It's raining on the polder. The land is frypan-flat, so you can see the anvil-shaped clouds from miles away. The ducks like it: ambling across the lawn in a tight group, chatting sociably among themselves, they're dispatching a slug a second from its mortal coil. Their upright postures, their elegant black-and-white or tan-and-beige plumage, and the familiar modulations of their vocalizations seem like a satire of human self-importance; the ducks look like tiny senators or businessmen. Inside the house, we sit in the living room, reading or sewing silently, in the company of the dog and two kittens.
Holland largely conforms to America's imagination of it, with rustic windmills, ancient buildings, and a dense population. In contrast, the Noordoostpolder is farmland sparsely dotted with mid-century concrete government constructions. The farm we are working on lies 3 meters below sea level. Seventy years ago, it was under water. In the late 1920s, construction began on the first of a series of massive civil engineering projects in the Zuiderzee, a large bay of the North Sea. In 1932, the Zuiderzee was cut off from the ocean by an enormous dyke, and the process of desalinization began. A decade later, during the Nazi occupation, the Noordoostpolder ("Northeast-polder," "polder" being a word for land reclaimed from the sea through the use of dikes, canals, and pumps) was drained of its water and began to be cultivated for agricultural production. The soil is rich silt deposits originating from the Alps, washed in from the Rhine River. This enriched ground and a high water table make the Noordoostpolder the breadbasket of the Netherlands. By design, its land is given over almost entirely to intensive agriculture.
Jenna and I work for Henrike, whose small vegetable farm is an independent entity within her partner, Digni's, larger farm. Both farms are organic. They grow a large variety of high-quality produce, including lima beans, fennel, beets, spinach, carrots, corn, and zucchini - but this list doesn't even come close to naming all of the growing things on Henrike and Digni's farms. Jenna and I harvested an enormous amount of garlic from Henrike's plot last week, our primary task. We've also worked a little bit for Digni and his son Krispijn, weeding, cutting cabbage, and harvesting multi-colored carrots. The cabbage is destined for a sauerkraut factory. Digni's is the only farm that supplies this factory, and the factory is the only one in the Netherlands; therefore, if you happen to be in Europe this fall and you buy some Dutch saurkraut, it came from Digni's fields. It's a hell of a process to harvest the cabbage, by the way: you're equipped with a serrated mini-machete, and with a violent combination of a stab to the root and a hard twist, you decapitate the two-foot-diameter cabbages from their outer leaves. Then you have to pick them up (they weigh up to 20 pounds) and Larry Bird them into wooden crates towed by a tractor.
Henrike and Digni are wonderful people. They share a home, and a room, but they are very clear that the business between them is separate, although Henrike will sometimes lend Digni her tractor or add the labor of her WWOOFers to his paid crew, and he, likewise, helps her out with tractors or labor when she gets busy. Henrike is a former sports instructor for adults from Germany, and she's tough and strong, but also a very kind and accepting teacher who understands that Jenna and I are new to all of this. Henrike works at unimaginable speed, often literally sprinting from task to task. She's also inexaustible. After a day cutting and pitching cabbages, she breezily mentioned that she needed to have dinner early, so she could go teach a Body Pump workshop that evening. Jenna and I, who were puddles on the floor at that point, attempted to contain our disbelief. I wish I could be half as productive. Her English is perfect, prompting me, for the umpteenth time on this trip, to thank my lucky stars that this most widely-comprehended language is my mother tongue. Digni came across as a little gruff at first - a characteristically Dutch trait - and neither Jenna nor I were sure if he liked us. There's a book on Dutch ettiquette and manners written for ex-pats sitting on the shelf of the caravan we call home here. It conjectures that Dutch straight-talk derives from the historical influence of Calvinism, which holds flattery and ceremony in disdain, on Dutch society. It may well be. Digni radiates competence and commands respect, which can be daunting. Initially, it was difficult not to see his eminent capabilities in practical matters as an exemplar against which to score my personal deficiencies. After breaking bread with him for some time, I see him now as a much more rounded and gentle character. He's opened up a lot in the days we've been here and said some really nice things to us.
