Rotary Activity #1: Blegny Mine

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

On the Wednesdays that you can't find any exchange students in Liege, it's because they are with their Rotary club, doing some kind of amazing tour or activity for absolutely free! This Wednesday was the first real Rotary activity for the students that are part of District 1630, French speaking (along with the two German speaking students in our district...). At first, I didn't know exactly how touring a mine would be fun. I mean, it's just some tunnels underground with a whole bunch of rocks and maybe some of the old equipment that was used to get coal. But I was still pretty excited to go, because it meant seeing my friends and having something to do (on Monday and Tuesday, I was immensly bored with no one home and nothing to do....) all of the students first met up at the gare in Liege, and then we took a special TEC (the bus line here in Belgium..) bus that was paid for by Rotary. Even though it was a double length bus, all of the students still had a hard time fitting on it. And that is also with a handful of students who were just going to meet the group at the mine, because it was faster that way (I was going to do that because going to Blegny from Liege is total back tracking, but I knew that just riding the train to Liege would be easier...) Once we got there, we were all shuffled into a room where we watched this tacky video about what I assume was the history of mining. I was too busy listening to the interesting first day of school stories my friends had to tell and wondering what my first day tommorrow would be like.

After the video that no one actually watched (even if I had wanted to, too many people were talking to make sense of it...), we split up into 3 different groups. They said that the first group would have a tour in English, and the next two in French so of course I went with the 1st group, seeing how my French is not quite perfected...  Iwas actually suprised though by the amount of people that stayed behind to be in the French speaking group. In fact, I knew that some of those people understood less French than even me, but hey,  it's your entertainment for the day on the line. Our little group was shuffled into a room, where we were given too big over coats and yellow "mining" helmets to put on. For the mine, I really feel like this was a good addition to the tour. It just made everyone more excited for what was to come.

Blegny Mine

The ever attractive mining outfits..
From left to right: Katie, Emmaline, Me, Lauren, and another Katie in the front!

Just waiting in for the tour to start... Delighted by our attractive outfits :)

Once the tour started, we realized that we had picked the right group because the tour guide was obviously previously an American, or just worked REALLY hard on his English, because he didn't even have any kind of accent! The first thing that we did was cram into a tiny elevator shaft to actually get down into the mine. This lift, it was TINY and there were at least 15 students crammed into one... We were all pressed against each other, and we couldn't even see anything because it was so dark! And then, everytime we stopped suddenly, then all of sudden started suddenly moving again, a group of people would scream (for some of the times, I was included in this group...) Honestly, it was a little bit scary because the lift seemed pretty old and sketchy and we were crammed in there. I never really have been one to get claustrophobic, but being in that little lift for like 5 minutes made me feel like it a bit. Plus, I think the tour guide dragged out the amount of time that we really had to be in there, just to let us have our fun. Because after we got out of the lift, the tour guide explained to us that we were about 90 feet underground, and there is just simply no way that even for an old lift it should have taken that long. And somehow, the group that left after us got down there before us. Don't know how that worked out, but whatever.

In the elevator shaft...

My scared face...

...and Lauren's scared face.

Evil Elevator Shaft!

After the amazingly horrible elevator ride, the tour started up. Our tour guide was awesome, and he really knew what he was talking about. Apparently, he's lived and worked in the Belgian mines for quite some time. and now that they aren't using the mines, he has just turned into an AWESOME tour guide. I was actually suprised by how even though it was just a tunnel with some rocks and wood to support it and keep it from caving in, it was actually kind of beautiful at the same time! And in this beautiful place, I got to learn about how the Belgians mined way back when, and we also go to test out and witness how some of the old tools of mining worked. They had fake tools that resembled real ones used way back when, and they still made all of the loud noises as well. Seriously, I don't understand how the miners did it back then. All of the tools must have been so noisy, I imagine that over the years a large amount of them went deaf! As well as blind, because acording to our tour guide going from the pitchblack of the mines (back then, they didn't have the luxury of electricity in the mines like we did...) into the somewhat sunny and bright outside really messed up ones eyesight. I think the saddest part for me though was not learning about the horrible working conditions and dieseases that the men, women, and children had to go through, but instead hearing about the abuse of the horses. Way back when, the horses would be brought down as soon as they were full grown. Because they knew that the horses' eyes would just get messed up down there, they blinded them before they were even brought down. And then, they lived the rest of their lives down in those mines (6-8 years, he said). I have always been an animal lover, and the lives of those horses it just so sad!

The supports were looking as if they were getting a bit rusty. And the helmets look as if they are glowing :)

Emmaline, Lauren, and moi!

Going down the stairs... Even deeper into the mine!

It's comforting knowing that we could get help if we needed it.

Blurry picture, but using one of the fake tools!

The amazing tour guide!

Blegny Mine at it's best!

Maranda (FL), Klaudia (FL), Emmaline (SC, and hiding...), Lauren (CA), Me (WA), and Liz (NY)

The tour of the mine continued up to the top of the building, to where they would sort out the rocks and get out the good coal that they could really use. And here, the best of part of the tour began. Lauren is a very talkative and outgoing kind of person, and she always just says what's on her mind and isn't afraid of anything. And the whole tour, Lauren had been talking about how she really wanted to ride in one of the mining carts someday. So, when there was some ming carts just over the fence from us, Lauren asked our tour guide if she could hop the fence and just take a picture in the cart. Much to our suprise, he said she could so both Lauren and I hopped over the fence happy that we got to take a picture in the cart. But then, much to our suprise, the carts started MOVING! Apparently, there was a little button that could actually make the carts move along the track, and our tour guide was so awesome that he moved it for us. As soon it started moving, of course, everyone was kind of jealous of the opportunity that we had gotten and a whole bunch of the crazy guys hopped over the fence and got onto the carts as they were moving... But still, it was a super cool experience and Lauren and I were the ones that started it! :) The crazy thing is that in America, nothing like this would ever happen. The tour guide would have been very strict, not letting us touch anything. We never would have been allowed over the fence, much less would the tour guide have started moving it or allowed the boys to crawl over the fence while it was moving. Things are so chill here, and it's just really nice.

The carts we got to ride!

Yay for riding in a mining cart!

Oh, and here's a link to a video that our friend took of us riding in the cart...
 --->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtffc2uC-Xc&feature=related
And also, there is some funny videos on the side by the same person of us going up and down in the lifts. and I realized that the ride was only lke 2 minutes, and that the other people were underneath us with the tour guide, so that is how they got there first. Thank goodness for the video taping! Haha

After riding on the mining carts, we looked at where they would get all of the coal out of the rocks and there was this weird and random light show that I really don't understand why they would have it in the mine. But hey, I guess it was sort of entertaining! When the tour ws done, we waited for the other groups to finish and then went into a sort of mess hall where they gave us a waffle and a box of orange juice. I am not too fond of orange juice even back home, and here it just tastes weird but the waffle was delicious. We even went back up when everyone had finished and asked for another one, because they were so delicious and all we had eaten for lunch was some fries right before we got onto the bus (I forgot to eat lunch at home, and the pita we got was nasty so we didn't end up eating it...). Going to the mine with Rotary was a lot of fun. I am glad that my district organizes cool activites where all of us can get together, have a fun time, and learn more and truly experience Belgium at the same time. Gotta love Belgium! :)