We arrived at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam around 10:30am on Tuesday 28 September. It was a drizzly morning, but not quite as cold as we had been warned. From the airport we were meant to get a shuttle to Rotterdam, a city about 45 km south of Amsterdam. Alas, our shuttle driver did not bother to arrive. We tried frantically to search for him, but at 3pm we decided to board a train. It was a swift ride from Schiphol with respites at Leiden then de Haag and finally Rotterdam, all in about 45 minutes. The train itself was destined for Dordrecht! Our next worry upon disembarking was to find our hotel (Manhattan), but luckily it was situated right across the station.
To the shuttle driver who did not pick us up: thanks for nothing!
The purpose of our visit to Holland was to attend “Deltas in the times of Climate Change” Conference. I was with Lebo, one of the Directors in Environmental Department of the City of JHB. The conference was attended by 1200 delegates from mainly deltas cities, eg., Netherlands, Vietnam, USA, Canada, Indonesia, Italy, Ethiopia, Egypt and other countries.
Netherlands or least some parts of it are situated below sea level and the country is incredibly flat.Two thirds of the country is vulnerable to flooding. Economies of its cities are built around its big rivers, and now climate change poses a serious risk to undo these gains. But it appears the Dutch are undaunted by this, instead they are fired-up and are working hard to protect themselves against flooding, storm surges or sea level rise. They have built levees and dikes (artificial slopes) to protect themselves against negative impacts of climate change.The Dutch have not lost lives in many years despite the dangers of flooding. As an observer, I asked myself how long will they go in creating these artificial barriers to protect themselves against nature?
There is a lot of work on the ground, at municipal, university, national government and even continental level to deal with the negative impacts of climate change.
The Dutch took this conference very seriously, even his Royal Highness the crown prince of Orange, Willem-Alexander,blessed it with his presence. Yes, Holland has a monarchy.The prince was born in Utrecht and is now 43 years old. I was told the prince will take the reigns in less than 10 years. This news was told to me by one Johan Burger, who was born in Benoni but moved with his family to Holland when he was about 4 years old.
The visit was meant to be only four days, and therefore there was very little time to do much. But how is the city of Rotterdam?
Rotterdam is the second largest city in Holland with a population of just over 600 000. What is interesting to note is that, despite the city having high levels of education, most apartments in the city center (about 80%) are rented. Equally interesting is the fact that the city has a high percentage (51%) of foreigners and most shops (70%) in the city center are run by them (Wikipedia). Perhaps it is not surprising then to note that the mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb is Moroccan born. The mayor holds dual citizenship: Morocco and Netherlands (Wikipedia).
A cursory look around the city, you get an impression of a modern city, as typified by its architecture of high-rise buildings. The story goes that Rotterdam was heavily bombarded during the Second World War so much so that it no longer has any old buildings to take note of. In fact I was told that even the high-rise buildings evident everywhere in the city started to sprout by around 1986. Now citizens of Rotterdam take great pride in the magnificent new high-rise buildings littered all over the city.
The transport system is fantastic. It’s a bicycle paradise. Everybody seems to own one. The observation I made is that women seem to be the ones who enjoy using them. There are trams here, buses and underground trains and everything is synchronized perfectly. But even so, there are traffic jams; it appears the middle class of Rotterdam like their cars.
People speak Dutch, but English is also readily available. Because we were schooled in Afrikaans it was not difficult at times to read what was written in shops or billboards or public signage. It would seem though, to get by, one needs to learn Dutch. I have noticed that there is a sprinkling of Black people too and their ancestry can be traced from such places as Suriname, Netherlands Antilles [Islands in the Caribbean Sea], Cape Verde and other parts of Africa. A curious observation I made is that most of them seem to prefer dreadlocks as their hairstyle. I guess it was rather unfortunate to see in Netherlands a phenomenon so pervasive in South Africa, that of having jobs like cleaning of toilets and washing of floors appear as if it is an exclusive preserve of Black people.
We bought in Euros,and so things were on the expensive side.
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