McGregor Waldorf School

Katleen's Travelogue 1

22nd April 2007

I am not going to entertain you with all that happened in the past three weeks, the amount of time that Mary and I have been in Belgium. Suffice to say that all has been set in motion and very, very soon I am going to present our school in my own home town and further a field. The month of May and June are full with appointments with people, schools and organization with whom I connected in the two months before traveling here.

Very exciting for me is that my family and friends all rally around and are extremely helpful on all levels : our keep, our travels, more contacts, practical help, etc.

To begin with my brother has finished editing the film material that Christine Lawley took. I just finished copying the original via my laptop, which by the way Ken, is proving to be extremely helpful. Everywhere in Europe they use another keyboard which really slows down the typing. The fact that I have all the info on the computer and can easily e-mail it through is wonderful. I go every morning, after dropping Mary of at her school, to an old school friends house to connect to internet and e-mail. Nobody is at home the whole morning and she kindly gave me the code to her garage so I can get in when ever I want to. So that is working out extremely well. Betty, it was a very good idea that you gave me a cell phone. I had no problem getting a local sim card so I can phone at my friends house. I just had to get used to using the cell for which my niece was helpful.

Walter Depoorter_ready

Mary is attending Kindergarten in a local small school and is loving it very much. She is in the same class as Inaya, the daughter of a lady originally from Haiti but adopted in Belgium and a man from Ghana. So Mary is not the only "black" child. But the children are absolutely fascinated and ask all kinds of questions. I am going to go into Mary's classroom tomorrow morning to tell about South Africa to her new little friends. Mary being very cute and charming, is enjoying herself very much. She gets a lot of attention from family and friends and is really happy to be here. She starts to imitate dutch words, which is easy because of the Afrikaans, and some dialects. She actually communicates with her friends in Afrikaans. The grandfather of Inaya, Walter Depoorter, is a teacher at a technical high school and has just finished compiling a power point presentation about the school. I had to prepare it by writing it out and connecting it to pictures but he did the work. I can pick it up tomorrow and I am curious to see what he made of it.

The other great thing that is expanding rapidly is the Art Auction that an artist friend wanted to organize. About twenty years ago I was working at a bank here and he was a colleague. We used to talk about Luc Lapere_artisy

our dreams and passions. I was the first one to leave the bank to pursue my dreams. Because he had a young family he wanted to be financially secure first. But in the end he did leave and became an artist. Now he is a well know Flemish artist who works with copper (http://www.luclapere.be). He has really taken the Art Auction on and has already more than twenty artists who have donated a work to be sold. The money made will go entirely to our school. On Wednesday evening we have a press conference (my first ever!!!) to present the project, the art auction and the link between the two. We will call the exhibition - The Healing Quality of Art. The artworks (including the 4 paitings of Elizabeth) will be on exhibition here in Wevelgem, my home town, for a month. Then there will be a grand opening op Friday Juni 1 at Luc's gallery where the major of the town of Roeselare will speak and a Senegalese Djembe group will perform. And believe it or not, we will have McGregor wines for people to drink and to buy. I phoned with Willy Devos, who distributes the wines in Belgium and he most generously offered to donate a percentage of the sales to the school. I will be visiting him next Saturday to taste the wine (as he suggested) and the talk about McGregor, which he visited and where he claims to be well known.

My friend will have 5000 invitations (yes, 5000 !) printed which he claims will be easily distributed. At the opening the bidding can begin. Each work has a minimum value from which the bidding can start. For three weeks the works will be in his gallery and also on his website.

Then on Friday 22 June, we are organizing a big happening in a Cultural Centrum here in my hometown. On that evening the works will be sold, there will me more wine for sale and I will project the dvd and power point presentation on a big screen. I will talk and we are attempting to invite the governor of the province since they have also donated money to the school.

In between all that I am going to see Gerda in England on 7,8 and 9 May and will be traveling in Holland from 21/5 till 30/5. I will be in Germany the second week of June. In between that I am attending various small events in Belgium in which I can present the school and promote the arts auctions.

That is it for today. As you can see I have been very busy and things are happening. Exciting though!!!

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