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Aische-en-Refail

I may never have discovered the 1000-people-strong village of Aische-en-Refail, in the province of Namur, about thirty miles from where we live.  But I did.  Thanks to ADEPS.  What is ADEPS, you may well ask?  Well, it’s a section of the Ministry of the French Community in Belgium, and it’s all about youth, health and sport.   ADEPS was a big part of our lives when we were young, healthy and sporty.  Back in our eighties Belgian phase, we took it in turns to do 10 k organised ADEPS runs:  we’d look through the different venues in the paper, choose one, and the whole family would go along on a Sunday.  One would amuse the three young kids for an hour or so while the other ran.  We never broke any records, but it was a lot of fun – perhaps more so for the runner than the amuser.   Then in the nineties, our second Belgian phase, we moved to ADEPS walks.  Again, we’d select a venue from the paper, and go along.  You could opt for a 5, 10 or 20 k walk, all well signposted, and generally located in pretty parts of the countryside.  You could show up more or less at any time of the day, which meant people were pretty spread out and it was never crowded.  The walks started out from a community centre or school, and finished up in the same place, where you could buy soup, a sandwich, and a slice of delicious Belgian tart.  Each member of the family had a little booklet, and the kilometres were clocked up by an ADEPS official.  Depending on who felt like what, a couple might run the 10 k while the others walked the 5 k. Sometimes one or two rebellious adolescents were left at home.  On a couple of occasions I took our new black Labrador pup with us, then got rowed up by the vet who said I’d overwalked her and made her legs crooked – she seemed to enjoy it, though.     And now we’re in out third Belgian phase.  Last Sunday looked as though it was going to be the last sunny day of a summer that has been amazing – five months of gorgeous weather.   ‘What shall we do?’ I asked.   ‘Walk?  Go to the seaside?’   ‘Or the Ardennes?’   ‘Hey!  How about ADEPS?’ my husband suggested.   ‘But we don’t have a newspaper, and we don’t have kids…’  It seemed really strange to be even considering ADEPS without kids.   ‘Check online…’   And sure enough, ADEPS has got right up to date in the last twenty years. There on their website all the 'points verts' -'green' departure points - were listed, for the whole of French-speaking Belgium.  And we went for Aische-en-Refail simply because we’d never heard of it before.  Not a lot going for it…a church, a school, a few houses, fields, some wind turbines, and a gorgeous ancient oak forest.  And a lunch of  soup, sandwiches, tart and beer which cost all of 9 Euro for the two of us.  But a 10 k walk around the nondescript hamlet of Aische-en-Refail produced all the right endorphins that one needs on the last day of summer.  ADEPS, we’ll be back… <a href="http://www.adeps.be/index.asp?m=pv">http://www.adeps.be/index.asp?m=pv</a>

