Features

Netherlands - City Safari

by Phil Wood

“Sometimes it feels like I am keeping this community going single-handedly,” says Claudette de Agua Rosada as she serves tea and sandwiches to the strangers who have just walked into her house in the Pendrecht district of south Rotterdam. “But the support we get through City Safari helps to keep the children’s activities going and meeting new people and making friends gives me a real lift“.

Claudette is originally from CuraÇao and is now known as the ‘mother of the neighbourhood’ in this mainly Antillean community of the Dutch city. As well as bringing up four children of her own she also runs activities for most of her neighbours’ children too as well as being actively involved in the local school and in a carnival drum band. “Some of them take me for granted – take liberties. My husband says I should pack it all in and just care for my own family. But if everyone took that attitude what would become of the community?”

The strangers privileged with a brief insight into this real life drama are my family and I – part of our Rotterdam City Safari. We had actually travelled from our home in Britain to Rotterdam to enjoy North Sea Jazz, a three day festival of jazz music said to be Europe’s largest. But before returning home we decided to take up the intriguing offer of a City Safari.

Many places around the world offer experiences they call ‘city safari’. This generally means a high class city tour in the hands of a knowledgeable guide. But, to my mind, Rotterdam offers something altogether more interesting and profound. Firstly, you select your own itinerary from a menu of ‘private’ places in the city. These may be commercial premises or religious centres but most of them are the private homes of ordinary (and sometimes extraordinary) Rotterdammers. Then, armed only with a map, some tram tickets, a set of addresses and no guide, you plunge directly into this diverse and dynamic city to make of it what you will.

We had already been to visit Mr Ali for a tour of the Shane Moustafa Mosque which serves the Surinamese Muslim community. After lunch with Claudette we headed on the metro back across the river to Oostplein to meet Nigerian musician Amancio, where we worked up a sweat attempting some Yoruba rhythms on his collection of djembe drums. We concluded the day by dropping in at the house of Mr and Mrs Van‘t Hof in Oude Westen. They were both born and brought up in the area in the 1930s and lived through the total devastation of Rotterdam by the Luftwaffe in the Second World War, and the subsequent ordeal of near-starvation. Subsequently they had seen this traditional working class district become populated by migrants from all of the Netherlands’ former colonies and now many other parts of the world too. It was fascinating to listen as they describe the tumultuous changes they had seen in the city, and the calm acceptance with which they described it. It seemed that perhaps the one point of continuity in their lives were the extended family of Koi Carp (numbering hundreds) which they kept in the cramped garden at the back of their terraced house.

In our seven hour Safari we visited just four Rotterdam households, but the organisers have over 300 addresses on their books reflecting many aspects of this city’s life. They could be someone who takes you for a walk through the history of their neighbourhood, any number of different religious faiths (including a shaman), a local police officer or public official, or someone with an unusual or fascinating lifestyle.

City Safari was founded in 1996 by Marjolijn Masselink with the intention of raising the profile and reputation of the run-down district of Feijenoord within the wider city. The message was that everywhere has something of interest and it is not necessary to artificially create an attraction to make a place attractive. The other message was that people can become tourists in their own city, because City Safari was aimed primarily at Rotterdammers themselves rather than visiters.

So whilst starting life as an exercise in local community building, Marjolijn has now developed it into a successful business which makes a valuable social contribution too. Part of the fee paid by each visitor is handed on to the hosts which, as we saw in the case of Claudette, creates local benefits. But for all its benign intent, City Safari is not promoted as being something worthy that will be ‘good for you’. Rather it is sold as an entertainment and therefore attracts a lot of parties with something to celebrate or colleagues on a team-building exercise or staff outing.

The one question remains, if this is such a good idea, why hasn’t it been taken up elsewhere? Perhaps it requires a specifically Dutch sensibility towards openness to make it work on such a large scale. It certainly requires a level of trust and tolerance that is not found everywhere. Whatever, for the 3,500 people who each year embark on this brief step behind the closed doors of Rotterdam, City Safari offers otherwise unavailable opportunities to satisfy their curiosity, learn something new or just have a good laugh with convivial hosts. Certainly for four Brits, in a city they barely knew, it created an unforgettable experience and an insight into Rotterdam that few other tourists could even imagine.

City Safari Rotterdam offers special arrangements for individuals, groups and companies. A four- to five- hour trip costs approximately € 57 per person.

For more information
City Safari Rotterdam
Saftlevenstraat 4a
3015 BM Rotterdam

P.O.Box 25034
3001 HA Rotterdam
T (010) 436 35 67
F (010) 436 14 58
E info@citysafari.nl
I www.citysafari.nl (only in Dutch)