are well on their way to a leafy canopy by now. Occasionally you even find tulips in unexpected places.

This week is the most important one in spring for the OZ100 Community: Easter Week. Every other year the community celebrates Easter in a big way (the off years people celebrate with their own churches). This week will have multiple chapel services every day, a number of special meals and events and an all night prayer service on Saturday. And I'm on Weekend Team duty for it, so things will be busy for me personally. It should be pretty interesting though!

I have been amazingly busy this past month, which explains the dearth of posting. My intent is to try and make it up to you guys in my spare time this week. I have pictures galore! I just need to get them uploaded.

I hope this post finds you surrounded by caring people of your own!

The Back of a Bike

2009-02-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

I think that slowly, insensibly, Amsterdam is attempting to turn me Dutch.

A good Amsterdammer, you know, does everything whilst pedaling away atop their fiets: carrying the grocery shopping, talking on their mobile, TEXTING on their mobile, moving furniture to a new house...

Meanwhile, I find myself doing more and more ridiculous things on the back of MY bike. First, you know, I found myself riding one handed through the city every Friday evening carrying a big bag of bread. When I was sufficiently acclimated to that, the bakery gave me TWO bags of bread. I don't have three hands, but somehow I managed.

Then came Saturday. Let me tell you about Saturday!

We had a rare day of sunshine. So it was agreed that some of us would ride up to Amsterdam Noord. 'Noord' is basically the part of Amsterdam that is north of the River Ij (pronounced 'eye'), which runs E-W through the center of the city. It's newer and a bit less developed. I had never been.

You take a ferry to get across the river. In typical Dutch fashion, it's packed with bikes.

Dad?!?

Yours truly.

Across the Ij.

Anya being chill.

From left to right: Anne, Carlo, Larissa.

Russians are cool.

Anyway, across the river it was a short but scenic ride to our destination: a second-hand furniture store. Larissa is finally getting a place of her own at #95. She's all grown up! But she needs furniture.

Furniture!

This piano was only 200 euro. But I didn't think it would fit on my bike.

I finally find a decent hamburger in Amsterdam.

So Larissa picked out a nice mattress and a big brass floor lamp. "So," I said, "how are we getting this stuff home?"

I was sorry I asked.

Carlo has the mattress, Anya the lampshade, and I've got the lamp. Larissa... lends moral support?

Keep your comments to yourself - it doubles as a weapon.

Turns out you can absolutely carry a lamp on your bike if you put your mind to it. Undeterred by a few bemused looks from passerby and/or Carlo's needling ("You should ride in front so we can follow the light.") we hauled our haul safely back to its new home at #95.

Another milestone down on my passage from American to Dutch. I shudder to think what I'll have to carry on my bike next...

Pics snapped with Anne's camera, since I am not so conscientious as to remember mine. If I'm in the picture you can assume she took it.

Good Heavens! Water From the Sky!

2009-02-13T02:38:00.000-08:00

Growing up a Florida boy, I admit that snow is a bit of an alien phenomenon to me. Sometimes it takes me a moment or two to realize when it's happening. My brain is geared to automatically chalk any precipitation up to the warm, heavy tropical rains I grew up with. So it takes me a moment or two sometimes to categorize the slower, denser, fluffier stuff coming from the sky as 'snow'.

The Amsterdam winter makes this categorization harder still.

I have heard a joke that in Amsterdam they get all four seasons in one day. In fact it's worse than that. This morning I went out in the rain, returned to find the rain frozen, which then turned to snow as I biked home. This grim meteorological behavior does not preclude the sun coming out later, either, and shining for all its worth amid blue skies. Such is winter in Amsterdam.

It does make planning outings slightly difficult.

In other news, Br. Luc and I have been working on updating the Oudezijds 100 website and he has uploaded several videos. For the most part it won't do you much good, since it's all in Dutch, but I thought I'd this news report about the children of Oudezijds 100 with you. It's a few years old, and it is of course in Dutch, but it should give you some nice visual ideas of what life is like here.

It should be pointed out that most of the children depicted are now considerably older. But there are new children now, and things are much the same.

A Hard Day's Night

2009-02-02T23:12:00.001-08:00

A question I often get when I explain that I'm working as a volunteer at Oudezijds 100 is "So what exactly do you DO there?" I can generally tell from their wry expressions that my response - "Everything!" - fails to satisfy.

But it's true! By way of example, here's what I did yesterday:

Woke up, showered, got dress.

Went down to breakfast. Helped clean up afterward.

Studied Dutch in my room.

Went to chapel.

Was supposed to work on website, but found that only one person had showed up to clean the kitchen. So instead I scoured the house for additional help, then pitched in myself.

Finally got a chance to work on website.

Ate lunch. Helped clean up afterward.

More website work. Finished early, so...

Went over to the front office and fixed someone's email as requested.

Met up with Hans, who needed a hand moving furniture to his new flat.

Spent an hour and a half hauling furniture across the RLD and up two very narrow flights of stairs.

Somewhat exhausted, took a brief nap before dinner.

Ate dinner with the community.

Left a little early to work in reception at the KruisPost.

Spent two hours filling out forms, filing things, and trying to communicate with uninsured foreigners in my broken Dutch.

Finally free at 9:30, I snuck out for a brief snack before calling it a night.

A full day's work! Fortunately, not every day is so busy. But I've singled out this one in particular because I think it gives an idea of the variety of activities I might participate in on any given day.

It seems like a good many of the things I wind up doing aren't on a schedule anywhere. They simply involve helping out where I am needed. For me this is a good thing because that's something I came here hoping to develop in myself: a greater willingness to serve other people. And most of the time I enjoy it!

In 2009 I've definitely feel as though I've started to gain some familiarity with the community, which enables me to be more useful to them. I think that this is part of the reason why I now feel so much more at home in the community as well. Community living depends on the members helping each other out.

When people first come into our community (and this certainly includes me, circa October 2008!) they need a lot of help and guidance. Even when they are doing helpful tasks they must be helped, because they don't know how to do them! It's sort of like childhood.

But hopefully we progress out of childhood and into an 'adulthood' (or at least an 'adolescence'!) where we are able to stand on our own and even give back. For me at least, this is a very satisfying state.

The Return

2009-01-31T01:41:00.001-08:00

Apologies for the extended silence around these parts. Catching up to my life and all that. But it's good, I'm here, I'm alive, I'm thriving.

I have to admit, I had some trepidation about spending Christmas in Florida. It would be warm. It would be familiar. What if I didn't want to come back?

Well, it was all those things and it was definitely a blessing to see friends and enjoy twenty degree weather and sunshine, in spite of a bout of intense bronchitis. But as I prepared to board the plane back to Amsterdam on a Friday afternoon, it occurred to me that I was really looking forward to getting back. I missed people.

Two long flights, a short train trip, and then the joy of dragging all my luggage across half a mile of brick pavement. I was exhausted when I put my finger on the bell at Oudezijds Achterburgwal 100. But Margeet opened the door and let me into the kauit (common room) and relief swept over me in a wave.

I really was home.

It's of course the dead of winter here in Amsterdam. The trees are bare, the wind is icy, and some mornings we are greeted by chunks of ice cluttering the canal. But I've been enjoying being back in the community so much. I've really felt it impressed upon me in the last month that this is where I belong right now. I have no idea what the future holds (just one of many things I need to work on in the next five months!) but I'm very certain about the present.

And that's a good thing.

I want to re-extend my invitation to people back in North America to come visit me here. It's a lovely city and you shouldn't miss it. Nor is the experience of eating a meal or two in the community to be missed! All are welcome, so come on out! I'll be here until the end of June.