Bye Bye Boxes

Today, almost a year after we moved into this apartment, I unpacked the final box. My life is now box-free - for a while, anyway.  This was the longest lasting single move of the dozen or so moves in my adult life.  Worthy of a mention in Lo's Greatest Moving Abroad Tips (Lo, you can quote me in the next edition  as saying 'Don't do it My Way'.)   Why did it take so long?  We left Uruguay in mid-July last year, with four large suitcases.  Our 'stuff' which was shipped was the subject of many a poem and blog post back then.  We arrived in Belgium at the beginning of September, having spent time with family and friends in England, Ireland and Scotland. And we moved into an aparthotel, while we waited for our tenants to leave our flat.   The six weeks there were wonderfully minimalist - amazing how much stuff one accumulates and how little one needs.  Then in mid-October we moved into the flat.  And our 'first move' was delivered - up an external lift and through our terrace door and into the flat via the bedroom- stuff that had been in storage for over eight years - our furniture, loads of old files and photo albums and books, kids' memorabilia and so on, most of it pretty mouldy.  And we began to realise that we'd need to make a few changes: the kitchen was small and ugly, and I wanted a new one.   Another month passed before the 'real' move arrived: the big truck filled with 'Uruvan' boxes arrived on a snowy November day - a piano, pictures, kitchen equipment, bedding, hi-fi and so on.  Now we'd come from a pretty big house in Montevideo, and this is a normal-sized flat - and though we'd got rid of lots of bits and pieces before we left, it soon became clear that we'd have to rationalise.  Kids came over with empty suitcases at Christmas and went away with full ones.  They mostly took sheets, pictures, crockery and cutlery.  However, they managed to convince us that parents actually keep extra kids' stuff until those kids turn thirty, and boxes were neatly labelled 'Kids' school reports', 'Kids' paintings' (none became an artist but you don't chuck stuff like that away), 'Kids' books', and stored in our minuscule cellar.   Then there were several trips to a wonderful place I discovered called 'Troc', which sells second hand junk.  Gardening equipment, gardening tools (we only have a teeny terrace here) were disposed of, along with bric-a-brac.  In eight years kids and adults grow, and tastes change, so a lot of clothes were disposed of at  'Les Petits Riens', a local charity.  The International School of Brussels welcomed piles of books that no-one wanted to read any more.   But still there were loads of unpacked boxes and no-where to empty them.    And suddenly, from 'let's get a new kitchen', the plans developed and grew - we desperately needed storage space, and there was nowhere to hang the washing, and...and...and...All the planning took quite a while, and when we'd at last made up our minds as to what we wanted, the company we'd chosen couldn't start work until August.    'Two weeks, it'll take,' they said.  Except the painting.  We start on 4 August.  Everything, including the painting, will be done by the end of the month.   Yeah, yeah, we thought, as we made sure penalties for delays were included in the contract.   'We're going on holiday, and coming back on 13 August,' we said.  'We need the house to be livable in by then.'   'What's livable in?'   'I need to be able to sleep, have a shower, cook, and wash my clothes.'   Well, needless to say, they were nowhere near done when we got back, and we moved into an aparthotel - the same one we'd been in when we arrived last year - equipped with the same four suitcases.   'Mid-September,' they said.  And on the appointed date, stress levels pretty high, we moved back.  The dust and the filth were awful, but apparently that is to be expected.  Still a few details to be sorted - window-closing mechanisms, blinds, a couple of shelves here and there, and a bit of negotiation as to who was responsible for the state of the parquet - which they had scratched by dragging the furniture around.    And now, it's done.  I have a new kitchen, a laundry-room, and loads of space.  Over the last couple of weeks we have been unpacking - today we tackled the last four boxes - all photos and pictures collected over eight years in Tanzania and Uruguay.   All the new wall-to wall cupboards means less wall space, and so fewer places to put pictures - but the kids will visit again soon (and one will turn thirty shortly).   Tomorrow the builders come back for the 'final' tweaks.  Apart from the parquet.  Seems their insurance will pay for that, but it'll take a while to get the paperwork done.  I can't face moving everything out of the living-room again and facing more filth and dust.  I have covered the floor with carpets, and hope the insurance people will just give me damages.   And I just love my new kitchen - it opens in to the living-room, so we can chat while I'm in there.  It's friendly and bright - and I have a great view over to Sweeney's.  The workmen are meant to install a blind on the kitchen window tomorrow.  Let's hope they forget it.  I attach a couple of 'before' and 'after' photos, so you can see the transformation.    Moving, they say, is the next most stressful thing after a death in the family or divorce.  Pkease let me stay put for a little while, please!   '

First Fine (and last, I hope)

