Adriaan Loosjes

From the past:

"We drove a $165 Citroen 2cv to the Arctic Circle and back around Northern Europe - a European thing..."

2004

Batavia, Dutch East Indies, 1946, was my entry point onto this planet. After it ceased to be a United Nations Protectorate and became the Republic of Indonesia, the family moved on to Noumea, New Caledonia., where I started primary school a little later than we do here - a French thing.

After four years it was time to visit the fatherland where I flunked first grade, because I didn’t speak Dutch - a Dutch thing. What a start to a career in education! After trying to come to terms with a society where its citizens regularly assault each other with snowballs I was relieved to return to the tropics, namely Netherlands New Guinea this time, where I spent 5 years before it caught Indonesia’s eye and they decided that the Papuans were their kinda people. After a bit of a scuffle the Dutch decided to hand it over to Indonesia and my father stayed behind to hand it over to the United Nations in 1961 and for me and my mother it was time to move on again in 1959 and onto Australia where I finished my primary education with Mr Woods at Gordon West Primary School.

I started my uneventful confinement at ABHS with not much English and, I believe, the dubious honour of being the oldest kid at school (see above). After ABHS, I studied arts/law at ANU and then straight law at Sydney Uni, but life got in the way and studying sociology/psychology at UNSW finally proved a winner. Clothing salesman, brickies’ labourer, kitchen hand, car wash attendant, toffee apple delivery driver, etc. provided some sort of student income. While pushing cabs to survive uni I met this wild cabbie who somehow managed to get his cab stuck in a narrow lane and couldn’t open the doors to get out. How DID you get out of there, Jeremy C?

1972 saw me team up with Greg Baxter to travel to Europe on the Trans-Siberian via Japan. After a few months in the Swiss Alps it was off to London and a truckie job delivering Aussie poker machines for Aristocrat all over the UK and northern Europe - an English thing.

1974 back to Sydney via the US and met the lady who became my better half, Marina. Off to Papua New Guinea together for the Independence Celebrations in 1975 and then in 1976 we drove to Darwin via Perth in a 1957 baby Renault “750” <http://www.signstudio.nl/Website-4cv/Mijn4cv-pagina.html> 4cv we had found abandoned in Hunter Street, Sydney - an Australian thing. Don’t ask about rego and stuff. I think we only managed to overtake 3 cars on the 10,000 km journey, and one of them was a Model T Ford. Still scoot around Perth in a 1959 R750 I bought in 1974. After Darwin, island-hopped to Singapore and then onto Holland via the USSR. We drove a $165 Citroen 2cv <http://www.geocities.com/citron_2cv/nsdi03.jpg> to the Arctic Circle and back around Northern Europe - a European thing. (I’m running out of things).

1977 back in Perth, Marina’s hometown, and did an education degree at UWA - more lean times. Inadvertently started a family, got married, took up lecturing and bought a 5 hectare block of undeveloped forest in Sawyers Valley (40 km in the hills east of Perth), our fence line (State Forest) is the boundary of the Perth metropolitan area.. Spent weekends, for a year or so, building our own house (talk about a steep learning curve) before moving in and finishing the job in situ, and after that, developing the hobby farm and now Marina provides us (and sometimes the roos, parrots, quendas <http://www.westernwildlife.com.au/western/mammals/bandicoo.htm> , etc.) with organically grown fruit and vegetables all year round.

Since 1979 I’ve been an ESL lecturer teaching migrants and refugees English, from literacy to tertiary entrance levels, in particular, survivors of torture and trauma, which makes for very challenging and rewarding work. Mainly refugees from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, former Yugoslavia, Sudan and any other place you can think of where there’s repression and war. Completed some post-graduate studies at Edith Cowan Uni along the way.

Somewhere along the line I think I did Grow in Wisdom!

Volunteer work took in six years on Perth radio presenting my own show and contract work for 7 years developing and presenting educational programs on community TV in addition to too many hours developing and teaching on-line courses. Worked ten years as a contract practicum supervisor of teachers for ECU, hence my reference website: http://english.at/work.

Our offspring number three girls and a boy: Saskia (25) TV journalist, Adriaan (22) market retail, Jolieske (19) Arts-Law student at UWA and Marijke (15) high school.

We enjoy life, good health and the peace-and-quiet of the pre grand-kid years.