Expect more posting in the coming week, probably language related. It hasn't been very nice weather for going out and playing in the city lately, so there aren't really any new pictures. Today is nice, though, and we're gonna try and make the Van Gogh museum. Lekker!

On Holiday

2008-12-22T02:29:00.000-08:00

Posting has been light around here due to the hectic holiday season and it's about to get lighter still. I'll be returning to the US for two weeks, and I don't expect I'll have much to report on Dutch culture while I'm there. I do hope to find some time to do some language practice, though. The past week or so I've felt as though I'm finally starting to get a grip on some simple conversational Dutch. Hopefully I don't lose all of my hard won progress whilst in my native country.

I guess what I'm saying is, if anyone in Florida wants to get together and spreekt Nederlands met me let me know.

In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Turnover

2008-12-18T23:10:00.000-08:00

As the year draws to a close there are a lot of changes happening in the community. Several people in the 'Opstaap' program are moving on. Some are leaving us entirely, for various reasons. Others will still be around, but are moving to more independent housing outside the main house as they continue the process of figuring out their lives. We wish them all the best.

Meanwhile, there are new people coming in. It's funny how people find us. Some of course come in through approved, official channels - they are referred to us by the government or some sort of program or shelter - but it seems that fairly often they just stumble across us. They come in through the window rather than the door, you might say.

A recent example: one night Marco and I were in the kitchen watching a movie on TV when one of the doctors from the Kruispost, the medical clinic in the basement, knocked on the door. She had in tow a patient - a mother with a young boy. While treating the mother for a fever the doctor discovered that the two of them didn't have a place to stay for the night. So she brought them around.

They stayed for a couple of nights while arrangements were made for them and then they left (the mother completely recovered, by the way). And now, a week or two later, they're back to stay for a while! So you can see the way things tend to work around here.

Also in the realm of the unplanned - the sudden turnover around here. There's no rule, as far as I know, that everybody has to be out by the end of the year. That's just the way it has worked out. Hopefully folks are moving on to bigger and better things, getting their lives back together and charting a new course for themselves. And new folks will come in through the doors and windows to replace them.

In the meantime, things are a little bit quieter around here.

On a purely meditative note: it occurred to me yesterday that living in different countries is a really good way to observe the different forms that grace can take. I've experienced faith related work in China, in Haiti, and now in Amsterdam. And it seems as though in each place they experience grace differently.

In China, the grace they need is freedom. Freedom from political oppression and millennia old traditions that have bound that people in servitude. In Haiti, the grace they need is the day-to-day necessities of survival. And here in the Red Light District, a different kind of grace again. A grace to overcome addictions and troubled pasts and all the baggage that life in the modern world can saddle us with.

In each place I've seen radically different people with radically different needs. In spite of this, I believe that the same grace covers all of them. If it looks different from place to place and person to person, that's just because we in our human limitations can only perceive a small part of it at a time.

What a great motivation to travel, though! If we stay at home in our own comfortable spaces we might never get to see all these many other faces of grace. We might think that God worked the same way, every time, for every person. And that would be a tragedy, because my experience of him is that he is so much bigger than that!

Grace is bigger than we are. It's not defined by our limited perspectives. It's wildly different from person to person and from nation to nation. And you can't truly begin to understand that without experiencing it for yourself.

Introducing

2008-12-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

I would be remiss if I didn't introduce you to a very important member of the community. A German psychology student currently residing at the house, he was a volunteer last year and lived at the Mission House and this year is very much a part of Oudezijds. He enjoys soccer, is good with children and speaks Dutch and English fluently.

None of these things is what makes him special.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the real Franz Ferdinand.

Yes, that's actually his name. Franz Ferdinand. Like the Archduke. And the band.

Yes, wittingly or unwittingly, his parents certainly set him up for success in life. Who knows what doors of opportunity will swing open to his famous name?

'Ferdinand', as he sometimes goes by when he feels like avoiding the limelight, would like it to be known that his favorite band is actually Interpol.

Seasons Greetings from The Netherlands, or A Very Politically Incorrect Christmas

2008-12-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

Well, Holland is certainly not escaping the early winter that's settling on the rest of the world. It's been hovering around zero on the Celsius for weeks now, and we've seen snow most weekends (although, alas, not enough to do anything with). But that's okay, really, because there's been plenty of holiday cheer to spread around. First there was St. Martin's Day, and now Sinterklaas! Or 'Sint' as he's generally known.

Now, before we go on we need to have a nice, mature discussion about Black Pete. Zwarte Piet is very much a part of the Sinterklaas experience here in the Netherlands. There's actually a bunch of Petes (the exact number has never been determined) and they help St. Nicholas with the messy business of distributing presents to all the deserving kinderen and bagging and carting away the bad ones (yes really!). And they have a couple weeks to do it. It really makes more sense then one fat guy on Christmas Eve, if you think about it!

Oh but of course there's the fact that Black Pete is, well, uh... black.

One story you'll hear a lot is that he got that way from climbing down chimneys. Fine, but that doesn't really explain the big red lips, the large ears often seen in illustrations, the short curly hair, or his general resemblance to a character from a minstrel show. You know what I'm saying?

Every so often I have to stop and giggle and say "This would be so Not Okay in America." Be that as it may, Pete is a generally embraced part of the festivities here, and even the African immigrants here in the community seem not to mind.

So, bearing in mind these key cultural differences, we proceed.

Sint doesn't sneak into town by the dead of night. He arrives by boat on a bright November morning and disembarks before throngs of screaming children. Then he rides a white horse to Dam Square, pictured above in celebratory expectation of this event.

The Petes have formed a live band belting out thumping pop renditions of popular Sinterklaas standbys. One thing you quickly learn about The Petes: they can do anything.

And then, the moment everyone's been waiting for: The former Bishop of Turkey, riding on a white horse!

Don't be fooled by his kindly appearance - he still packs bad kids up in sacks and hauls them off to Spain.

Another black man who can't catch a break. Sorry Darth, everyone's here to see Sint today!

I'll stop soon, really, I will.

Here in the community we get in on the fun, too. Anne and Jorine dressed up as Petes to visit the local kindergarten. Yes, Petes can be a bit feminine. Sort of a "Don't Ask Don't Tell" thing.

Jorine's got the bag. Uh oh!

Anne looking jaunty.

Dressing up as Pete is apparently good for one's ego. Everybody says hi and you get to make fun of total strangers.

It's good times, or so I'm told.

Now 5 December is Sint's official last night in town. That night all the hopeful little ones leave a shoe out (probably a wooden one in days of yore) in hopes that some helpful Pete will stuff a present or two into it. Thank God for iPods, yeah?

Here at Oudezijds 100, we have our own visit from Sint and Pete - a gift exchange. Everyone is given a name and then you go out and spend no more than €5 on a gift. For €5 it's going to be a pretty lame gift, but in a Dutch gift exchange the gift isn't really the point. It's all about how you wrap it.

The expectation is that a Dutch present, at minimum, will liberally misrepresent its actual contents. If you're lazy, you might just wrap it twice, but the creative gift giver may incorporate such things false bottoms, empty boxes and misleading shapes into their packages. A poem is then affixed, signed "Sint and Pete" (in a Dutch gift exchange the onus is on the receiver to uncover their 'benefactor'), and the deal is done.

Poor Anne received a screwdriver and a wrapped wooden box, which was fastened with dozens of wood screws, at least three cm in length, that had to be laboriously unscrewed for a half hour. I don't even know what she got.

My favorite 'surprise' though... well, I'll save that for later.

Anyway, we all gathered in the kapitaalzaal and, armed with lots of hot chocolate and pepernoten, awaited the arrival of Sint and Pete.

They came!

Ferdinand proves that grown up kids can get gifts too.

