Day 7: Algae Oil

Today was a very interesting and also a very fun day. This morning I had to wake up a little earlier than usual, because Daan was going to show me his work. He works at DSM, which is a company that produces algae oil which is an important source of Omega 3. The oil they produce there is nowadays used in almost all of the formula for babies in America. It was about an hour driving which is very normal here. Also when you leave the city, you're literally in the middle of no where. Sometimes you pass some houses, some in normal state but some seem to have been empty for years. The paint has come of the wood and the windows are broken. Also the trees and the bushes seem to have grown into the house. Daan told me they just leave it there to rot.

Another thing that surprised me on the road was that there were so many churches. I knew that people are really religious here, but I didn't expect there to be so many churches out in the middle of no where. I even might have seen equally as much churches as houses during the ride.

When we arrived at Daan's work, I had to swap my shoes for very glamerous work shoes. They weren't really fashionable although I have to admit that they walked slightly more comfortable than my own Converse. I also had to wear a helmet. I'm sure I looked extremely good.

Daan gave me a tour around the factory. It's a long process to make the algae into oil (sorry Daan, even though the tour was really interesting, I can't remember all the names of the processes). The oil they produce is like fish oil, only it contains even more Omega 3. The oil is used in our food, animal food, alternative energy and bio-based materials and even more. I actually always wondered how all the substances that are added to our foods are made, so it was interesting to get a concrete image about that. Another cool thing was the 'green' part in the factory: a large part of the waste from the factory - mostly dead algae - is used as compost by local farmers.

In the factory it really smelled like sea water. That was really funny, I didn't expect the smell to be that strong. There were also a lot of machines that made a lot of noise so we had to wear earplugs several times. It was also quite hot in the factory, because they used a lot of steam for some processes to make oil. Daan said that during summer, the temperature could get above 100 F (which is about 40 C) in the highest tower. Even with those kinds of temperatures people still need to clean in there. I'm happy that job isn't up to me!

After the tour Daan brought me to the Montessori school again and this time I got to help out in Sanne's class. This class is called lower elementary and includes kids from first, second and third grade (so in The Netherlands this would be groep 3, 4 en 5). It was really nice because now I finally could have a real conversation with the kids, and they also wouldn't cry all the time like the younger ones. The assistant teacher had made a snack for the students. It was bright coloured cereal that she had stuck together with marshmellows and butter. It looked really cool and it tasted quite well, although it was very very sweet.

After school the kids went to a kind of kindergarten to watch a movie, and Manon and I went out for dinner. We went to a very American place and again I cound't finish my meal. After that we went to the mall but we were too busy talking so we didn't really went in any shops.