Dinsdag: waddag
A tight plan had been announced: breakfast at 7.30, on our bikes an hour later. We were rudely awakened at seven by Adele, as one of our teachers had her ‘Set Fire To The Rain’ rather loudly as his alarm clock. When he snoozed her, the students with the best beds to this concert (including me) got up, collectively thinking ‘are you kidding me?’ But already realising we’d laugh about it later. A few students from the other room had moved their matrasses from their beds to the living room, to hide from snoring sounds. But since our doors were open too, I don’t think this move was that successful. Anyway, after breakfast I thought I had to decide what to wear (from a practical point of view, not a fashion one) quickly and I packed my little backpack and waited outside.
And I waited outside some more. Eventually saying I’d stay in bed half an hour later the next morning. I had gone for my pair of summer sneakers, which had little holes in them already. Mudflat hiking was on the agenda for our group. The other group would go to the tidal marsh. You’d think boots are the best option to keep dry feet, but apparently they get stuck in the mud easier and chances of keeping dry feet were slim anyway. Anyway, we cycled back to (near) the harbour, spotting birds along the way. We had some time as the sea was still on its way back, for low tide. The birds were waiting for this too. In the meantime we searched for signs of life we could capture with our cameras. It was a bit grey, but not really cold, as we kept walking south.
Both groups had been divided again into even smaller groups, leaving five of us working together during the day and four sub-groups in total presenting their findings in the evening. So two mud-groups set out a transect today, with each ten sticks. We had to describe the a-biotic factors at each ‘pole’ and count the organisms found in a square metre of the examined spot. This to conclude later what the relation is between the sort of ground and the amount of different organisms we found. Mudflats are rare. And though there aren’t many different species, the ones that do manage to live under the ever changing circumstances of the tides, they flourish. We did so too, in the way that working together with this group was a pleasure. It seemed to go naturally, but it’s worth treasuring.
Of some I already knew they’re on the same frequency I am, but new friends have been made almost instantly too. The other group stopped for lunch after pole six. We only needed to look at each other to conclude we wanted to finish before we walked back. Edwin, who had joked all morning about me doing the dirty work (I love mud though), was the first to sit on his knees. So we jokingly said to our teacher, Huub: “Too bad we can’t use the showers this afternoon right”, winking at him to play along. He asked what was wrong with the showers then. Never mind. We had taken a before-shot of our feet by the way, knowing it would be fun to do an after-picture, but we forgot as we struggled back expressing happiness about being the first group to reach the showers.
“Oh but you can’t have a shower”, Huub suddenly said. So convincingly that we genuinely had forgotten this was our joke a few hours ago. ‘t Huub-momentje of the day. It was nice to be back at the farm when it was still relatively quiet. Wichard, our other teacher, had said it would be an enervating week. You’re never alone; there’s very limited privacy. Now I don’t really care about that, but it is true that, if there’s always someone around, you’re always interacting, which is indeed intense. Anyway, we had to go on – which had grown to be our motto that same afternoon: en door! And so we sat down with our laptops again, this time making charts and a presentation. I took the lead with Sjors and the others let me. Roles would switch tomorrow.
The creatures had all been very cute. One of the girls in my group had kept asking ‘does it still work’ to find out if they were still alive and they were given pet names too. We ended up using only one or two of the ‘cute’ pictures though, as we went for short and clear conclusions. After dinner (the second group had decided on rice) we presented last and I got a few good comments on my presenting skills. What can I say, I’ve had some practice. I had explained the ‘stargirl’ comment to the few at the beach at night, so most knew about the Voorwerp, the comic and the lectures by now. The select few who had gone yesterday, had made a few others curious and this evening we found an even better spot to hang out: beers were shared on the deserted life guard post.
We ended up with the five of us, but of mixed groups so Edwin, Sjors and I could tell Walter and Anouk all about the mud and they told us we’d see all the plants we needed in the field. Naturally, I had to get my feet in the water again, if only for a moment. But the best bit of this evening and the evaluation of the day was that we had made a pact. There was no way we would let Huub’s Adele alarm wake us tomorrow at seven again and so all our alarms were set three minutes before she would start to sing. We had agreed to play our music as loud as possible to chase everyone out of bed without snoozing. Well, or just to wake up with a laugh. Ed had taken the adventurous route here, through the forest, but luckily Anouk knew the way back via easier paths.
More pictures of Tuesday can be found on my flickr page.