The spread.

But yeah, my favorite gift of the day? Well, it had to be this one:

Well, I don't see how whatever was in the box could be anything but a letdown after the Jesus Action Figure! Ah, well.

That's all the time we have for today kids, but if you're craving more Dutch mirth and merriment, you need to hear David Sedaris' reading his essay on Sinterklaas, entitled "Six to Eight Black Men." It's absolutely hysterical, and it's here, here and here.

Translations

2008-12-06T03:48:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post some representative selections from 100 Praatjes, the community's bi-weekly newsletter. These are rough translations done with the aid of BabelFish and then cleaned up with some Anglicized embellishments, so bear with me.

Ahem.

A stomach virus or flu has spread throughout the Father House. This just in! You're in good hands!
Veronica, Charmala and Favourleen are moving soon to #87 across the street.
Br. Luc stole a mouse from Magi the cat. He quickly put it outside.
Meta has only three boxes left to unpack in her new flat!
The Florentinus family has a new puppy, Simson.
Jorine and Anne have a secret career playing Black Petes.
Zr. Rosaliene and Br. Sjoerd are expecting a baby! The future little brother or sister of Muriel will be born in May if things go according to plan.
The engine of Eric Jan's boat was fished from the canal by the fire department, in exchange for three apple pies.
Do you want to try out the Tom-Toms? Br. Sjoerd is looking for help!

Just another couple weeks in the life of the community!

Anne dressed up as Black Pete for a trip to the local kindergarten!

Yours truly was one of the lucky ones to fall under the influence of the dread stomach virus, so I apologize for the dearth of posting around here. Plus, it's just been stinkin' busy.

Poor Meta, who was teased above so mercilessly about unpacking, is actually my own personal Angel of Dutch. She's been a professional Dutch/English translator for a long time, with a comprehensive mastery of both languages. We discovered we enjoy talking about language with each other, and she offered to give me some Dutch lessons!

I can't even describe how helpful this has been. I knew that lessons would be very much preferable to the slow, haphazard way I was picking up the language, but I didn't realize how lost in the forest I was until she appeared between the trees holding a lantern. I've also acquired some more professional learning materials through the generosity of the Mission House, and so I now feel that there's some real direction to my study.

That said, some days progress feels slow! And while I certainly no so much more than when I first arrived here, the truth is that it often seems I'm simply becoming more aware of my total ignorance about this language!

Don't get me wrong, the similarities to English are there. Old English, that is! For any given Dutch word, there seems to be about a 50% chance that you can find its analog in some Engels word that has fallen out of favor since Shakespeare's day. Some words are almost identical: op means 'up', huis means 'house', vader means 'father'. Still more are easily recognizable once you figure out the pronunciation: uit looks quite alien, but in reality it's pronounced identically to 'out', which is what it means.

But, as I said, more words still are just old. For instance, vast means fixed. Doesn't sound like English, huh? But wait. In Nederlands a 'v' sounds a lot like an 'f'. So you can pronounce it 'fast'. Have you ever heard of 'making something fast'? That's an old way of saying, yes, to fix in place. Another example I've noticed is jongen, a word for 'boy'. 'J' in Dutch gets the 'y' treatment, so this winds up sounding a lot like 'young'un', an old-fashioned word if ever there was one.

I could go on, but I'll spare you.

The trick is that Dutch grammar is just as old as its vocabulary and so it can be very Yoda-like.

To give you an idea I've played the traditional auto-translation game with a paragraph of text. I put it through Babelfish in English to Dutch, then translated the resulting Dutch to English. Here's what I got:

Last night I did the bread run. I road to the bakery on my bike and picked up a bag of the day's left over bread. Then I pedaled home across the canals with a bag of bread balanced carefully on the rear of my bike. I felt very European!

Last night did I the bread course. I gone taken to bakery on my bicycle and a pocket of day's leave concerning bread. Then pedaled I house concerning the canals with a pocket bread carefully balanced on the after part of my bicycle. I felt very European!

If one ignores the garbled word choices (Babel Fish seems to have trouble reading its own writing) you'll note that some weird things are happening with the verbs and the word order. Dutch grammar is very particular about where you put things, but at the same time it's less straightforward than English's subject-verb-whatever structure.

Sigh. Well, they do say it's easier than German*.

I'm by no means conversational in the language, although depending on the subject matter I might be able to get an idea of what's being spoken about. I've also stumbled my way through a couple halting conversations with a three-year-old girl. Specifically, I told her that I eat little girls. At least, I hope that's what I told her. She giggled.

* The Germans I've spoken to deny this.

On the Oddity of Dutch Surnames

2008-11-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

Via Mental_floss:

When Napoleon seized the Netherlands in 1810, he demanded that all Dutchmen take last names, just as the French had done decades prior. Problem was, the Dutch had lived full and happy lives with single names, so they took absurd surnames in a show of spirited defiance. These included Naaktgeboren (born naked), Spring int Veld (jump in the field), and Piest (pisses). Unfortunately for their descendants, Napoleon’s last-name trend stuck, and all of these remain perfectly normal Dutch names today.

Hahah nice! In fact, though, this is not the first time I'd heard this story. A blogger named Steve Den Beste told a similar story about his name a few years back:

A lot of people ask me about my surname. There's an interesting story behind it.

It doesn't go back very far, actually. Because there's no aristocracy in the US, people like to pretend that they're descended from the nobility in Europe. (In actual practice, for most of them if they actually had an honest crest at all, it would bear the bar sinister!)

Not me. My ancestry is Dutch (Frisian) and I come from a long line of farmers and pirates. My ancestry is strictly common, and historically the commoners in Frisia didn't have surnames. Only the nobles had surnames; the rest of us were named things like "Johann with the twisted lip" or "Blue-eyed Hans".

Until, that is, the French invaded the place and ran it during the Napoleonic wars for about 7 years. Now Napoleon was really big on taxing the provinces so he could keep the taxes back in France low. The countries he conquered all had to pony up bigtime to pay him for the privilege of having been conquered by him. So the French called everyone in the Netherlands in and required them to pick surnames, I assume so that an accurate census could be made, so that they could tax the place better.

Well! Surnames for commoners! What a stupid idea! And it's these silly French invaders making us do this. They've got all the guns, but they can't make us take it seriously, now can they?

So a bunch of the people made up facetious or otherwise strange names. What they didn't expect was that after the war, when the French were kicked back out again, that the Dutch government would keep those names for everyone.

There are a number of people living in the Netherlands whose surname is Poepjes, which translated into English means "little pieces of shit".

My paternal ancestor was also a smartass, but at least he had better taste. My surname means "The Best" in not only Dutch but also in several Scandanavian languages which are in the Germanic group.

I kind of like the idea of being descended from a smartass.

The point being that names are serious business. Even if you're Dutch.

I don't know if anyone in the community has such an inspired achternaam. I'll have to ask around.

I do know that my last name, while rather common and dull in the US, is considered to be quite posh here. In Dutch the name is rendered as Brujin and indeed that is the name of one of the families here. Indeed, they seem to have taken me to heart as a long lost cousin.

Fall

2008-11-15T05:35:00.000-08:00

Sinterklaas's arrival is nearly upon us, but we've already had a holiday with a distinctly Dutch flavor: St. Martin's Day.

Now from what I understand, St. Martin's Day is not celebrated equally in every part of the country. It's kind of a protestant thing, and so the southern parts of the Netherlands where Catholicism predominates doesn't really get into it. But it cosmopolitan Amsterdam it is definitely celebrated.

The first and most exciting part of the evening (to those of us who aren't kinderen) is pannekoeken. That's Nederlands for 'pancakes', in case you hadn't picked up on that.

