AWC Going Dutch June 2020

The Dutch Daily
by Eileen Harloff
Moving On
When I first came to Europe/the Netherlands/
The Hague at the end of the 1950s, a fellow
American colleague offered to show me
around town. In those days, WWII was still
alive in people’s memories and their daily
lives. Cars were few and far between with
the result being that the air was cleaner, the
streets had no potholes, and there were not
throngs of people on the inner-city streets.
People walked or cycled; bike paths were
not the norm and moving vehicles shared
the roads with sometimes disastrous situations
as when the plastic bag of groceries
that hung over my handlebars broke, and
I had to quickly scamper about the street
gathering up my fruit and vegetables before
a car came along. My new colleague,
Sam, was one of the few people I'd met
who had a car―an old, noisy Volkswagen
that could be heard from inside your rooms
as he came down the street. He generously
shared his treasure with others by picking
up and taking home young adult members
of the weekly group he had set up to discuss
current affairs with expats and Dutch who
had spent a year or so in America at various
schools and universities.
Sam offered to show me some of The
Hague’s interesting and unusual sites. We
began with the famous red-light district
where young, loosely clad females were
posing in the windows of the houses. Their
rooms were illuminated with red lights,
past which men of all ages were sauntering,
looking the field over and irritated with the
nosey people in the slow-moving car. All I
wanted was to get out of the area and not
come back. I must emphasize that Sam was
not himself a visitor to the red-light area, but
that he considered it to be one of the city’s
sites to see, which in those days it most certainly
was.
my daily newspaper reporting that the city
fathers are intending to rehouse the raam
(window) prostitutes. At the same time, I
learned from my neighbor that she is a volunteer
with several organizations that have
contacts with young women who are trying
to get out of sex work and start a new life.
Oftentimes these women have come from
Eastern Europe and have been promised
jobs in this country, only to find that instead
they are slaves to men who have brought
them here, have taken their passports and
keep them out of sight. Not knowing the language,
they have nowhere to turn. However,
should they have the opportunity to come
in contact with a fellow prostitute who is a
member of the prostitute trade union, they
could be helped.
So now the city wants to take over the
streets where the prostitutes live and work
and move them to a new location with modern
quarters. Their old rooms will be torn
down and replaced with high-rise buildings
containing flats, offices and showrooms. It
will be the end of a neighborhood, but not
of its reason raison for being. That will continue
until the end of time.
Moving Up
It’s not just old neighborhoods that are being
renewed wherever possible throughout
The Hague. New housing, neighborhoods
and businesses have all been cropping up.
One of the well-known shops that has reinvented
itself is in the neighborhood of our
Clubhouse, on the Frederik Hendriklaan
or “the Fred” as it is known. It’s Paagman,
the bookshop that is a hub for many expats
and Dutch alike, who meet up for coffee or
lunch, for finding a card, magazine, or all
kinds of office supplies, plus a playroom
for the kids, etc. There are also talks by
authors about their latest books. The only
thing that is missing now is the post office,
whose disappearance is undoubtedly due to
the electronic age. Who now, aside from old
people, sends cards, letters, and other hand
and computer written messages? In its place
there is now an English bookstore where it
can be assumed that all the latest books will
be on sale.
An Invention is Softening Falls
In the Netherlands, around 25,000 hip
fractures occur every year. The good news
for older people and those who tend to
fall is there’s a new Dutch invention that
helps protect hips: the Wolk Airbag (www.
wolkairbag.com), a band worn under
clothing resting on the hips that registers
all movements. When it detects that a fall
has taken place, the bag fills with air within
one tenth of a second to absorb the blow. At
the same time, a message is sent to a contact
person with, based on GPS, the location of
the person who has fallen.
This hip airbag
has been
named the Best
Care Innovation
of 2020 for
South Holland
in the preliminary
round
for the Dutch
National Health
Innovation Award. Developed in conjunction
with TU Delft and LUMC, it is being
tested in 15 nursing homes with 1,100
clients, with one already reporting half as
many broken hips as usual have occurred
since its introduction.
Miniature Dinosaurs
Speaking of bones, paleontologists working
in Myanmar have discovered a birdlike
skull of one of the smallest dinosaurs
to have ever lived embedded in a fragment
of 99-million-year-old amber. The head was
about the size of a bee hummingbird, the
smallest living bird, and the eyes resembled
those of a lizard. It had a surprising number
of sharp teeth, so might have eaten insects
despite its tiny size. This find may shed light
on how small birds evolved from dinosaurs.
The place where it was found was formerly
on a chain of islands that later joined together
to form the present country.
Travel4U@americantravelcenter.net/www.americantravelcenter.nl/tel. +3261234901
“Our next holiday is
a safari. They do
the whole world!”
“They make booking a
holiday so easy. I just
leave it to them!”
“Every trip is
customized, just for
me! That’s unique!”
Just the other day this long-ago experience
came to mind when an article appeared in
24 GOING DUTCH
JUNE 2020 25