FROM THE EDITOR [APRIL 11th 2005]

The Food and Hotel exhibition is over. We did very well and there are many contacts to follow up. We even found this Italian who bought our waste product and made a fantastic gelato ice-cream out of it. And just now Haagen-Dazs called us for samples as well!

But first I have to milk cows again back home. A good break from the bar. In the bar as well as on an exhibition, you wonder sometimes how many of the people are actually listening to what you tell them. I should learn to keep my sales talk short. It is mostly a waste of time.

On the picture right: Our waitress Vi (also know as Victor) promoting Dutch cheeses.

On the exhibition there was this well dressed man -looking like a serious- prospect- asking what I actually was selling. I lifted a stroopwafel and explained him about the caramel inside, about the old Dutch tradition of putting it on top of your hot coffee so the caramel can melt a bit, etc., etc. I told him about the ingredients and the shell life and all the time he looked with his mouth open very concentrated on the cookie. When I finally stopped talking, he slowly lifted the waffle to his mouth and took a bite. He chewed slowly. 'ini coklat cookie ya?' (Is this a chocolate cookie?), he asked. I couldn't believe it. I just had intensively told him it was a caramel cookie. I didn't say anything anymore. I just looked at him. He started chewing faster and faster and took another bite. 'Coklat ya? Ini coklat cookie ya?', he asked again. I don't know if you know the stroopwafel, but believe me: there is no coklat at all in the cookie. It doesn't look it and it doesn't taste like it. I refused to speak further, maybe because I was tired but also because I realised there was no point in wasting any more energy in this person. 'Can you send some samples to my office?', he asked, looking up from behind his glasses. He gave me his card, just before licking of his finger with which he had removed a piece of cookie from the back of his teeth. I silently looked at his namecard. He was a supplier of air conditioners. 'Mesin ice cream?', I asked him. 'No, no! AC's! Air-condition!', he tried to explain, thereby pointing at a small picture on his name card. I repeated again: 'Oooh..., for ice creams ya?' 'NO!', he yelled in disbelief. He started fanatically pushing his dirty index finger on the card. 'Ini! Ini! Cooling! AC!' 

Something similar also happened once years ago when I was participating in an Office Equipment Exhibition. At that time I tried to sell Unibind Document Binders. There was this couple to whom I demonstrated the machine. I took some papers, placed them neatly in the plastic rim and heated this up on the binding machine. When I lifted the bound document out of the binding machine, the couple looked at the bound document in great surprise. Then they turned their heads to me as if I was a magician. And the man said: 'Mesin Photocopy ya?' I almost grabbed his hand to push it in the binding unit that had still not cooled off.

Picture left: Tomorrow I will stay in Paris a couple of days first where I will visit Adel, who worked for four years as my Bar Manager in BuGils.

When I will meet my father later this week, I know already what will happen as it has happened during all the previous times when I went back home. My mother will ask me about my business and how things are going. While I will tell enthusiastically about my life here, it normally never takes long before my father stands up and says: 'All nice stories Bart. But there is work to do be done here. I still have your boots here in the back somewhere. Put on some old trousers and help me with that sick cow that is still out there in the meadows. We have lots of work to do... And there ain't no koelies in Friesland, my son....' 

He is right. Why should I try to sell Indonesia to them if they don't understand it anyway... And the first cow I see in Friesland next week, I will ask my father: 'Mesin Ice cream ya?' And the first cake my mother makes I will ask her: 'Coklat cookie?' And when I leave again my mother will tell my father: 'Bart has changed a lot, hasn't he? He didn't speak much'. And my father will answer: 'But he didn't ask for money did he? He is doing all right. He is doing just fine...'
≡ Bartele