Plates heaped with pancakes were brought to the table. The Dutch way to eat pancakes is to cover them in powdered sugar, jelly, or stroop (A sort of thick syrup. It's not exactly maple syrup, and it's not exactly NOT maple syrup. Either way it's yummy.). Then you roll them up and eat them with a fork.

Some pannekoeken may also have cheese or ham baked into them. Both are delicious. The whole affair is basically one big salute to culinary hedonism.

I was somewhat bemused when they served dessert.

I didn't participate in the next part of the festivities, but I did snap some pictures. The kinderen parade through the streets with lanterns and go door to door asking for candy. The kids may also dress up in costume. Yeah, it's kind of like Halloween, but who stole what from who depends on who you ask. I will note that the Wikipedia page says nothing about 'dressing up'.

In this neighborhood the kids don't actually go door to door. But OZ 100 is big enough that they make several stops at the main house alone. The adults escort them to friendly doors in the neighborhood.

The end result is candy. In case someone hadn't had enough sugar that evening!

The lanterns are mostly constructed by the kinderen with a generous portion of help from grown-ups. They buy little lights hanging from sticks that you put inside.

That was Tuesday. Today is a cold, gray day, but that didn't stop Anne and I from exercising our Museum Cards. Today we went to the Jewish Museum, which we got into for FREE NINETY-NINE. Sweet. But on the way I thought I would snap some shots of the buurt (e.g. the neighborhood).

And this is Oudezijds 100. Well, I've cut off a bit of the building on the right, but you get the idea. The windows at basement level are for the kitchen, and are a convenient way for passing tourists to stare in in surprise around dinner time.

Jorene and Eric kick back and enjoy the warm morning (which lasted, I believe, for about five minutes).

The window girls don't appreciate being photographed, but they aren't out and about until late morning. These ARE actual windows, although Anne is not an actual window girl.

Waterlooplein! Hosts a thriving market where you can get, among other things, clothes. The prices are quite reasonable, and occasionally you can even talk them down. There are also 'snack stands'. I tried yet another burger at one, but once more I get some sort of wurst between two buns. What's up with that? Well, it was better then the one on Damstraat.

And this is New Market. It's only a block over from the District, but it has much nicer cafes. In spite of being called "New Market," it's a fairly small market and sells only only flowers. That big castle thing in the background was once a weighing house for merchant goods.

A gray day in Amsterdam. It's windy. The leaves lie in drifts along the sidewalk and the trees have skeletal reflections in the canal. But it's still a beautiful city. And sometimes? The sun even comes out.

shaken not fried

2008-11-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

If anyone knows where you can get a decent burger in this town, please let me know. I can tell you that it's not the "American Cafe: Meat and Drink" off Damstraat. Total false advertising. Oh, don't get me wrong, there are beverages involved, as well as some sort of meat. It's the 'American' bit that they need to scratch from the record. I don't know what they do to those patties but it doesn't involve any New World techniques, I can assure you.

Well, the vendor just down the street still sells delicious french fries, at least.

bikes and castles

2008-11-10T01:12:00.000-08:00

It's raining now. Back to the usual Autumnal Amsterdam weather. But this weekend we had a couple of glorious days. The sun showed his face and thinks perked up considerably around here. We even took a bike trip!

Saturday we decided that we would bike out to the village of Muiden (pronounced, roughly, Moy-den). So we saddled up our horses and hit the road.

It actually was a great day for riding, but it was quite windy. Well, that's Holland for you.

Our merry crew was comprised of Margreet, Marco, Anne (my counterpart - the other year-long volunteer, this time from Germany) and Hans.

Taking their biking obsession to its natural extreme, the Dutch have built this, the longest bike bridge in Europe, across the Amstel river.

Anne actually snapped most of these shots, so credit where credit is due. Here we are riding along a wide open landscape of hills and water. According to Hans, an authority on local history, most of this land is artificial.

Part of the reason Hans knows the area- that house in the middle used to be his.

But, you want to see castles. Okay!

Muiden is named after Muiden Castle, which is one of the largest in the country. The Netherlands actually doesn't have so many castles compared to, say, Germany, but this is a nice, large, picturesque one.

You had to buy tickets. Anne and I both procured Museum Cards, which should allow us discounted access to a lot of local museums in the future. I'm pretty excited about that. In the meantime, Marco and I posed for a photo op.

Marco is German, but grew up a Missionary Kid. He's spent some time in both Americas, and speaks English with a flawless American accent. He also digs some classic American films, so he's got a lot going for him in addition to the beard. If you haven't noticed it already, I've got a link to his blog over there on the right.

Inside the castle you find pretty much everything you'd hope for - a courtyard, a dungeon, suits of armor, and lots and lots and lots of stairs.

You'll also find at least one thing you didn't expect - video games?!?

Yep, there are several interactive video games in the castle. Most of them involve flinging boulders, flaming arrows and swords at wicked castle invaders, rendered to look like figures from medieval tapestries.

But what you really have to hear, and what I sadly cannot produce here, are the sound effects - the 'eeks' and 'ahhs!' as yet another invader is squashed, sliced, or sent hurtling into the moat.

Oh, that reminds me, someone had put shark fins in the moat. The local historical society certainly has a theatrical touch.

We couldn't stay long. Evening comes quickly at this latitude. We clambered back onto our fiets and took what was supposedly a more direct route. We passed through the center of Muiden village as we did so, and I really wish we had paused to snap some photos because it was rather picturesque.

Even so, by the time we found our way back into the outskirts of the city, it was getting pretty dark. The problem was that while all of our bikes had the mandatory lights - few of them worked. Mine, for instance, which I had ridden to a party near Museumplein the night before with a functional headlight, had gone dark and could not be revived.

Technically you can get fined for biking without a light, so we were on the alert for cops. Before very long a passing biker warned Margreet that there were some ahead. We dismounted, but saw no sign of them. We were just about to get back on when we spotted them - walking right toward us! Hans lead us down a sidestreet which lead more or less in the right direction, but they turned the corner and followed us!

At that moment we paused so that Magreet could use her cellphone. As we stood around casually on the darkened street corner, leaning on our bikes, the three police ambled past. They said nothing. They weren't long gone before we were back on our bikes, heading in the correct direction, pedaling for all we were worth.

I'm not sure exactly how far we went, but we put in probably three hours steady biking total, and at good speed too. Maybe about 30 km total?

Not too shabby.

Amsterdam Questions Answered

2008-11-04T06:51:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd tackle a couple of questions that some commentors have posed. The answers aren't short, but they do involve pictures, so stick with me!

First of all, my dad asks whether I've felt acceptance as an American living in Europe.

Well, let's just say that so far I haven't felt it necessary to pose as a Canadian. The Dutch at least don't seem to harbor any special antipathy towards Americans. Actually it never ceases to amaze me how curious people are about American political processes, so the revelation of my nationality usually leads to questions about how I voted, who I think is going to win, and differences between forms of governments (the Dutch have adopted the typical European parliamentary model of government and also have a constitutional monarchy).

If the Dutch harbor any nationalistic antipathies, they seem to be reserved for the Germans and the British. It probably goes without saying that their friendly rivalry with the Germans is a result of that little misunderstanding back in 1940. And the British? Well, since their main contribution to Dutch culture is endless waves of drunken tourists, you can see how even unfailingly affable Nederlanders might get a little annoyed.

Patrick was curious about chapel and I am now in a position to offer up more information on that as well. And I have pictures. So, buckle up!

There is morning and evening chapel every day but Sunday. Attendance is not mandatory, but encouraged. Services are conducted in Dutch unless there are an unusual number of English speakers present. The brothers and sisters and people deeply involved with the community take it in turns to lead the services.