You may remember that when I arrived I asked a friend's driving instructor husband to give me a lesson (although I'd passed a Belgian driving test in about 1987, I'd been so long out of the country that I thought it would be a good idea to have a bit of a refresher course). He made me drive everywhere I might need to go, first close to home, then further afield.  I tackled complicated junctions near the busiest train station in Brussels, difficult crossings, incomprehensible lane switches, and did several reverse parkings.  And he passed me with flying colours, saying I just needed to use the gears a bit more to slow down. I felt much more confident after it, and was soon zooming all over town.   But last week I got a fine.  First a letter from the police saying the fine would arrive shortly, enclosing a form to fill in if I thought I had extenuating circumstances.  Next day the fine.  Fifty Euro.  I was so upset I couldn't decipher the French to figure out why I had been fined - I just knew it was something to do with a roundabout in a quiet shopping area near my home.  Next day I had calmed down enough to read the document carefully.  Fifty Euros for failing to indicate when coming off a roundabout.  And as far as I can see, that roundabout is in the middle of a single straight road, with no other roads going off.  I think it's been placed there in case anyone decides to build extra roads to it in the future.  So there's hardly a huge choice of directions when you get to it - either you keep going straight or you realise you're going the wrong way so you go all the way round and back the way you came.  And on this particular occasion I went straight.    But apparently coming off a roundabout, even if you're going straight,  is a 'changement de direction' and requires you to indicate.  My offence (a Class 1 Offence, according to the document - I wonder if Class 1 is the most or the least serious?) was hardly life-threatening.  I was just unlucky that a bored policeman was behind me.   Ah well, since then I have been very careful to use my indicator.  You live and learn.

Velcro Plodding

‘Two hours on the train to Eupen then twenty minutes on the bus,’ the lady at the ski place told me over the phone.  My friend Kris and I had decided to go cross-country skiing at Signal Botrange in the Hautes-Fagnes, at the dizzy height of 694 metres the highest point in Belgium, east of Brussels near the German border. The weather was simply too awful to contemplate going by car without winter tyres. ‘That’s faster than driving,’ Kris said when I called her.  ‘Let’s get an early start.’   I prepared my small backpack the night before: nuts and raisin mix, scarf, hat, gloves, water, wallet.  I hardly slept all night, tossing and turning like a child waiting for Santa.  Next morning I added a cheese sandwich and a flask of ginseng tea to my supplies, and set off through the sleet across my skating rink of a street towards the station. I was at Kris’ place before eight, having left my umbrella on the subway, and not long after we were having breakfast at the Gare de Midi.  Kris was almost more excited than I was: she’s an expert downhill skier but had never tried cross-country.  I had been a couple of times about fifteen years ago.   The train was packed. I managed to get a good sleep, and woke up just before Eupen to find we were the only people left in our carriage.  Outside it was snowing heavily.   ‘Fresh snow,’ I told Kris.  ‘Perfect conditions for skiing – it won’t all be trampled and icy.’   Eupen is the largest town in the German-speaking part of Belgium.  ‘How’s your German?’ I asked Kris.  ‘Passable,’ she replied. We got off the train and wandered into the seemingly desolate station.  There was a bored-looking man in the ticket office.  ‘Enschuldigen Zie, bitte,’ Kris started, and went on with what was a lot more impressive than passable German.  ‘Nein,’ the man answered, shaking his head sadly.  ‘Monschau’.  What?  We’d have to go to Monschau in Germany to ski?  Surely not!   We gave up on him and wandered into the centre of Eupen, and found a friendly tourist office, where the lady said that yes, indeed, there was plenty of snow at Signal Botrange, and confirmed that the bus took twenty minutes to get there.  But the next bus was at one.  It was eleven at this stage.   ‘But what if people from Brussels want to go cross-country skiing?  