Summer and Automn 2011 in Olen/Belgium

Travelling in Africa is not really cheap. Rather the opposite. After my first experience in Africa I definetly want a second. To do so I needed some money income. When I was in Zuigenchoir in Senegal I´ve got this mail from Charles in Olen, the place I worked last year already. Anyway Charles was offering me a job to build the "little bear". This happened at the end of March. Sure, Belgium was not just around the corner, but I told him I will be there at the end of May. But to get there I first had a long way home, (check:The long way home) and second I had to look after my place in Spain. So not really a big deal of time. But I made it. On May the 20th I arrived in Olen.I was planning to stay almost 5month, so this time I decided to take my bike as well. The bike is an old Honda XL500, great bike, I love it.

The only thing I had to fix on the car was an oil and filter change on the engine and the gear boxes. Nothing else to fix. Amazing actually after more than 17000km in Africa. Yeah, what I did was putting on normal street tires. I was not planning to go off-roading. And than where in Europe you would need a 4x4 anyway. I didn´t take the shortest road from Spain to Belgium. I passed by in Fillols in France. This is a small village located close to Perpignan in the french Pyrenees. Some friends of mine are living there. I know them from the time when I was staying in this area, fixing cars, tractors, machines etc. Coincidentally, just before take-off in Spain I recieved a mail from them. They asked me if I would like to buy their car, a Landrover Dicovery. And as a matter of fact this car is equiped with excatly the type of engine I want to put in my car. So I went there to have a look. First it was nice to meet my friends again after what; four or five years and second the car, the engine was still good, so we made a deal. I didn´t stay long at their place, which is very close to the Canigou, the highest peak in the area. I had to move on. The Landrover itself is a very slow moving car, but with a trailor...uphill, I was just waiting for some cyclists to overtake me. Like I said: On Friday evening the 20th of May I arrived in Olen.
Back in Olen, it didn´t look much different then last November when I left.
On the picture; on the left Charles in the green shirt, Nikolaas and me in front of the "big bear". The building I built together with Davy, Maurice and the help of two school-classes who had their practical week, last year.

Here is a little back up about the "Wereldwerf" in Olen. Charles is calling this place initiative-village. It is combining various project under one umbrella-project. There is an old peoples home, the herberg, a cafe which is turned over by Carina, Charles´wife, the hebbeding a wool work shop as well runned by Carina, a recycling wall,a wood work place, an organic garden and finally the future kindergarten the big and the little bear.
The place can be checked out here.
What we were doing was building the kindergarten. Charles is as well member of the WWOOF. I was member of the WWOOF last year. This is actually how I found this place. When ever possible, Charles is doing as much work as possible with volunteers. Sure, most of them are untrained workers, but they are all doing their best. Back to the subject: The kindergarten will contain two buildings the big bear and the little bear. Both together will host 23 children or maybe better babies in the age between six weeks and three years. Like last year I was employed to build. I will not explain step by step of the building, I´ll give just a general overview.
The base of both buildings are old office containers which were given to the project as a donation. We used these containers and built the actual building around it. Still using the containers as a base. Two pictures will explain better.

The 5 office container which was the base for the little bear

The meaning of Wereldwerf is something like world-yard. People turning up and working here from all over the world gave the place its name. This year I was working with people from New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Poland, Spain, Kanada, Ireland, Rumania, Minnesota and even Australia.

Two WWOOFers, Markos from Spain and August from Ohio

So, daily routine kicked in, which is to be honest, not my favorit. Charles is recalling everybody in the morning between 9 and 11 to the so called day-opening. He is doing so by walking with a bag-pipe over the grounds. I know now why this thing was invented by the scottish to scare the english off. It sounds horrible. Anyway, day opening starts with singing a russian song. I have to admit, I am not a singer so I was just listening. Afterwards everybody is telling about his or her yesterday, the problems people had or solutions what ever was on schedule. This is a nice way to start the day. Once we were almost 15 people at day-opening and even the song "moja galleta" which means something like many springtimes sounded really nice.
Deadline to open up the kindergarten was the 10th of October. But we didn´t make it. We had not many volunteers turning up this year. So the majority part of the job was done by myself.
To be honest, I loved doing this work. Especially working with wood and on top of it using my own creativity was great. I can´t remember how often we changed the building plans. But this is a good thing to do. Why would you go on building by the old plan when there is a better solution.
One person I have to mention; Hanneke, she will be the manager of the kindergarten for maybe the first year. In fact as long as it takes to get everything started. She is a smart
woman with a great knowledge of her job.
My time at the Wereldwerf ended at the last weekend in October. The building is still not finished but I had to leave. There are people waiting for me, both in Spain and in Africa,
and the car still needs a great deal of attention. So I left three weeks
later than planed. Did I mention Albert. He is a good friend of Charles and a very important person in legal advice etc. Anyway, he said: "I am sure we will see you again". Who knows, he might be right. There might be a new project, starting next year. If so I might join in again.
It was not easy to leave. On one hand I would have loved to stay but on the other hand I couldn´t. So a very big "thank you" to all the people who made my stay in Olen being a plessure.
And a special thanx to Carina for the lovely food.

Click here to have a look at some pictures on Picassa photostream.