We usually start with a little bit of liturgy, then a hymn is sung. Then there is silent prayer to prepare our hearts for God. After this another song may be sung. There is a reading from a pre-selected passage of the Bible, sometimes prefaced by a short explanation. After this there is usually a moment to meditate on what we have heard. Sometimes the leader will then give a brief message based off the scripture. There is more prayer, and then another, relevant song. Sometimes the prayer may involve more liturgy. At the end we all recite the Lord's Prayer together, a community member blesses us, and then it's time for tea!

OZ 100 is an ecumenical community, which means we don't subscribe particularly to one denomination. Our kapel reflects this. It contains imagery and icons that will be familiar to Catholics, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox and other sects. And virtually every part of the chapel is mobile, so it can be rearranged to accommodate a number of types of services.

(Incidentally, I apologize in advance for the quality of the pics. I was forced to use the flash to snap shots of the chapel, and it somewhat ruins the quiet, muted atmosphere that it actually has.)

The backdrop you see above is actually movable. The imagery on it will be familiar to Roman Catholics and Orthodox worshipers. In the case of the latter, the frame may be moved in front of our little altar to create a 'holy sanctum'.

Wooden benches line the walls, and there are stools. All are lightweight and can be easily rearranged. For ourselves, we typically sit in a circle around the room and the leader does not occupy a special place unless he or she gets up to read.

Virtually everything in the kapel has some symbolic value. This includes the floor, which spreads outward in concentric rings to include even the outside world. The pink neon lights of Cafe Rosso are right outside the doors, and in the evening service we are vividly reminded of their inclusion by the noise of the people queued up there.

I'm told the item above makes Lutherans feel at home, although it's a bit foreign to me personally.

I was surprised to learn that in addition to providing a lovely ambiance, the little stream and pool at the back of the room can be used as a baptismal. Whether you are into full or partial immersion, there are sections of the "Jordan River" that you can use for your service. The little pool just above the falls is just right for infants, and the large pool is bigger than a bathtub and can comfortably receive adults.

This is a picture of some of our worship materials. "Youth for Christ" is a popular songbook, as is Taizé (not pictured) which contains songs in virtually every language you're likely to encounter in Europe. The folder contains copies of still more songs, as well as liturgy.

Dutch service or not, many of the songs are actually in English, which is nice for me. However, I am seldom familiar with any of them.

The service concluded, we adjourn to the common room for a little gezelligheid. Time for ~~tea~~ coffee!

Like Fries With That?

2008-11-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

OZ100 owns and operates a farm in Friesland, in the north of the Netherlands. The founders of the community live there, as do others who for whatever reason seek a more peaceful and isolated setting. Friesland is considered by Nederlanders to be quite different from the rest of the country. As a matter of fact they have their own distinct Germanic language.

Alas, I didn't have much opportunity to interact with native Frisians. This weekend was the annual ceremony where the 'inner circle' renew their lifetime vows. Usually it is held in Amsterdam but the people on the farm had asked that we do it there. So we packed up virtually the entire household, stuffed them into minibuses, and ferried them two hours north to the farm.

Well, the weekend was pleasant enough, but rather than go into great detail, I have pictures. Yes, pictures! Worth a thousand words, or so I hope. Well, this camera is only rated for about 750 words per image, but hopefully you'll get the idea.

Part of one of the farmhouses we were staying in. Surrounded on all sides by grass and muddy ditches.

And cows!

Inside our farmhouse is a huge open room with lofts on both sides and small rooms partitioned off beneath the lofts. The inside ceiling, curiously enough, is thatched.

Looking down on the main room from the loft.

The loft where the boys slept. Note the slanted part of the ceiling.

Two Larissas at breakfast. Big Larissa there on the right is from Russia. Little Larissa is the little black girl seated back right, if you can make her out.

More outside pics. This is a view of the 'driveway' to the farmhouse.

More cows! I believe they outnumbered us humans by a healthy margin, but they seemed non-threatening.

This fellow was a bit more threatening. That's why he's kept on a chain.

There's also the cutest little pony you ever laid eyes on. She wandered right up to me while I was trying to get a picture. I felt really bad because immediately after I snapped this the flash sent her bolting.

Assorted Oudezijds children. Oh sure they look cute...

In other news, Brenda is another transplanted English speaker living in the house (she's Canadian, but we won't hold that against her). She's a bit further along in her Dutch than I am, but she's documented some common sources of confusion between our two languages on her blog.

Car Update and A Note on a Friend

2008-10-31T00:17:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to report that the car has been taken care of and I am no longer the owner of an performance sports car that I can't afford whilst in Europe.

People keep asking me if I'm sad to have gotten rid of it. Not really, no. That car was something of my dream car and when I first bought it I made my peace with the idea that if I only owned such a machine for a little while and then had to drive something more ordinary then that was okay. And I still feel that way, even if I didn't at the time realize that the 'something more ordinary' would be a bike.

That said, sometimes it's good to look back and remember. I had some good times in the GT. I went some places and saw some things and committed some moving violations. The good news is that Happy Fun Car, as it was affectionately known, has been immortalized in digital video, below

This particular video was actually created for my very good friend Amy Long, who is currently raising support to go and live in Haiti for a year. Once you watch it you should totally go check out her blog and learn what you can do to help in Haiti. It isn't all about leather jackets and fast cars!

Meanwhile, the video, she is here:

A First

2008-10-30T09:40:00.001-07:00

Last night while walking through New Market I was offered cocaine. Cocaine! Unfortunately for the individual in question, I was holding a cone full of steaming hot french fries in my hand. I didn't need no cocaine.

Rembrandt Park

2008-10-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

I found a park today!

It wasn't intentional. I was working on my secret mission. Today's bike trip took me down to a neighborhood called Baarsjes, which is quite a ways to the west of here. Good solid bike ride.

Amsterdam natives have a slight advantage over me on their bikes: they have faith that an irate motorist is not going to simply run them over. They plunge fearlessly into traffic on busy thoroughfairs, apparently unconcerned that a guy in a Mercedes might suddenly turn them into a pancake. Raised as I was on the mean streets of Jacksonville, I can't quite bring myself to share their faith. I can't bike down the center of what's basically a major highway without glacing over my shoulder a few times.

Regardless, I made it to Baarsjes okay. Either I'm getting better at this or this part of the city is easier to navigate. I mean, the usual rules still apply to city streets. I still don't understand why streets have to change names every couple of blocks. It's still the same street, you know? Just because it crossed a bridge doesn't fundamentally alter its character or direction. Anyway, I figured it out okay and blew through my five or six stops.

Baarsjes (pronounced barse-yes) is a neighborhood with a different character from Centrum, where I live. For one thing it's clearly newer. Instead of the skinny merchant houses you have five-or-six story blocks that look to be probably no older than a century. A much larger muslim population as well. At least there were a lot of women in headscarves walking around.

I had just hit the local Openbar Bibliotheek, as they call public libraries around here, and I was examining my map and I noticed a huge swath of green marked Rembrandt Park just a few blocks to the south. Since I had time to kill I decided to check it out.

Being in the park reminded me of a fall morning in Florida. It wasn't morning and it wasn't Florida, but it was cold and green and wet. Trails wind back and forth over an impressively long and wide piece of forested land. People were jogging and walking their dogs over the strangely aerodynamic bridges. The grass is slick and green. A slight breath of fog hangs over the ponds, and the trees grip the banks with their roots. Of course, it's not Florida: it's four in the afternoon and the dogs speak Dutch (woev!). And it's getting colder.

I biked back the way I came before too long. Which gave me more chances to enjoy local traffic, since the street going this way was under construction for much of the route. This meant instead of riding in a bike lane I got to ride on tram tracks. Fun! I only had a couple near death experiences. That guy on the scooter TOTALLY wasn't paying enough attention.

