New Beginnings (Failing in the Field)

Today was literally something to write home about: it was my first day on the last farm I'll visit in the Netherlands. I can't even write about the farm work yet, that starts tomorrow morning, but the trek up to Smallebrugge is worthy of a post in itself.

After saying some tough goodbyes Saturday morning, I left Hof van Twello and set off for Amsterdam, where I would be having dinner with some friends. I had made this trip before so it was a cakewalk; when I got into town, I did some reading and then had a great dinner with a family I'd met earlier in my trip. Around 8pm I set off for Zaandam, a thirty minute train ride away, to sleep.

Now, this is where the trip got a little more complicated: I had no celular data. I was able to find the family's house in Amsterdam by piggybacking off of some restaurant's WiFi, but by the time I got to Zaandam my phone had died (woohoo for water damage) so my Maps came up blank. With no connection, I set out what I thought was east with a picture in my head of a map that I had looked at before. My photographic memory really saved my ass here, unfortunately my ability to determine cardinal directions did not. What originally was a fifteen minute walk from the station to my hostel stretched to about forty five minute meander but by the grace of god I ended up in a bed instead of sleeping under a bridge.

The view of Zaanse Schans from the Juliana Brug

When I first shared a blog post on Facebook, an old friend encouraged me to visit Zaanse Schans, which was part of the reason I chose to stay in Zaandam instead of Amsterdam Saturday night. Sunday morning, I checked out of the hostel and walked the hour up to Zaanse Schans. Though the walk was mostly along abandoned industrial complexes, Zaanse Schans itself was beautiful: it had massive windmills, intricate canals, sheep grazing on islands, the whole shabingshabang. I got a cheap coffee and took a nice stroll; it was the nicest morning I've had during this trip.

The Zaandam Station (right) & Town Hall (left)

The view of the IJsselmeer on the ride up to Leeuwarden

After I'd had my fill of beauty, I walked back down to Zaandam to board a train to Alkmaar. Once I arrived at Alkmaar, I hopped on a bus to Leeuwarden, where I would be staying Sunday night. The bus ride was beautiful- for the bulk of it, the bus was crossing the IJsselmeer, a large inland bay, which made for some really nice views. Luckily, I had taken extensive notes on the timetables and routes so I didn't need internet to help me on the way up. Once I got there however... I was kinda screwed. From the image of Leeuwarden in my head, I knew there was a park to the West of my Airbnb (some times you gotta treat yo self) and that the Airbnb was South of the station, but the rest was just a blur. Using the sun, I eventually found the park where I sat in a tree for a few hours and read until I could check in to my place for the night. 

The next morning, I downloaded a new book, Failing in the Field. I've finished it over the past two days but it was an excellent read, combining the seriousness of research practices with a hint of comedy by telling the stories of failed field projects. One of the authors, Dean Karlan, founded the Innovations for Poverty Action, which is my current dream internship, so it was funny to hear stories of failure from an academic I venerate so much.

I starting reading on my way down to Smallebrugge, a small town consisting of six farms. First, I took a train to Sneek and then a bus to Smallebrugge... except the bus driver had different plans. Instead of stopping at the Smallebrugge bus stop, despite my telling him where I was headed when I boarded AND my pressing of the stop button, he kept on driving, even while I was telling him that he skipped my stop. After a few minutes of arguing, he pulled to the side of the road and I got out. At this point, I learned that my phone also ran out of minutes, so I was in a bit of a predicament. Instead of being able to call Siebe, the farmer I'm working for, I had to just hope that I'd be able to get onto the island the farm is on.

But before I could even worry about that, I had to walk six kilometers back to the Smallebrugge bus stop and then two kilometers west. I walked for eighty minutes, until I was faced with a bull standing in the road. At this point, all I could do was laugh; I had gotten all this way, taken four trains, ridden two buses, and walked several hours just to be stuck. After a bout of laughter, I walked until I found a farmer kind enough to give me a ride past the menacing steer. Finally, two hours later than I planned, I arrived on the dock of the farm and was able to holler across the river so that someone came over.

I spent my first day getting acquainted with the farm, walking around the 432 acre island, meeting the family, and seeing a couple of the cows. It was very different than the Hof for many reasons: this farm is also a nature reserve, so while Siebe raises cows, he also fosters a habitat for endangered birds like the godwit; here, I will have a lot more interaction with the farmer, not only do I work side-by-side with him but I also eat my meals with him and his family; and this is a more rural, poorer area of the Netherlands, so I will not have many of the luxuries I had back in Twello.

At the same time that these two weeks are a part of my trip, they present me with a completely new beginning. Everything is different here at Natuureiland Gouden Bodem and I'm super stoked!