Isn’t there a better connection?’   ‘They come by car.’   Oh well, Eupen is certainly not a place either of us would have thought of touring, but it seemed a pretty town, so we decided to make the most of it.  The lady gave us a map and a sheet of paper in English with a guided tour of the city.   Eupen changed hands several times over the course of history, and eventually was returned to Belgium after the Second World War.   The German-speaking community in Belgium numbers 68,000, and is apparently the best-protected minority community in Europe.  It was strange to be totally surrounded by German-speakers after the multiculturalism of Brussels.  We visited various churches and convents and parks, then when our paper was totally sodden and illegible, we settled into a café for a hot chocolate.   Our bus was on time, and slowly climbed the fifteen kilometers through Christmas card scenery.  Several abandoned cars lined the white road.  I was grateful we had decided to come by public transport.  Soon we reached the Signal de Botrange, which was marked by a café and a ski rental place, barely visible through the snow.  We had crossed back into the French-speaking part of the country, but the people in the ski-rental shop were switching effortlessly between French, German, Flemish and English.    ‘It’s easy,’ the young man said to me as he handed me the skis.  ‘You just slide.  But be careful; the last bus leaves at five.’  And there I was thinking I’d be home before dark. It was two by this stage.    ‘How long will the circuit take?’ I asked.    ‘Fast or slow?’   ‘Very slow.’    ‘Two hours. That’s the short trail.  Six kilometers.’    That would give us plenty of time.  A couple of school groups had seemingly set off earlier, and there were few people around.  We managed to clip the skis onto the ski boots, and we set off into the pine forest. ‘Just slide,’ the man had said.   Langlauf, that’s what cross-country skiing is called in German.  What a lovely, smooth word. You can just hear the speed and grace of the sport in the word.   It literally means ‘long running’.  Yeah yeah.  Our langlaufing was more like Velcro friction.  As we plodded laboriously on, I began to wonder whether it might not be easier to take off the skis and carry them.  But Kris was quite firm, and the skis stayed on.   There were clear signposts every few hundred yards, but every one read ‘6 km.’  ‘We’re not making any progress at all,’ I complained.  But it was in jest: in reality we were having a masochistic ball.   A couple of skiless gentlemen who were walking along the track overtook us.  ‘Your method is faster than ours,’ I said.  ‘Oh, those rental places give you rubbish equipment,’ one replied gallantly.  ‘It’s nothing to do with your technique.’   After about an hour an elderly man sashayed past us at great speed.  I normally hate the word ‘sashay’, but there is no other which would adequately describe his elegant swishing.   ‘How do you do it?’ Kris called after him, and he performed a stylish U-turn and came back to us. ‘I’m seventy-five,’ he said. ‘And I’ve been doing this since I was four.’  Ah, that would explain it.    ‘Look under your skis,’ he said.  Kris lifted her foot, and there, under her ski, was a layer of thick snow, firmly stuck.  ‘It’s because the snow is fresh,’ he said.  Indeed, it couldn’t have been much fresher – these were practically blizzard conditions.  ‘You’re dragging all that extra weight, and your skis can’t possibly slide properly.  I wax the bottom of mine.’  He helped us scrape all the snow off our skis, and then he was off again, out of sight in a few seconds.  We then developed a sort of bend-your-knees-push-glide- method that was marginally more efficient, and stopped frequently to bang off the extra snow.   We made it back in just two hours, covered from head to toe in sticky fresh snow.  ‘Awful conditions,’ the ‘just slide’ man said.  ‘The worst.  You want to come when the snow has been lying for a few days, and it’s trampled and icy.  Then your skis will slide.’  Ah well, you live and learn.    And we still had almost an hour to sit in the café and warm up over a mulled wine. Our bus, once again, did not connect usefully with any train, and I was eventually home at nine at night.  A long day for two hours’ skiing, but we’d had loads of fun.  And we’re planning to go again!