I know, I know, you want pictures. That's everyone's number one request. I'm working on it. None today though, sorry.

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere

2008-10-29T03:57:00.000-07:00

The number of people who have pegged me as 'around 22' here is just wonderful. I'm glad I don't look my actual age of 28. It's not so old, but it's a bit old for the exchange student that is your typical volunteer!

Various and Sundry

2008-10-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

Is there anything you'd like to hear more about on this blog? If there is let me know. I'm not necessarily sure what kind of things are most interesting to people, so I'm cherry-picking here. If you have a specific topic of interest let me know and I'll try and touch on it a little more. Today's post is just going to cover some odds-and-ends.

There are two English speaking churches nearby. Neither of them is Baptist, alas, but they're both fairly interesting. Christ Church is an Anglican congregation a few blocks east of here. I'm definitely not Anglican, so attending a service that is so heavy on liturgy and where they take the Lord's Supper every Sunday is kind of a different speed for me. It's a young church, though, which is nice. Their building is, what, one hundred, one hundred fifty years old? It's squirreled away amongst the merchant houses, which means it's long, narrow and tall!

Also hidden away is the English Reform Church in the Begijnhof. However you won't have too much trouble finding it, since it's a historic site marked on most maps and the church has its own Wikipedia page. The church building has been there since about the time Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and the Presbyterian congregation that currently occupies it has been around since 1607, when the Protestant Reformation came to the Netherlands.

In modern times, it's quite an international church. I went to lunch with some of the young people who go there. They included people from Indonesia, Singapore, and Poland*. The latter is the student pastor of the church and speaks with a Scottish accent. I love Amsterdam.

* and, I guess, America.

I had to find the only FedEx in Amsterdam yesterday. It wasn't far, but there were no direct routes. So on a piece of scratch paper I jotted down what Google Maps indicated was the most efficient 'short cut' in terms of back alleys and cross-overs, mounted my bike, and sped off into the wild gray yonder. Score one for Google Maps, as I navigated the route with no trouble at all and swiftly located my quarry. I felt quite proud of myself.

Alas, the warm feelings did not last. This particular FedEx does not ship internationally!(?) They told me to go home and call a phone number. Meanwhile, it had started to rain. It was getting worse as I sped homeward. Then I took a wrong turn. I quickly corrected this, but when I broke out of the cover of the alleys and onto Rokin Street, a major thoroughfare, it got really fierce. Yikes I thought, this rain is cold. My next thought was Ow, it really stings too! At this point I realized that it wasn't rain at all, but hail. Yes, I was riding my bike in a hailstorm. Fortunately it wasn't Florida-style hail, or I'd probably be dead and not writing this entry. Instead I flung my arm up and bolted for the cover of an alley like there was no tomorrow.

This weekend I got trounced in Risk. The weekend before that was Monopoly. They both proved to be nearly interminable. Actually, I'm proud in retrospect that I did as well as I did in Risk. I remained a threat on the board throughout. This, in spite of a) a really terrible bunch of unconnected starting spots, b) an impossible victory condition of controlling 24 territories and c) the fact that one of the other player's mission was to destroy me.

They know of Settlers of Catan here, so I'm going to see if we can't play it next time. I'd prefer a game that ends in an hour or so.

Oh, one of the people I met at the Begijnhof has designed his own board game. It actually sounds pretty cool. I'm going to have to check it out.

My sister's birthday was yesterday. By my calculations she should be turning twenty-three, but I know that that's impossible. She's my sister! She can't be more than eight.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Kati! Hugs, kisses, etc.

I'm compelled to mention that in a previous post I had Sister Annemieke telling me 'no dice' and in fact she said no such thing. Her grasp of colloquial American English is not so impressive as that and there is no equivalent expression in Dutch. As a matter of fact I wrote that somewhat in jest, because it sounded like such an unlikely thing for a Dutch person to say.

The confusion is understandable, though. I've been teaching Anna and Ian over at the Mission House various 'gangsta' phrases, so anything is possible. Until you've heard Ian say "all up in yo grill' in a Scottish accent, you really haven't lived.

Working Girls

2008-10-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

When we sit down to lunch every day, you can look out the window and see a girl sitting in a window across the street. She sits there behind a glass door with the curtains pulled back, framed by red neon tubes. She wears the same outfit every day. She works weekends. She doesn't, from what I can tell, seem to do a booming business. And really, she's not a girl now by any standard. She's probably well into her thirties.

That's the reality of legalized prostitution, which exists in Amsterdam and of which the Ouderzijds Achterburgwal, where we live, is the neon-lit throbbing heart.

I did not know that San Francisco was contemplating legalizing prostitution (hat tip Freakonomics). Interesting. Proponents say that this would improve the health and safety of 'sex workers' and cut law enforcement costs by millions. Opponents say that SF would instantly descend into a pit of sin and depravity.

Based on my experiences in Amsterdam, here is what I would expect if prostitution were legalized in some form in SF:

Prostitutes would indeed be safer. If the well-being of the women is your main concern, as it is with organizations such as OZ100, then legalized prostitution is a good thing. The girls don't have to hide, and because they are more visible they are easier to keep track of.
Law enforcement costs would not drop substantially. The government here in Amsterdam has spent a fair amount of energy recently trying to discourage organized crime from taking over the RLD. It's safe to say that what you gain in not having to bust prostitutes every night you lose to fighting the pimps.
Prostitutes are not likely to be freer. A recent study in Amsterdam indicated that over 80% of girls are under some form of coercion. This most frequently comes in the form of pimps, who tend to be a cross between a bad boss and a really bad boyfriend.
The incidence of prostitution would rise as people travel to the city to take advantage of it.
San Franciscans are unlikely to comprise most of the prostitutes. Very few of the girls in the windows here are Dutch. They're much more likely to be Eastern European or from even further away.
Pimps will continue to play a major role in the sex trade, whether legal or not.
Girls will continue to find it much easier to get into prostitution than to get out of it.

The short version: some things would change, but not as dramatically as you might think. It appears that prostitution remains the same in its essentials whether you legalize it or not, something those who think legalization empowers women would do well to remember.

The OZ100 community has firsthand experience with this, so it bears elaboration: for whatever reason, girls seldom leave the sex industry. There's a lot of debate on why this is so. Do their pimps threaten them? Are they hooked on drugs? Are they hooked on the money? Is it the only option open to them? Or do they actually enjoy it? No one can say for sure, but the fact that even those that contemplate a career change seldom follow through should make it clear that this is not 'just a job'.

A job is something you can walk away from.

Alles is Liefde

2008-10-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

I need to watch more Dutch movies.

Saturday night we watched a 'film', as they say on this side of the ditch. We did it in the kitchen. There aren't many wide-screen LCDs in the house, but they do have a projector that can be rigged up with a laptop. The kitchen is big and cozy and has a blank wall, so people just drag chairs in and you have your own little cinema. Nice.

The Dutch watch American everything - Amercan movies, American TV, etc. Usually with subtitles of course. But Saturday night they turned the tables on me. We watched a bona fide Dutch movie with English subtitles on!

The film is a very popular one here called Alles is Liefde (Love is Everything). It's a romantic comedy slash holiday film. I don't go in for the RomCom genre much, but this one was very charming and very Dutch, and besides it was shot in Amsterdam. The bridges, the houses, the canals, even the Dam Square were all very much in evidence. Why aren't more films shot in Amsterdam anyway? It's a gorgeous, historic city. You'd think Jason Bourne would drop by from time to time.

I digress.

