One week ago, I had my last meeting with
Patrick. One dimension we havent mentioned yet: nature. What about nature in
Spain? Here in Belgium, everyone is worried about global warming but nobody is
taking action!
So I asked Patrick what the most natural
difference isbetween Spain and Belgium.
Immediately, there was an answer. The weather. Why didnt I come up with that .Of
course there are minor differences of nature. In Spain you will find windmills more
often than here. Also, you dont have to go to Spain if you want to see green
grass because it is very dry over there.
My second question was: What about the people
and the respect towards nature? Well, he was quite honest, according to him, we,
in Belgium, are more attentive to recycling. We recycle everything. In Spain
only the common trash gets recycled, like leftovers from vegetables and fruit,
paper, glass,.. . It took a while before they started recycling this.
In Spain, the people are aware of the
environmental problem in the world. Like Patrick has said in the first blog,
it's everyone for themselves when it comes to major disasters. I asked Patrick
if he occasionally throws a paper on the floor when he doesntsee a trash bin in its immediate vicinity.
However his response was rather simple again: in Spain you cant throw anything
on the ground,there are millions of
trash bins.
That is perhaps the only difference between the
Spanish and Belgian street image regarding environmental facilities. Where in
Spain you might have six bins in one street, you would have only two in Belgium.
Here in Belgium, we have some new invention, to draw our attention to the
environment, literally translated its a can catcher. Surprisingly, Patrick
almost fell off his chair when I explained the system, in Spain ,they don t
know such thing.
In Spain
they are more outer-directed. Is the weather good then they all migrate to the beach, the weather is bad
then they just stay home. They just follow what nature got in store for them,
and make the most of it.
My last question to Patrick was: What do you
think about the world and its pollution? What would you do? According to him, some
drastic changes will occur. He does whatever he can do, for instance, here in
Belgium, he uses a bicycle. In Spain, its just too difficult to use a bicycle.
A car is more safer in the their traffic. He's not the perfect "green
guy" but he would make an effort if possible.
That was my last conversation with Patrick. Too
bad, because it was a great experience. Sometimes its shocking how hard habits
may differ in two hours flying from our country. Sometimes it seems they live
on another planet. Well, I must say that Patrick is a very nice guy. I wish him
lots of success in his future studies and who knows I run into him again
someday, here in Leuven ....
