Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Fire in Barneveld

A couple of weeks ago we had a fire at the school behind our house. Apparently it was an act of arson. There was a lot of noise and Jon woke up to see a rescue vehicle pull up to the school as four or five teenagers raced away on their bicycles. The fire burned hot and fast which is pretty amazing for a concrete and brick building. Firefighting was hampered by narrow streets and parked cars and all the posts put around to keep cars from using the bike paths. I had on my white noise machine, but I still heard strange noises in my sleep. I kept waking up to the sound of machinery and in my sleep-fogged brain I thought it was a street cleaning machine. I remember thinking it was strange that they were cleaning the streets in the middle of the night and that they were taking a very long time to finish in this area. I would have been really annoyed at the noise that went on and on, but I was too sleepy.
After a couple of hours the fire was out, but there was still much activity many hours later when dawn broke. Most of the school had been spared, but a large portion was now unusable. It made the national news in the Netherlands. Fires are rare here. Everything is made of concrete, brick and tile. Tough stuff to burn. The Netherlands has had a building code since sometime in the 1600's when a fire swept through Amsterdam. I wonder if they are the first to do so. The next day a fence was put up around the damaged building and a police officer was posted to keep folks from climbing it anyway. His presence was entirely necessary and not just to keep kids out. Fences and signs forbidding access mean nothing here. A few days later demolition of the burned portion of the building began and a few days after that temporary school rooms were being installed in the park adjoining the school ground. Water, sewage and electricity have been run to the buildings. They are presently paving the area in front of the new school rooms. They lay down large squares of metal and on top of this they actually lay down paving stones like any sidewalk area in town. We don't know when school will resume for those students or what plans are made for them in the interim. Some of Jon's colleagues urged him to report what he saw from our bedroom window that night, but he didn't actually see anything that would identify the arsonists and the rescue workers drove right up to them, so if they could be identified, they had a more direct look at them. They also pointed out that nothing would be done to the youths even if they were caught. There is this undercurrent of lawless attitude among the young people and sometimes the not so young people here. The reason for the posts everywhere is to control cars from going where they shouldn't. Obedience to the rules isn't a big cultural value here. They even have to put these posts across wooden foot/bicycle bridges to keep cars from driving over them. There isn't a strong visible police presence here, so folks get away with a lot and what they get away with, they continue to do. It makes me realize how much of what is done around here is to compensate in some way for the lack of self-restraint. In addition to the posts to block the road, there are speed bumps everywhere and I do mean everywhere. They are all along the roads at different heights according to the speed limit of that area. The Dutch call them sleeping policemen. There is nothing unusual in this lawless attitude. It is in the heart of everyone, but it amazes me that this country runs as smoothly as it does with so many doing their own thing. I think what our country would be like without the police so that we get caught often enough breaking the rules that chaos is prevented. Actually I don't have to imagine, just remember. Remember what happens in cities during blackouts or riots, when the police cannot enforce the law for that period of time. Yea, lawlessness is buried in the heart of mankind. The new school building already has graffiti on it.