Now, to understand the plot of this movie you have to understand that a Nederlands Christmas is a bit different from our Christmas. It happens at a different time and has its own mythology.

You see, Sinterklaas actually comes from Spain. And he arrives in November. On a steamboat! He then spends a couple weeks in town. During this time his helper(s), the Black Piets, fan out through the land putting presents in the slippers of deserving children. Bad children don't get coal - they get bagged and hauled off! All the festivities come to a head on December 5th, which is Sinterklaas' birthday. Then, presumably, he heads back to Spain to enjoy the winter in warmer climes.

Ja!

Anyway, Love is Everything is one of those complicated films about multiple, interconnected characters who each have their own subplot but whose stories occasionally intersect. One couple has separated after he had an affair with their child's schoolteacher. Another couple is together, but he's lost his job and hasn't told her yet. Then we have the girl who works the counter at the department store who falls in love with the prince, a gay couple having some relationship issues on the eve of their marriage (legal in The Netherlands since way back), and a drifter looking for the family he abandoned twenty years ago.

When the pompous actor who plays the part of Sinterklaas for the annual steamboat arrival dies of a heart attack minutes before he's scheduled to go on, the mysterious drifter is conscripted by a television crew to fill the bill. While the steamboat is pulling in, a little girl (belonging to the dad who has lost his job) falls into the water and he jumps in and saves her. Then he runs off, leaving the city in an uproar and beginning a chain of events that will affect the lives of each of our couples.

It's complicated, okay. But I've decided it's also a great way to learn Dutch.

I'd never really thought about it, but you know how you always hear about Europeans saying they learned English from watching American TV? It totally makes sense now. Watching a foreign film with subtitles is a triple threat as far as language aquisition goes. You're simulatneously hearing the pronunciation, seeing the translation, and learning from the context. Subtitles are just super helpful.

I've asked Sister Annemieke if people in the house could carry around small whiteboards and write out subtitles for what they are saying, but she says no dice.

Ah well.

Anyway, if you're looking for a film that's light, warm and very very Dutch, you should totally track down this flick. I'm sure Netflix has it. And don't watch the English dub - sit back and enjoy the subtitles.

Snapshots

2008-10-17T12:52:00.000-07:00

Did you know that you can get two grown women on one bike? It's true. What you do is have the first woman start pedaling forward, and then the second runs up behind and jumps up side-saddle on the rear rack. It's a bit of a balancing act, but it can be done. Or so I observed while out in the city today.

The other night I was watching The Usual Suspects with a group of people. When the guy in the hospital starts screaming in Hungarian about Keyser Soze, someone in the group started translating. Awesome.

Today is my two-week anniversary of being here. It seems as though its been a lot longer. I feel like I'm adjusting to life here and am able to figure out things on my own now. It still does not entirely feel like home, though.

A volunteer from Denmark has arrived and he does not speak Dutch. There is also an American visitor here this week. That gives English a lot more weight at the dinner table, which means I might actually be able to participate in a conversation or two. Hooray!

If you're the praying sort, I could still use some for my car. It has yet to sell and in fact has generated barely any interest in the weeks it has been on the market, despite being a 2007 Mustang GT in good condition. My father took it to the big car dealership to see what they would give for it and they offered $3,000 below the Blue Book value (and what I owe). Not good.

I can't afford to make the monthly payments on the car while I'm here. I don't have the money to take a $3,000 hit, either. It would be completely silly to have my time here cut short by a car. So, I could still use some prayer for that. And if you know anyone in the market for a Mustang, let me know. It really is a nice car.

Secret Agent Man

2008-10-14T08:11:00.000-07:00

Carlo keeps thanking me. It's a big task and he really needed to find someone who could do it. But I should be thanking him.

The assignment this time is a little more epic - find dozens of locations throughout the city and plaster them with posters encouraging people to volunteer. Carlo is lending me his bike, a list of addresses, and a map to Amsterdam. Practically the keys to the city!

Bike traffic in Amsterdam is nearly as formalized as automobile traffic. There are separate traffic lights, crossings, and even lanes for bikes throughout the city. Where there's not, an unwritten rule seems to apply - pedestrians get out of the way for bikes and bikes get out of the way of anything with a motor. The little bell helps - people will make a spot for you if you keep dinging persistently at them.

Progress today was slow. The city center is a bit of a maze, mostly thanks to the canals. It's not uncommon to find myself rolling down a street on one side of the water and realizing I want to be on the other side and seeing no way across. The streets themselves twist and turn unpredictably and never quite go where I expect they will. I blaze past narrow old merchant houses, playgrounds, bike lots, apartment blocks, shops, churches and hotels, on the prowl for a street number that may or may not be in sequential order with the rest of the establishments on the street. When I finally find the place I must communicate with the proprieter in my minimal Dutch and their broken English about posting my bill.

For all the setbacks, it's great fun. It's like a great big game of secret agent. I have a secret mission (to transmit hidden documents) and everything. Actually, there's no need to make believe. I'm cruising on a bike, exploring one of the most amazing cities in the world!

Jealous?

Rhythms

2008-10-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

They call the house here at Oudezijds 100 "The Community," and that's really the best way to get your head around it. What you shouldn't get the idea of is some sort of weird, spartan compound of True Believers secreting themselves away from the world. But when you need a word that encompasses several large biological families, numerous students, a handful of volunteers and an ever-fluxuating group of dozens of folks who arrive, stay for a few weeks, and move on, all moving in and out of a number of ancient, ramshackle buildings... well, "Community" is probably as close a word as you'll find.

How do you manage such a large group of individuals with such diverse purposes and needs? Surely someone, somewhere, must be thoroughly overwhelmed. And perhaps they are. But mostly the needs of the community are answered by having a basic rhythm to life that is constant. Although I am still getting the hang of this rhythm, I think that giving you some idea of it is probably key to understanding daily life here.

Mornings officially start with breakfast at 7:30, although most people are up well before then (I judge this solely by the rush of footsteps that starts around 6:30 in my building). Those who want breakfast assemble in the kitchen, or koeken. The table is set with bread and cheese, the staples of Dutch life, and a wide assortment of condiments. We all hold hands, one of the brothers or sisters says a brief prayer, and then we get down to business. When everyone has had their fill, a basket of fruit is passed around. After that is finished, we all rise, someone says the doxology, and then there's washing up.

Something you quickly realize about meals for a dozen or more people - there's always plenty of washing up. But usually several volunteers will tackle it, and so it seldom takes more than ten minutes. Nonetheless, it's a key part of every meal!

After breakfast there's a lull of sorts, until 8:45. At this time the bell rings for morning prayers, and those who wish may assemble in the chapel, or kapel. The chapel is really just a room in the basement, however it has been paved with stones and it has a fountain flowing into a basin, and candles are lit. It's actually a very peaceful place, and a great way to start your morning.

Chapel is short, usually lasting about a half hour. There is some liturgy (all in Dutch), some songs are sung (in many languages), and a passage of scripture is read. There is also some time for contemplating and prayer. Although the whole things is usually conducted in Dutch, chapel has a rhythm all its own and so one can usually follow what's going on.

After chapel, we exit through a door onto the street and then reenter the house by the front door. Time for morning tea! From this time until 11:00, anyone who wants is welcome to drop by for tea or coffee. For a few minutes we all gather in the common room and talk and greet early visitors. By nine, though, most people have scattered to their appointed tasks.

Depending on their status, members of the community may have many or few responsibilities during the week, but everyone is expected to contribute somewhat. There is a schedule roster, and you can expect that at some point you will find yourself sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, cooking, washing, or doing any of the other dozens of tasks necessary to keep the house orderly and functioning. As a year-long volunteer, I get to participate in many of these activities. And in fact, I really don't mind. It's not hard work, and it's different every day.