Double Dutch

I have four Dutch language certificates. The last one even has something like a distinction.  But does it mean I can speak Dutch?  Not at all.    First of all, my certificates date from the eighties.  When we first arrived in Brussels, I went to classes in my local commune.  Why?  Well, I knew we'd be here for a while, I already spoke French, and I felt that this being a bi-lingual country (well, tri-lingual, but German is only spoken in a teeny part far from Brussels) it would only be respectful to learn the other major official language.  The classes were quite good fun: we listened to loads of news broadcasts and learnt lots of grammar.  But there were about twenty students, and there wasn't much opportunity to speak.    And any time I tried outside the class, for example in shops, the other person would reply in fluent English.  So my motivation dropped, and I stuck to listening to the radio, and buying the odd CD.  Then we went away for years, so I forgot a lot.  On our Nineties Belgian stint, we lived in a French-speaking commune, so I didn't bother.  Off we went again, and the little Dutch i remembered dwindled to an almost dry trickle.   But now, in Belgium Phase Three, I'm determined to make progress.  I have my sat-nav speaking to me in Dutch .  She's Jessie when she speaks English, and Marijke when she speaks Dutch.  Unfortunately Marijke clearly comes from Amsterdam, and the accent is totally different, but at least it's something.   And our alarm radio is set to Klara, the local Dutch station.  We're great at understanding the weather forecast, which is generally grey and cloudy.   But neither of these methods gets me speaking.  Yesterday I decided something had to be done.  I knew (having worked at many language schools) that i didn't want an overpriced language school where you sit and learn grammar, and my local commune wasn't offering anything.  So I tried the Dutch and French universities, both of which are not too far from my home.  No luck.  No lessons for non-students.  But they did point me in the direction of 'Het Huis van het Nederlands' - the Dutch House.  I called, and was told to call in for a test.  And meanwhile I found another place that booked me in for a test next Tuesday afternoon.   Off I went yesterday morning. Het huis van Het Nederlands is an impressive place in the heart of Brussels. It was filled with young, efficient admin staff and loads of desks with people scribbling away at their tests.     'I don't want a written test,' I said.  'Only conversation classes.'   'Well, you have to do the whole test to determine whether your level is high enough for conversation classes.  You need to be a level 2.2 for that.'   The first part was a conversation with the receptionist.  After a few questions she gave me a slip of paper which said 'Spreekt nederlands' - speaks Dutch - I was suitably proud as I went through the system to the next stage. Here I simply answered questions as the guy filled in a form: name, address, date of birth, etc.  I managed.  Then he asked 'Why do want to learn Dutch?'    'Because I live in Belgium,' was all I could come up with.He ticked off 'social reasons'.   Then it got hard.  'What do you think about smoking in public places?'    'Slecht,' I answered, 'Awful.'   'What do you do for the environment?'   'I ride my bike.'   'How important is body language in your work?'    'Body language?  I could speak to you for three hours on body language if I knew the words.  Very important.'    The guy laughed,  said I was level 2.3 (out of how many levels, I do not know), and sent me off to a desk to do the level 2.3 written test.    'It's all about body language,' he said.  It took a minute and ahalf for me to see that it was impossible.  I simply couldn't understand a word (apart from 'body language').    'Too hard,' I said.  They gave me a 2.1 test.  I zapped through it.   'Now the logic test,' they said.  'Logic?  Why?'    'To determine your study skills.'   So I sat there for another half-hour, filling in what's next in the series of stars and triangles, twisting shapes, and so on.   'Study skills OK,' I was told.  Overall level 2.1/2.2.'   'Please, please. please can I go to conversation classes?'   'Yes.'   Phew.  I start next week.  But I shall also go to the other place for a test - it was so much fun!

