Fighting the Cobbles - My trip to Belgium in 2018, Part 39 in Namur (Part 2)

Sunday, July 01, 2018

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”

Jack Kerouac, (1922 – 1969), American novelist

Namur (or Nameur in Walloon) is the capital of the province of Namur and Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, Walloon Government and administration (Wikipedia). As I've noted before, Belgium is made of two major parts: Flanders in the North and Wallonia (Wallonie in French), the predominantly French-speaking southern region of Belgium. With a land area of 16,844 km2 (6,504 sq mi), it makes up 55% of the territory of Belgium, although its 3.5 million inhabitants only represent 1/3 of the whole Belgian population. Most of the cities are located along the west-east axis formed by the Sambre and Meuse Rivers. And here am was, in the French center of Belgium, Namur.

Namur with Citadelle and Bridge of the River Meuse

When I woke up with a smile I took a nice shower first. For me, it is necessary to stay as clean as possible just to avoid and health and in particular skin on the trip. I packed my things and left the hotel. To reduce some of the high prices I did not order a breakfast; I've planned to eat somewhere else. As I checked out no one of the three receptionists was interested in this guest, I was not even worth a 'thank you' or 'goodbye'.

After I left I took a picture of the African Museum opposite the hotel and decided to go to the train where I saw an American fast food restaurant yesterday. Not many people were eating there so I've ordered an Angus Beef Hamburger Menu as breakfast and put the receipt in my wallet, not thinking much of it.

As I ate I watched an elderly couple ordering breakfast and the man stood in front of the toilet, took out his receipt and pressed numbers into the lock beside the toilet and it 'magically' opened and stepped in...I thought this is strange and I took out my receipt. After I finished my meal I separated my garbage and disposed of them in the proper boxes. I packed my things, took my sports bag and went to the toilet door. There I punched my 'secret number' from my receipt in a safe lock like in a prison cell - and I was able to open it and get in!

In my over 50 years on this earth, this was the first time I opened a door like a safe but in this case, so something ordinary like a toilet. Inside it I had to take out my camera to record one of the cleanest and loneliest toilets I had ever the pleasure to visit in my whole life! In amazement, I still asked myself "Is this effort just to 'easy your daily business' really necessary?"The Belgians believe this...

Full and energized I wanted to give the tourist information and 2nd chance; as I already wrote it was closed yesterday. So I walked to the nearby train station and, to my surprise, I opened the door to a bright and friendly room with three kind ladies only waiting for a tourist like me on this early Sunday morning. I chose one counter and asked if there is a Youth Hostel in Namur. With a friendly smile and a clear French dialect, the lady answered 'of course'! She took out a free map and drew the way with a blue ball pen on it.

Train Station of Namur with a Construction Crane towering over it in the Back

As it was early Sunday and my French is limited I asked her if she could call and make sure if they are open today and - she called. I did not understand their conversation but after she hung up the telephone she replied with a smile: "They have opened!" "Oh, mercy!" was my answer but even if I tried, my smile could never be as shiny as hers, that I am sure of!

With a map, good news and even better spirit I stepped out into a wonderful morning and was on the way to the Youth Hostel to make a reservation for the next night. As this part of Namur can only lead downhill to the Meuse River I've tried to choose another way but somehow I came again to the African Museum. There I took a picture of an African statue standing in a hallway - in other countries it might be gone long ago...

Statue of African Mother with Child

Looking at this statue, a mother carrying her baby, I could sense the power of the female in general and here the African women especially. But they often are mistreated and broken not only by men of her own race. Surely God created the women out with the rib of men but as a 'helper', neither as a slave nor as a toy for men. A male does not have the right to look down, be subject to sexual harassment or to control them but should rather respect the women and their sacrifices.

The USA had the chance to vote for an experienced female politician like so many other developed countries in this world. But they rather choose a coarse self-proclaimed ‘successful’ dominant male with too much testosterone who believes in steamroller approach than diplomacy to be their president. And now the Americans have to deal with what they earned...

(to be continued)

#Namur #NamurTouristInformation #toilet #NamurYouthHostel #WomenRights #USA

Disclaimer: I traveled Belgium by myself, I am not sponsored by anyone. Interested subscribers and/or followers in traveling an in this small but beautiful country are more than welcome!

Growing Up, part 4

A German Youth

Grown up in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s

I was born the 1960s which were one of the ‘best’ years in recent German history. The reason for this ‘Economic Miracle’ or Wirtschaftswunder was the reconstruction and development from the devastated West Germany into a solid country with a modern economy. The big but open ‘secret’ of this success was the adapted social market economy, “combining a free market capitalist economy system with social policies which establish both fair competition with the market and a welfare state” (wikepedia). 
   If I would single out one German ‘achievement’ to be proud of it would be this social market economy. The ideas can be traced back to Karl Marx (1818-1883) who published Capital, Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie) in 1867. The roots of the West German economy started when the Chancellor of the German empire, Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), implemented the 'Sickness Insurance Law' for every German citizen in 1883 (!), the very same year when Marx died! 
   What a contrast between two men living in two different times: von Bismarck saw in 1883 the need for the government to "to provide sickness insurance" for the German workers while Donald Trump in 2017 sees the American worker as a profit center with plans to cut the expenses and turn them over to private insurance companies! 
   My father grew up in the countryside of Bavaria close to the Czech border. After the war there was not much work there so his sister encouraged him to move to Reutlingen to become a much needed trucker. At that time the area around this city was blessed with smaller and larger enterprises seeing a chance to earn their part in the recovery of West Germany.

Me and my father in the Bavarian countryside

   As mentioned my parents were legitimized to get a cheap apartment through the co-operative or non-profit housing association (Gemeinnützige Wohnungsgesellschaft) which was created to help and support low income and multi-child families. 

   Generally the idea to help needy families is great. But in our case the ‘low income’ community was created right in the middle of an area of proud house owners; in the front of our apartment were traditional houses while further behind the government developed a new area for private house owners. These owners were not very fond of the non-profit housing residents with their social issues and their noisy kids running around.

   Sometimes we played European football on the sloping grass in front of our house. Very seldom we kicked the ball over the fence into the neighbor’s garden. Once, the elderly lady refused to handle us our ball. I rang the door bell and, living on the 1st floor, my mother opened only the window to ask me what happened. After I explained her that the neighbor did not want to handle us the ball “to teach us a lesson” nothing could stop my 1.6 m short but 70 km heavy mother. She literally ran to the elder lady, a tirade of words exploded out of her and after a clear warning “not the do it again” we had the ball in our hands within a few seconds.

   In my family there was only one choice of school: not far away from home. In primary school we had to walk for about 20 minutes (one way) including a railroad crossing. At that time there was a level-crossing attendant who lowered the gates still by hand after a warning signal. Later the government built two pedestrian bridge and a bridge for the railroad tracks just to save his one job.

   I remember my mother, in true Nazi-fashion, just showed me at the age of 6 the way to school only once (!), how to cross the roads and the railroad tracks - that was it, only one time!

   My mother was very clear about the school time table of each of her children. She knew exactly when we had off and calculated the time we have to arrive at home. If we were too late she took this as an offense against herself and would not let you go. I’d rather cut off my time with classmates or neighbors walking the same way home and even ran sometimes just not to offend her. I would rather have peace for the day, never mind the sweating from running home...

(to be continued)