Lunch is at 12:30, but is otherwise quite similar to breakfast. We usually have some leftovers from dinner in addition to fare such as brood and kaas. Also, the meal ends with the reading of the week's scripture verse. Washing up follows. Then, onto afternoon duties.

The day's work typically winds down around four. The next noteworthy event after this is dinner, which starts at six. Dinner is a much grander meal than the previous two. Someone is assigned to cook, and preparation for the meal usually takes about three hours. In a house this large, with representatives from all over the world, you can guarantee that you will usually be having something interesting. Dinner virtually always includes dessert. On most nights, this will simply be fla, or pudding, but there have been known to be other delights on offer.

Washing up after dinner can sometimes be a rather epic affair, but it gets done. 'Many hands', etc. Afterwards the bell is rung for evening prayers at 7:30. Then it's once more time for tea in the common room. This time, though, people who don't have anywhere special to be will stick around and socialize for a while.

Not too long, though. Most people are in bed by 10:30 or so. Because the morning comes early, and then we do it all over again!

Weekends, of course, are a little different.

A Weekend in the City

2008-10-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Finally in possession of a working house key, and the city is as good as mine! Well, a bike would be nice, but for now I'm determined to explore every inch that can be reached on foot. I had a few free hours Saturday morning so I gave myself a mission: find my way to the Clothes Market where it was rumored* that there was a tent selling headphones and audio cable.

My beloved Sennheisers were, alas, a casualty of Lufthansa airlines. Moments after deplaning I realized that I didn't have them, but I wasn't allowed to, uh, re-plane, and the stewardesses couldn't find them. Honestly I was just grateful it wasn't my iPod. But the point was that I needed new headphones.

There's a department store at the Dam Square mall, but department store electronics are guaranteed to be overpriced and mediocre. What I needed was the Nederlander version of Radio Shack. So, to the market.

The house is a haven of quiet in a busy city. Out the front door you immediately find yourself facing the canal that runs down the center Ouderzijds** Achterburgwal, the beating heart of the Red Light District. During the daylight hours, however, the most immediate thing that will grab your attention are the swans. They swim up and down the canal, squawking noisily to let people know exactly who is in charge here. I've got a six foot wing span, people. I could beat your head in with these things like I was using a baseball bat.

I had a better impression of swans before coming here. They are huge, lovely birds. But the ugly truth is that they're the stuck up clique of the bird kingdom.

Anyway, you run down the street past Casa Rosa, a notorious sex theater, and take the first bridge across you come to. This leads to an alley that cuts over to the Nieuwmarkt (New Market), a small collection of cafes and outdoor vendors dominated by an old castle-like structure which is actually an old weighing house. Across the square you find a broad street called Jodenbreestraat which winds through some more modern architecture. It also leads past the Amsterdam Theatre School, where students with dramatic streaks find their outlet. Just a little further on you come to a major intersection over a canal, and if you hang a right you'll find the Clothes Market.

The Clothes Market is mostly clothes, but there are many other goodies to be had there as well. Shoes, jewelry, cameras and yes, even electronics. This shirt, though highly inappropriate, got a chuckle out of me.

My experience of markets is a bit third world. But an Amsterdam market is a more sedate affair. Nobody yells at you as you walk by their tent and there's no haggling, at least that I observed. The clientele, at least on a Saturday morning, were mostly older folks. So, quiet.

A t-shirt vendor had a box of tangled audio cables tucked away. I asked if he had any y-splitters and he said no, and then communicated in broken English that there was a tent that had them further on down. I found it easily enough and yes, they had a wide array of cables, headphones, converters, all kinds of goodies. Inexpensive, too!

I picked up a pair of headphones for six Euro based on the proprietor's recommendations. Three euro more netted me the audio cable, which I hoped to use to hijack the speakers on the stereo in my room.

Actually, the whole affair was disappointingly easy. The headphones even proved to be comfortable and produce high-quality sound (although, alas, the y-splitter won't serve my purpose). I will have to give myself a more challenging assignment next time.

In the meantime, it's in the sixties or seventies, the sun is in her heavens, and I'm learning Dutch in Amsterdam. Life is good!

* Okay, Brenda told me. But it's more fun if we pretend that she's an unreliable source.
** Pronounced very similarly to "outer sides". In fact drop the 'r', and you've got it pretty much exactly. It actually means "Old Side," as opposed to "New Side," which is a couple blocks over.

Going Dutch

2008-10-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

I have come to Amsterdam to learn Dutch.

I didn't realize at first that this was why I am in Amsterdam. I thought I was coming to Amsterdam to broaden my horizens, live in a beautiful city, experience a new culture, spend some time volunteering, etc. I figured that maybe I'd pick up some Dutch on the side, as I went.

English, you know. They all speak it! And how useful is Dutch going to be to someone, really?

Within the first day after arrival it became clear to me that it would be, at minimum, extremely helpful to at least be able to read Dutch. By the second day, getting a basic knowledge of the spoken language seemed imperative. By the third day, sitting down to breakfast, lunch and dinner at a table full of people joyously chattering away in Dutch, it was clear that mastering the language was my ONLY priority if I wanted to retain my sanity.

Besides, Dutch is so very intriguing.

I once spent six weeks in China. Chinese is a truly foreign language, with no obvious ties to English unless you count words like 'ping pong'. I hear people speaking Chinese, I have no expectation of being unable to understand it.

Dutch is different, though. Dutch is related to English. In fact way back in the gray mists of the millenia the two languages were kissing cousins. Perhaps because of this, when I listen to people speaking Dutch I constantly feel as though if I concentrated just a little bit harder, I would be able to understand what they are saying.

Part of that is of course because the two languages share many similar words. Many of them are found at the breakfast table. 'Butter' is actually 'butter', with the u sound pronounced slightly differently. 'Bread' is 'brood' and when it's pronounced correctly they actually sound quite similar. 'Milk' is 'melk'. It doesn't get much simpler then that. Perhaps it is these words, peppered into the rapid flow of Dutch, that keeps the illusion of comprehension alive. The grammar is also similar to English, though, and I think the cadence of the words might be part of the strange effect.

I am at a slight disadvantage here because I look like I might be Dutch, or at least German. So people tend to start in on a stream of Dutch before I have a chance to smile sheepishly and say 'Sorry, American'. If I was more ethnically distinct they might be more likely to realize that I am not a native speaker. But at least this solves the problem of 'getting the Dutch to speak Dutch', as the 'Introduction to Colloquial Dutch' refers to it.

According to that august volume, Dutch is not the minor language one might suppose. It is of course the official language of the Netherlands, but it is also the majority language in Belgium, and one of two official tongues there. That's without mentioning various former Dutch colonies around the world nor it's close relationship to Afrikaans in South Africa.

So, a more important language than you might think, and one with amorphous historical ties to English. If the Norman invasion hadn't come to England, bringing with it the influence of Latin and it's regular, precise vowels, understanding Dutch might be nothing to us English speakers. But one thing we've definitely lost from our language is the myriad odd, nasal vowel sounds that Dutch provides. There must be ten different ways to say 'ew'.

I plan to master all of them.

Oh yes, the title of this blog. Well yesterday I learned (at the breakfast table, of course!) that the Dutch name for oranges is 'Sinaasappel', which basically translates as Chinese Apples. Other fruits also turn out to be apples! Potatoes are 'earth apples', for instance.

The idea of treating an orange as just a new, exotic type of apple amuses me. And I relate to it. A 'Chinese Apple' is exactly what I feel like. I look like I might be related, but I'm somehow out of place. Still, the always laid-back Dutch are content to slot me into the 'apples' category and let it go at that.

And for that I am grateful.