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Studio: The Big Hole
A
series
of
entries
on
an
Aniqa Nawar
KU Leuven 2021 3
estranging
world
Monday. It’s sunny today! Took an empty tram to Ghent St. Peters Station. Probably should get some breakfast. The Panos service woman doesn’t understand English. Body language it is! Might be a problem at the site, how far can body language go… They never mailed back. The lady wants to see my ID after the ticket check, huh Met Kaat at the changing platform in Brussels South. I tell her about the language problem I might have, she says it’s ok, her French isn’t that good either, and everyone speaks English. weird.
We called the quarry (well Kaat did) to ask if we could visit. Her French is good, don’t know what she is worried about. No we cannot visit today. They gave us a different mail address.
Tickets get checked twice, free tickets anyways. Life here looks very slow, seems like people are at peace, or eternal lockdown, depend how you look at it I guess.
This train is stopping a lot. Walloon is beautiful. Hard to take good photos from the dirty window of this train.
Three hours already moving with the train…this rhythm is making me feel sleepy. The sun on my face feels so good.
Touch Down Couvin. 4
Ghent St. Peters
Brussels South
Charleroi South
Couvin 5
We reach Couvin around lunch and plan to take a bus to Baileux and then have lunch. But we soon realise there is a strike going on and there are no buses! We are really confused. How did we miss this news? It’s a two hour walk uphill, maybe we should start walking then..I guess…
Let’s just keep walking and lets see what happens. Ok the highway is too dangerous; we take a side way.
A man with two kids passed by in this empty road with his car. He stopped for us and gave us a lift!
My first hitch hike! Thank god for Kaat and google maps. We take exit to the highway and get to the quarry in 5 minutes!
The police were of no help.
Voila! The quarry!
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Chimay
Couvin CUP Limestone Quarry Botounville Baileux
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We were looking around when a wild employee appeared. It was her smoke break. She was friendly. She asked more questions than giving answers though. She explained that we are not allowed inside because of safety. She told us she lives in Chimay.
Even though it is a working day the quarry isn’t making that much noise. I Imagined quarries to be probably a bit more noisy. We go to a higher place to get a better view. From this view we can see they are using solar panels in this quarry and also has a cement silo (Which was not specified in their website).
Not a cement silo, it’s asphalt, we found out later. 8
Solar Panels Wind Turbines
Cement Silo Asphalt
Panaroma of Atelier and Office
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We Figure as we can’t get inside today, maybe we should see the villages around and talk to people. We cross the highway to arrive at the Botounville Hamlet. There were not a single person in this pretty little place. An old church and some birds. Apparently there is a rock in this village that has a story related to the quarry, neither we found he rock not the people to hear any story.
We decide to walk to the village Baileux. Maybe we will find some people there, oh and also food. There is a grocery right in the centre of Baileux. It definitely is bigger than Boutonville. People are walking around casually in the sunny weather. No one is wearing masks except Kaat and me. We walk in to get some food.The Lady at the grocery was delighted to have us there! Probably I am the first Bangladeshi to walk that village! She gives us kinder easter eggs as a gift for the foreigners. Ok! So that’s why people are staring. 10
We talk to a few people and they all seemed friendly. Kaat is talking a lot. I am on the side pretending to understand French and nodding very hard to everything. Most of the information is not very useful. Long story short people from this village do not notice the quarry much.
One of the villagers suggest that we should go to Chimay for further information. It is a bigger place and also has a department of Urban Development. Coincidentally his parents are going there right now and he asked us if we would like to catch a ride with them? What a lucky day!
We decide it has been a long day. Still there is no sign of any buses, so did what we did best today, waved in the roads for a car to give us a lift. We learnt from there that the quarry had more influence in terms of employing people of these villages before it turned mostly automated.
Chimay
We couldn’t get a direct car to Couvin, but we did get two back to back ones, exactly when we needed to make a run for our train. Couvin
CUP Limestone Quarry Botounville Baileux
The friendly Old couple left us at the gates of the Urban Development Office.
I reached Ghent at sunset. Thank god for the long sunny days. 11
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The whole journey reminded me of ‘Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy’. Kaat was my guide/translator and instead of a towel I carried my smartphone at battle. I stepped on land no one of my ‘kind’ has gone before, gathered new experiences and come back home with a chocolate easter egg. 13
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Some-other Monday. They still haven’t answered our mail. I called the office, hoping to find the phone number of the manager of operations at the quarry. The woman didn’t know English and hung up on my face with a ‘Je ne comprends pas l’anglais’. Kaat is at work, so google translator it is. I make a script of what I should say and called again. It worked. I have the phone number of the manager. I call him. Goes to voice mail. Time to make another script about our permission for a visit. Leave him a voice mail reading out the script.
Kaat gets a hold of him the next day. Good news we are going to the quarry!! 16
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Friday.
Lokeren
It’s cold today, 2 degrees. But at least it’s sunny. Waffles for breakfast.
Ghent St. Peters
The plan to outsource the drone flying to Kaat’s boyfriend is cancelled, he is busy. Now the plan is to make my boyfriend drive us to the quarry with Kaat’s parents car.
Aalst Brussels South
Charleroi South
We took a train to Lokeren from Gent St. Peter’s. We meet Kaat at the Lokeren station parking lot. I am in charge of the navigation. We get lost. Twice. Anyways, we reach the site eventually.
Couvin
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Imae of The Office
We wait in front of the front office and after a while the operation manager arrives.
Are we suppose to bring our own safety gears? He didn’t tell us that over the phone. I don’t even own any. Maybe that’s standard procedure or they never have any visitors.
He tells us we are not wearing safety clothes so he cannot let us enter the quarry, but he is happy to help us out with the questions we have.
Oh I guess that’s better than nothing. We sit with him inside the office. 19
We sit inside a small meeting room while the manager collects papers to show us. The office had a front reception room with one women looking at her phone. The room was chaotic and full of papers everywhere. It took the manager a bit of time to find catalogues he wanted to show us. So we waited while one worker sat in the corner looking at his laptop. The two small south facing windows didn’t let much sunlight in the meeting room, so it was artificially lit up.
The manager comes back with catalogues and photocopies of them. He spoke in French but understood English. So I could ask him questions in English and he would answer in half English half French. To be honest, it was quite comprehensible. He seemed to be interested in our questions. He told us about the process and introduced us to the different machinaries and their work. I wonder what it is like for 10 people to occupy a workspace of 160.000sqm.
Exhibit B: Excavator
Exhibit A and B work together in the first phase of breaking and collecting materials from the blasted grround. They are the only ones who make sound.
Exhibit C: Truck
Exhibit C transports the materials to get processed.
I don’t like these lights much. Gives me a headache.
Exhibit A: Breaker 20
Exhibit D: Crusher
Exhibit D has three types. The first crusher uses thrust, second one grinds and the last one blends.
Exhibit E: Screening
Exhibit E also comes in three. Always screening after each round of crushing. The long tenticles discharges different sizes of aggregates.
Probably he felt petty for the only, very lost, visitors to his quarry that he proposed if we would like get a ride around the quarry.
Exhibit F: Bulldoser
Exhibit F collects all the different aggregate outputs after screening and piles in different pre-determined locations in the quarry to store them. The also help load up trucks for dispatch. 21
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After the expedition, we launched our vehicle towards home. Captain boyfriend is driving while this time Kaat is navigating… It is nice to be back on earth. 25
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