Quiet Belgian Village

BG 134 – The Clap Cow

This morning The Maakster on her daily walk through Quiet Belgian Village came along the Noensewegel, an idyllic bicycle/footpath with on the right, behind a wire mesh fence and then a ditch, cows in meadows. It was customary in good weather for a group of cows to be in one of the meadows, but this time the farmer had spread them over several ones, probably because he had recently made hay and there was not much left to eat per field.

The Maakster stopped to look at a cow that lay close to her, a meter from the ditch, ruminating, each time banging her teeth together with a remarkable noise. As if she had bad fitting dentures.
It was really just an ugly animal. It had a dirty white color with a few light gray spots here and there that looked like you could just rinse them off with a garden hose. But she had something special: that clapping of her teeth. The beast struggled to get up with her thick elongated body on rather short legs, …

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BG 88 – Washing your car for your Instagram

Just outside Quiet Belgian Village, on the Big Road (yes really, that’s what it’s called), is a car wash. Now don’t imagine a fully automatic car wash, but simply a long roof with a row of semi-open sheds beneath it, separated by fences, in which you wash your own car. The Maakster had just hosed down her car and drove it outside to clean the interior with a vacuum cleaner.

A dark blue BMW, model expensive, arrived in the shed next to her. The vehicle looked as if it could have been cleaned at home in less than two minutes with a dust cloth. A couple of twenty-somethings (f/m) got out, who didn’t exactly look like people who were about to wash a car. The Maakster, in an old pair of jeans and with water-resistant old shoes on her feet, looked rather shabby in comparison.

The slender, muscular man wore baggy khaki floor-length trousers, and beneath them …

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BG 82 – It’s raining cards, hallelujah

During her daily walk through Quiet Belgian Village this morning, The Maakster stopped abruptly when she saw something glistening in the sun in the driveway to a house. Bending down, she saw that it was a bank card. The address on the card matched that of the house she was standing in front of, so she decided to ring the bell. The door didn’t open, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement behind the window. She rang the bell a second time and this time looked directly at the window. There she saw someone just ducking behind a curtain. When the front door still didn’t open after ringing a third time, she walked across the neatly mowed lawn and knocked on the window. An elderly woman appeared, hesitantly, cheeks flushed with excitement. The Maakster smiled kindly, held up the bank card with one hand and pointed at it with her other hand. The old woman put her hands over her mouth, got even redder, and finally decided to open the front door just a little bit. She cleared her throat and tried to sound stern:

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BG 62 – The Angry Wife

On her daily walks through Quiet Belgian Village, The Maakster of course also meets other residents on foot. She wishes them a ‘good morning!’ or ‘have a nice day!’, because that makes the world a little prettier. Some of the residents greet back friendly, but others pretend not to have heard her, or quickly turn their head away. That doesn’t stop The Maakster.

Quiet Belgian Village is a bit of a closed village and many of its residents are used to only associate with people they have known from birth. They feel uncomfortable with newcomers, even the ones that have already lived there for quite some time. Older people sometimes react confused: ‘But … er … I don’t knów you?’,

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BG 44 – Falling

During her daily walk through Quiet Belgian Village, the residents today seem to fall spontaneously as soon as they see The Maakster. That could of course be coincidental. It hasn’t frozen, on the contrary, it is actually quite warm for this time of year, but last night’s rain has made the remaining rotting leaves on the street slippery.

Halfway through her route, between the sports fields on one side and the mountain bike terrain on the other, The Maakster sees an elderly man with his dog in the distance. The man suddenly swings both his arms through the air and then falls slap on his behind. The dog, a blond labrador, looks at him in surprise. When she passes him a moment later and asks how he is doing – the man, not his dog –

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BG 22 – The Dog Dance

Her daily walk through Quiet Belgian Village takes The Maakster over the Noensewegel, a narrow, asphalted path for cyclists and walkers. With on the left, purposely hidden from view by greenery, a quiet cemetery and a slightly less quiet institution for the mentally handicapped, and on the right, behind a ditch with scattered pollard willows, pastures that in summer are grazed in turn by a group of cows.

This morning, preceded by loud yapping, a pretty young woman …

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