Sustainability #HogsAbroad in Belgium

Sustainability is such an important word/concept. I once read (in Out of the Earth, which by the way is an excellent book) that pollution has always been present, ever since the times of the earliest humans. There just weren’t enough humans back then (or concentrated in a small area) to really show their impact on the environment. But that’s definitely not the case now. And the rate of change just seemed to rapidly increase with the industrial revolution and all the various technologies that subsequently arose. So pollution is not a new thing we’re trying to combat here. (Apparently humans have always been awful with no care for our planet too, but that’s besides the point.) And maybe this is really optimistic of me, but I believe that there has been a tremendous amount of awareness about environmental issues lately. There still needs to be more, don’t get me wrong, but I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction. And everything has to start somewhere right?

Some of the excursions we went on in the past few days really opened my eyes to how much people care about sustainability and having a lower impact on the environment. There are whole companies (like Ardo) which are dedicated to recycling and reusing the waste they produce, and have figured out pretty innovative ideas for how to reduce their carbon and energy footprints. I thought that was really cool, but I don’t know if there are companies like that in the US or if there are and I just don’t know about them, which is highly likely.

There are some cultural similarities between the US and Belgium, but there are some (really) surprising differences. First of all (and probably everyone in our group probably wrote about this in their blog post):

Water is not free and there are literally 0 water fountains! I think we Americans really value our hydration, but Belgians are definitely not the same. Water fountains cannot be found anywhere, so we all just drink tap water, which sounds pretty gross but it’s not that bad. The problem is though, Belgians find it rude if you bring in your own water bottle to a restaurant, so you have to buy it there. And when you do buy it, they just give you a tiny 330 mL water bottle so it basically disappears in one gulp.

Second:

Smile and say hi to strangers and you get seriously judged. Initially there were some pretty startled reactions to our polite smiles and waves on the street. You know when you’re walking down the street and lock eyes with a sweet old lady walking towards you, and smile or nod politely? Well don’t do it in Belgium! They think it’s weird! They only greet people they know. I personally faced this when I was ordering food at a Dutch (fast-food?) restaurant, and I was smiling and asking questions about what would come on the burger and the man taking my order had literally no expression on his face. At. All.

Third:

College is free! Ok, I think there may be like a 1,000 euro basic tuition fee or something, but that’s it! And according to a speaker at one of our lectures he got more scholarships for going to a school farther from this hometown. That is the complete opposite of what it is like in the US!

Anyway, these were some of the major cultural differences I noticed between Belgium and the good ol’ US of A. Interesting ey? Srusti signing off!

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Chemistry major Srusti Maddala spent the May intersession 2018 in Belgium with our U of A Faculty-Led: Sustainability in the Euro Food System.

Read more from Srusti at https://sites.uark.edu/smaddala/blog/

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