Brussels Doubts

‘Our employees are unauthorized to speak any language other than Dutch.  If you don’t speak Dutch, bring an interpreter.’   Those words, more or less, are written in four languages on the notice board of the swimming-pool in the commune of Zaventem, in the north of Brussels.   That’s friendly, I thought, imagining myself being left to drown because I was yelling ‘Help! Help!’ with an English accent as opposed to ‘Help! Help!’ with a Dutch accent.    I’ve lived in this country off and on for fifteen years, but still I don’t understand the politics.  According to Wikipedia, ‘Belgium's political institutions are complex; most political power is organised around the need to represent the main cultural (and political) communities.’  And those communities are divided along linguistic lines.    As far as I cen see, to put it very simply, there’s Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north, and French-speaking Wallonia in the south.   Brussels is a mainly French-speaking island in Flanders, surrounded by Dutch-speaking communes.  And there’s a little German-speaking part in the East, but they seem to just get on with things without too much fuss.   After Belgium was formed in 1830, only 1% of the people could vote:  these were the wealthyFrench-speaking bourgeoisie.  Even in Flanders, the nobility spoke French .  During the industrial revolution Wallonia did well, and Flanders remained an economic backwater.  As the Flemings (Dutch-speakers) became more educated, they sought to have a fairer position in society.    Eventually in the sixties a linguistic border was officially drawn, and in the seventies legislation came in to protect the linguistic minorities.  And in 1993 the constitution was changed.  The country now works (‘works?’  We rarely seem to have a government at all) on a federal system, with Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels all having their own powers in various areas.   And Flanders has done extremely well, so much so that it is economically superior to Wallonia today. And it would like to be independent.  But there is the problem of Brussels: the capital would not like to see the dissolution of the Belgian state.  And what would happen to Wallonia?  Some people see it merging in with northern France…   Meanwhile, the country is, as ever, in political turmoil.  Will it fall apart this time?   In April the government fell  when  negotiations between Dutch- and French- speaking politicians over a bilingual voting district broke down, and elections in June resulted in large gains both for the Flemish nationalists in the north and the Wallonian socialists in the south.  Their leaders, Bart de Wever and Elio di Rupo were asked to get together and form a government, and meanwhile, the previous premier, Leterme, was asked to stay on as caretaker.  Months later, they seem to still be in an impasse.   The longer I live here, the less I understand it all.   Surely having three official languages in a country should be an advantage for everyone living there?   I decided to quiz a couple of my friends, whom I knew were well-travelled, and believed to be fairly liberal.  First I spoke to Marise, a French-speaker.   ‘It’s all about power,’ she told me.  ‘The Flemings are blocking all the communes around Brussels, strangling the city.  They make it very difficult for French-speakers to live there.  You know, you have to have a Dutch test before you can buy a house in those communes?’   ‘So is it about language?’ I asked.     ‘Well, they think it is.  They think their language is so important. Hmph.  My grandfather was a Fleming, but he was in the bourgeoisie, so he spoke French.  We had a family reunion recently, and you know, a lot of cousins married into Dutch-speaking families, and they don’t speak a word of French now.  Can you believe it?’   ‘Do the French-speaking members speak Dutch?’ I asked.   ‘Well, that’s not the same.  Who would want to speak Dutch?  It’s a useless language.’   ‘Do you think Belgium will split?’   ‘They might have all the industry now, but we have the water in Wallonia.  They need us.’   Next day I spoke to Marijke, my Dutch-speaking friend.   ‘It’s all about language,’ she said.  ‘They refuse to speak our language.  It’s a lack of respect.  We have had to speak theirs for years.  It’s about time the tables were turned.’   ‘Do you see a divided Belgium?’ I asked.    ‘We could certainly live without them, but they couldn’t live without us.  We’ll see.’   Back in 2007, Flemish journalist  Dominiue Minten said to the BBC : ‘There is such a thing as a Belgian identity, and sometimes Belgians are proud to be Belgian.’  I wonder whether the same could still be said today.  And I wonder if it is significant that it was the Dutch-speaking Kim Clijsters who took the US Open tennis trophy, rather than French-speaking Justine Henin.

What Els?

Yesterday, in the Flemish town of Tongeren, 26-year-old school teacher Els Clottemans was sentenced to thirty years in prison for the murder of  fellow-skydiver, 38-year-old married mother-of-two Els van Doren.  Both women belonged to the same skydiving club, and on the fatal day, they had planned to jump holding hands with their shared lover, Marcel Somers, and another man. Clottemans jumped a fraction too late, and watched the trio as she floated down after them. She saw them separate; she saw both men's parachutes open, and she saw   both  Van Doren’s main parachute and reserve parachute fail to open. She watched as Els van Doren, an experienced skydiver with over 2000 jumps under her belt,  plunged over 13,000 feet to her death.  It was found that vital straps in her equipment had been cut. In the week preceding van Doren’s death, Clottemans had been staying with Somers.  Van Doren showed up the night before the jump. Somers chucked Clottemans out of his room, forcing her to sleep on the sofa in the living-room, while he invited van Doren to replace her in his bed. Clottemans, it appears, was well displeased. Clottemans protested her innocence throughout the trial.  She was found guilty by the jury, despite there being absolutely no material evidence.  It seems that her motive – jealousy , her technical knowledge, and that fact that she had the opportunity to sabotage her club-mate’s parachute, were enough to convince them of her  guilt. Excellent material for a short story- but you wouldn’t get away with giving your two protagonists the same name… <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/8078445/Belgian-skydiver-murderer-sentenced-to-30-years.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/8078445/Belgian-skydiver-murderer-sentenced-to-30-years.html</a>

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