Week 12

Week 12

Newspaper Article

From the Friesch Dagblad 19 maart, 2016

"Resident status refugees get a place in Care Farm"

Just saying that we will be having refugees in two apartments. It also mentions our previous experience and that we were considered "too small" this time around. 

Just on that, there was a TV show a few weeks ago, "Youth News", which showed a camp here in the Netherlands, with 3000 "residents" - refugees from various places. 

 2 young teenage girls from Iraq were interviewed. they said Dutch people don't like the fact that they are from Iraq and not Syria at the moment. Food is not nice. They are cold. People smoke inside the big tents. No privacy. The Children's Ombudsman said people should remember what they have been through just to get here. With the large numbers this time around, the government policy seems to be all about large accommodation. This might be to do with reducing administration costs, but it doesn't seem to be very good for the refugees themselves. As I think back it seems that they had it pretty good at our place, compared with the current images shown on TV. Other news items have shown residents protesting about 700 refugees planned for a village of only 300 residents, for example.

 This letter has been prepared by the Local Govt., to send to our neighbourhood: Just smoothing the way so that people know what is going on. Key to us is the start date - as yet unknown.....maybe we will know more by april or may.

Geachte meneer/mevrouw,

Met deze brief lichten wij het voornemen toe, twee families tijdelijke huisvesting te bieden in twee appartementen bij zorgboerderij De Twa Bûken, aan Duerswâld 9 in Wijnjewoude.

Opsterland heeft de wens een humanitaire en maatschappelijke bijdrage te leveren aan de vluchtelingenproblematiek. Hiervoor wordt naar mogelijkheden gezocht die passen binnen de Opsterlandse schaal. Eén mogelijkheid is vluchtelingen met een verblijfsvergunning (zo genoemde statushouders) tijdelijk huisvesting te bieden. Zij komen van een AZC, wonen tijdelijk ergens zelfstandig (bijvoorbeeld een vakantiewoning of iets dergelijks) en gaan vervolgens naar een (huur)woning waar zij permanent blijven wonen.

Het is de bedoeling om in de Twa Bûken twee gezinnen tegelijk in twee appartementen te huisvesten. De gezinnen zullen maximaal vier maanden hier blijven wonen. Binnen deze vier maanden wordt een vaste woning voor de gezinnen in Opsterland gezocht. De kinderen zullen naar school gaan en de ouders krijgen begeleiding van Timpaan Welzijn om het dagelijks leven in Opsterland te leren kennen en om zelfstandig te kunnen wonen. Timpaan maakt hierbij ook gebruik van vrijwilligers.

Op dit moment is nog niet duidelijk met ingang van welke datum de gezinnen in de Twa Bûken gaan wonen. Wij verwachten u hier ergens in april of mei over te kunnen informeren.

Wij zijn blij dat we deze samenwerking met meneer en mevrouw Copeland van de Twa Bûken aan kunnen gaan. Als de samenwerking van beide kanten goed bevalt, is het de bedoeling om na vertrek van de eerste twee gezinnen, nieuwe gezinnen op de locatie tijdelijk te huisvesten.

Als u vragen heeft, kunt u contact opnemen met de gemeente via het algemene nummer 0512-386222. U kunt vragen naar Hieke Ferwerda.

Further re Thomas

NB This is not supposed to about Thomas, per se, but more about the "system" and how it works - I'm in the dark most of the time, especially with all the jargon flying around - but mostly I just do what I'm told!
Anyway, Thomas is supposed to be going to live semi-permanently in a Care Farm like ours, but which has a residential function, which we do not. The owners of the new place insisted on a better financial settlement, which they had to negotiate with the Local Govt. We have been an "emergency" solution for over 6 months now. The residential deal includes payment for "normal" schooldays - so if, for some reason, Thomas doesn't go to school, then those extra hours have to be paid for - I've said before that we have just coped with it because he is one of "ours" and it was such a bad situation at home. Maybe we have been too emotionally involved - the new people have a much better eye on the financial side of things.
So, again we wait and see......