Bikes are a less dominant form of transportation here than in Amsterdam, but still very useful. The polder is roughly circular. If it were a wheel, the main town of Emmeloord (population 25,000) would be the hub, with 11 small communities at the terminal ends of the spokes. All of the towns are within easy biking distance of Emmeloord. We are closer to Ens (population 2,000). Ens is more or less a small grocery store, a few apartment blocks, and a drug store staffed by surly employees who seemingly don't want my money. A third WWOOFer, Daniel, arrived from Amsterdam a couple days ago, and the three of us rode to Emmeloord together after work. It's easily the least beautiful city we've seen thus far, epitomizing the utilitarian ethos that pervades the Noordoostpolder. The buildings are low, concrete is prevalent, and the stores are similar to what you might expect from an American roadside shopping plaza. The town is built around a red-brick street mall terrorized by an anarchic admixture of bicycle, moped, and pedestrian traffic with no discernable method in its movements. As orderly and well-planned as most aspects of Dutch urbanism are, the bicycle traffic is a terrifying scourge from which there is no refuge, because Dutch bicyclists are like electrons: potentially everywhere, moving in every direction, simultaneously.
The animals are a source of great amusement here. There are, as I mentioned, two kittens, maybe three months old, holding all of us in their thrall. We all vie for their fickle affections, and I think they know it. These attentions are, of course, closely correlated with the likelihood that you will pour them a bowl of milk. Even Rox, the border collie mutt, likes the kittens. He will herd one or the other around the room, then pin it to the floor and gently chew on it. Bizarrely, the kittens are complicit in this play, and purr as Rox nuzzles and gnaws them. Rox lives a very good life. He follows Digni's workers out onto the field every day and chases the weeds as they get pulled from the soil. He's usually muddy, and always grinning.
Days on the farm follow a simple rhythm. We wake up in our (very small) caravan at 6:40, perform our morning ablutions, and come into the main house for breakfast. Typically, this is toast with a choice of spreads - butter, beet-sugar molasses, peanut butter, yeast spread (like Marmite, but lighter) - or muesli with yogurt or milk (or soy versions thereof). Almost all the food in Henrike and Digni's household is organic, and most of it comes from local providers. We eat on wooden discs, like cutting boards. Work begins around 7:30, and we break for coffee at 9:30. A coffee breaks are taken seriously in the Netherlands. Coffee or tea is served outside, if the weather is good, along with a small snack. We work again until noon, when we eat lunch. We have another coffee break, signalling the end of our workday, at 3:00. If we were paid crew, we would go back out until 5 PM, but WWOOFers are only expected to put in 30 hours a week or so. We've gone out a few times after work on our bikes to swim at a nearby nettle-farm-cum-resort-cum-vanity-project, but often opt to stay in and read. We also cook a lot. Jenna has continued her pre-Europe baking streak, and made some delicious zucchini- and carrot-breads.
It's hard to overestimate what an amazing time we're having here. I know that I will remember this for the rest of my life as a positive, formative experience. We're working hard every day and going to bed with the tiredness that comes from exertion. It's a welcome change from my jobs in Philadelphia to be able to identify visible and quantifiable products of my labor at the end of the day.
Our most recent attempt at CouchSurfing, I'm relieved to say, seems to have been successful. We sent out 8 or 10 Couch "requests" to hosts in Copenhagen, and received some awesome and wonderful replies. Even the people who couldn't host us had some really encouraging things to say. We received two definite yesses, one from a woman who lives in a radical housing co-op near Christiania, and can show us around the area, especially the occupied (squatted) spaces. The other yes is from a fellow who just moved onto a boat! He offered to host us with the caveat that it's pretty small and he hasn't hosted people in his boat yet, but one doesn't look a night on a boat in Copenhagen in the mouth. I'm hoping to split our nights between these hosts.
Leave a Reply