(This blog is 8 days late…you can imagine the kind of week its been…)

Anyhoo…

I’ve been told my blogs are pretty long. Sorry folks, I’ll try be more concise.

A funny week this week, in both meanings of the term. Amsterdam is unlike anywhere I have ever been (or will be again, I expect…) I finally understand why my sister and her husband come here so much. A couple who chose a Bob Marley song for the first waltz at their wedding…

I left the Hague Sunday evening and expected to arrive here on Monday evening, which I did, but the insane heat ment I made it to Amsterdam around 11pm so the campsite was already shut. We figured it didn’t matter as our house in on wheels so we parked up in a quiet road beside some closed shops. By the time Mojo had some food on the go, we heard a knock at the window. The locals wanted us to move. They said it was because ‘other people’ might hassle us…So now after midnight, we drove around to an empty supermarket carpark which we knew would be deserted till at least 7am…but…just before we fell asleep, we got another tap at the window. Police. I’ll never forget standing in just my boxers in a car park at 1am, trying to explain to a tall blonde Dutch policeman what a 10,000 mile walk has to do with child sexual abuse. They explained that its illegal to sleep in a vehicle here, unless parked in a registered camping site but as I kept mentioning the British Embassies are supporting the Road to Change, they decided just to help us out. They lead us to a very remote industrial estate where a few trucks containing sleeping long-haul drivers where dotted around and said they’d contact the site security so they wouldn’t bother us too but said we had to get up and leave once it was light. This was my first experience of Amsterdam, a city I had always been told was the the most laid back tolerant place I’d ever be…oh well…

So at first light, I headed into the centre and Mojo drove over to ‘Camping Zeeburg’, our home for the week. (I was like Woodstock…) As I walk into any new city, I generally head straight to a tourist information office. It’s obviously the best place to get a free map of the centre and tram info etc. Amsterdam is the firts city I’ve been to that has a specialised LGBT tourist information. It’s run by Hans Verhoeven, who I soon realised in something of a national celebrity. I kept seeing him on billboards and magazines all week. Han’s friend Rene was having a wee cup of tea with him in the shop and they invited me to join them. They told me all about the special LGBT police unit here in Amsterdam, created specifically to support the LGBT community. How liberal. Netherlands were the first country ever to introduce marriage equality, so a gay police unit seemed fair enough. Hans then told me about the launch of Amsterdam’s gay pride, which was coming up and suggested it’d be a good opportunity for me to meet loads of local folk and companies. Noted. Before I left, Rene offered to do a quick photo shoot with me on the streets of the Dam, which he emailed me later that day, and immediately became my facebook cover and profile :)

Learning about the social and political environment for LGBT is always interesting to me, but on the Road to Change my focus is in grasping what is the situation for child protection and survivors rights. Not a Dutch speaker at all, it’d been tricky to find any such organisations. Perhaps there just isn’t that many here…My friend Maurits directed me toward one, ‘Kinder Misbruik Nee’, (http://www.kindermisbruiknee.nl) an organisation set up to support child and adult victims in Holland.

Charly and Anita, deeply lovely people, invited me and Mojo over to their beautiful home just outside Amsterdam. We spoke all afternoon as I learned about the bleak situation for child and adult survivors here in the Netherlands. I was surprised that a country who is years ahead of most other with regard liberalism and equality could have such a poor state of affairs regarding child sexual abuse. Charly explained how survivors here struggle to get the police to take even their statement. It’s often said to be too vague to be true, or in fact its too detailed to be true…The police have told him that even if the doubled the police force they’d never have enough staff to truly tackle the breadth of the issue here, but the most bizarre aspect for survivors in the Netherlands seems to me to be the idea that speaking to a counsellor or therapist, about the many kinds of trauma created by the abuse, actually makes your case invalid. It allegedly dilutes the evidence and therefore no court will consider your case. This is exactly the opposite of the UK and US. Psychologists reports are actually used to support testimony in court. I can’t fathom how this is the case but, evidently, it is.

They also told me more about the group of men who campaign for the right to have sex with children. According to Ducth law, any group who establish themselves as a political party are financially supported and given a premises by the government. These men have an office in the old Ministry of Justice building and it’s paid for by the Dutch Government… The thing I don’t understand is that every Dutch person that I spoke to agrees that these things that happen here are crazy. literally everyone i discussed it with thought it was mad, so who are these people in power who hold a different opinion to the majority of the people of the country. I can’t get my head around any of it… I was so impressed by the many cases Charly and Anita related to me, of families and individuals they’ve helped, or helped as best they can in this strange political arena.

They are truly hard working compassionate people and like nearly everyone I’ve met who works on this issue, Charly and Anita have had to be very entrepreneurial in their efforts to fund their own Foundation. As the justgiving total for Road to Change can testify, it’s very difficult to raise money to address child sexual abuse. Their solution is soap, and they have a beautiful wee workshop beside their house filled with every colour and scent imaginable. They every gave me a wee soap Buddha for good luck :)

For a country I’d always been told was so liberal and chilled out, I found it extremely difficult to get any response from officials. I did get a reply from the Mayor of Amsterdam saying she’d love to meet me but unfortunately I’d emailed the Mayor of the wrong Amsterdam. When I finally got the contact info for the right Mayor, a week of emails and calls returned nothing. Not a single press, TV or media agency in Amsterdam even replied to my emails. I did manage to get a mention on a nation news website in the Hague but it was just some sentences lifted from the press release that the British Embassy had sent to them on my behalf. You can’t win them all of course, but I had imagine this country to be one of the more ‘open’ countries…

But if Amsterdam hadn’t been frustrating enough, Yvonne decided her exhaust needed welding…Luckily, Yvonne’s from Amsterdam so we just took to the garage where the Australian who we bought her from in London had originally found her. 40 euro later we were back on the road…except…I needed a new driver…

On a project like this, it’s important to have a back up plan. Mojo was in fact the back up. The driver we are waiting for has been held up yet again but Mojo’s kind assistance has reached it natural end. So, only a day behind schedule, Dr Ariel King travelled up from Geneva to drive Yvonne as I walk to Berlin. Ariel’s NGO ‘Ariel Foundation International’ is one of the four key partners on the Road to Change and I am so grateful and revealed she was able and willing to come and help me out. We need to secure another driver from Berlin to Copenhagen but we have a couple weeks…

So finally I was about to get on the Road again when my tooth decided to be a hold up…I’ve had a growing pain in my jaw for a weeks now but with money very tight I hoped I could just live with it. I drink about a litre and a half of fruit juice each day as I walk. Fructose apparently has a much higher ph than glucose, so for the last two months I’ve been unwittingly stripping the enamel from my tooth. By Sunday night, the pain was making my neck stiff and I couldn’t open my left eye. I figured I had to go get it seen to… 230 euro later, the pain was worse than before I walked into the dentist. I had to ask them to prescribe something that would allow me to walk. Codeine. It helped during the day but at night, somehow lying down made my body immune to the calming affect of the heavy painkiller. The dentist had said I’d just have to put up with it for a few weeks…

Anyhoo…Tuesday morning I was finally back on the Road to Change…

The past two months have almost been a new country and city to write about ever week. Next month is almost entirely in Germany. Berlin is 700km away, so I will just be walking for the next few weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes…

I’ve liked my time in Amsterdam. I’m sure I’ll be back one day. Mojo and I certainly sampled the ‘culture’ here…that’s all I’m saying…

Thanks for reading.

Matty x

 

Me in the Dam, photo by Rene Zuiderveld