Good Friday.....

......takes me by surprise, again! It's just a normal working day here, and that in a much more obviously religious community than (my experience of) Melbourne.
We were supposed to go to the boat for a bit of a relax - but I've been painting the new apartment..... I hate painting, but at least I have my audio books for company! 

The boat awaits.....

Old Photos - Wijnjewoude 

Photos and information provided from Wijnjewoude.net

Our Place Circa 1971

The tree in the top right corner is one of "De Twa Buken" (The Two Beeches), which were cut down due to sickness just before we moved in. Janny is on the far right; with two sisters and a girlfriend.

The previous house Circa 1960 (destroyed by fire circa 1970). Note The Two Beeches......

That house circa 1920; 

with Jelke Douwes Rozema and Betje Sipkes Smid. Jelke was an uncle of Hendrik (Janny's father).

The girl at the rear, right, was the daughter of family Goedhart. She had been evacuated (Amsterdam?) during WWI, and taken in by this family.

As an interesting byline, we were given the gravestones of Jelke and Betje. I think after a certain amount of time, the gravestones are removed if there is nobody left to pay whatever fees are applicable. We were asked if we wanted them...... still not sure what to do with them, though.

Other photos of Wijnjewoude - Wijnjewoude is a combination of two villages Wijnjeterp and Duurswoude

Wijnjeterp Circa 1936

One of the (newly built) houses was for the "Village Constable".

Firehouse near the church Circa 1917

(the wooden structure with the bicycle)

Until this year, we had traffic lights here...

the main road Circa 1900

Opsterland Map 1845 (The star near the centre is us). Opsterland is our Local Govt. area.

(Have I mentioned here before that the church just down the road from us was built (completed) in 1295)? I often think about what it must have been like 700 years ago - the church must have been an important focal point.

On books...

I was about to publish this week and I thought about my reference to audio books which I listen to just about all the time - especially when painting, mowing or walking. I'm able to read many more books in the course of a year than I would otherwise. If I try to read a "normal" book in bed, for example, I simply fall asleep! If I wake up in the middle of the night, I usually listen to a podcast; more often than not it puts me back to sleep, but sometimes I get something interesting enough to keep me awake. Stuff You Should Know or Things You Missed In History, Tech News, BBC News Quiz, etc.

I had long ago read everything I could get in English from the local library, so it became a challenge to find "stuff" on the internet. Around 2002/2004 I found a Russian site that had English books available to download; I just had to learn to use the navigation buttons in Russian. Microsoft had a product then called MS Reader, which reproduced the books so that they looked like a book on my laptop; I remember being so immersed in the book that I would often reach out to turn the page! (Microsoft missed the boat with that one).

I think in the 70's I had read a series of books by John D. MacDonald,  but I couldn't remember his name, or the names of any of the books. So, I sent a query to the chat room on the Russian site... something like "does anyone know of a series of books about a private detective who lives on a houseboat in Florida"?. Now the point of my reminiscing ..... I actually got a reply from a woman who lived in Saudi Arabia! She told me who the author was and where I could find them to download - so I read all the books again! The woman, Diane Overby, was so well spoken (written) that I asked her if the was of English background - she said no, American, and she was in an arranged marriage living in Saudi Arabia - her single passion was reading ebooks - on an early device, a Palm Pilot, I think. BUT, she had to do it secretly because she was forbidden to read ANYTHING. Her kids were also restricted but she tried to encourage them, again secretly. This is now at least 12 years ago, but it made such an impression on me that I have never forgotten. We only exchanged a few emails and I think she had to stop for fear of being found out.

Footnote: just for fun I found the old Russian site - it is still going and my login details still work - after what must be about 8 or more years. I also looked to see if I still had Diane Overby's email address - but that is long gone - it was before my gmail began in 2004.