Mark Spoelstra
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Water use in the global south
Traumatic experiences shape a person
Born in Amsterdam as a war child, I have known hunger and deprivation. So I was raised on sugar beets and flower bulbs. My father was born as a missionary's son in Indonesia, while my mother tried to save what could be saved as a nurse in the bombed-out districts of Amsterdam. They hid Jews at the risk of their lives and resisted.
After obtaining my technical college entrance qualification, I studied Tropical Agriculture in Deventer. My favorite subject was hydraulic engineering, because the Dutch were world leaders in it. Just when I had my diploma, the Dutch "lost" their colony in Indonesia. I now oriented myself to the neighboring countries whose language I had learned at school: England, Belgium, France, Germany, and so I decided to take the advanced course (12 months) in Witzenhausen. My parents were against my studying in Germany. But I dreamed of a new generation and a united Europe, which gradually became reality with the EC, EEC and EU.
Career start in Algeria
During my studies, I was exempted from military service. As a conscientious objector, I was threatened with three years in prison and an entry in my criminal record. I emigrated to Algeria. The country had just gained independence from France and needed rebuilding. So I took up a post there as deputy head of an experimental station for irrigation and drainage, but was dismissed again in the course of Arabization.
I applied to the Institute of Water Management and Agricultural Hydraulic Engineering at the Hanover University of Technology. Israel was just starting drip irrigation in the Negev Desert. With a temporary research assignment, I helped develop the theoretical basis for this.
Ethiopia, Indonesia and Australia
As a member of the advisory board of the alumni association Verband der Tropenlandwirte (VTW) - now transferred to the Witzenhausen University Association - I was a regular visitor to Witzenhausen for over a decade. Through the VTW I became aware of the agricultural department of BASF. This was followed, among other things, by stays in Ethiopia under Emperor Haile Selassie, in Indonesia on the former Dutch plantations, and in Australia as head of one of the two experimental stations in the southern hemisphere.
Encouraged by the law that had just been passed allowing a second educational path and providing for equal status for technical colleges and universities, I left BASF and took courses at the SLE (Seminar Rural Development), the cadre of German international development cooperation, at Humboldt University in Berlin.
Ethiopia and Namibia again
This was followed by a position as project manager with "Menschen für Menschen" in Karlheinz Böhm's refugee project in Ethiopia. That was the time under the dictator Mengistu.
After training as an environmental consultant, I set up my own business in Namibia as a government consultant. I lived for a long time with the KhoiSan, the indigenous original inhabitants, and accompanied the formation of the "conservancies" - nature reserves in which the inhabitants are given the management of their territory themselves. In the Oshanas, which are floodplains north of the Etosha, I did selection trials with deep water rice and subsequent seed multiplication.
An offer from SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency) took me to Ethiopia for the third time with an integrated rural development program that would involve about one million smallholder farmers over many years. I taught irrigation and drainage to government advisors there.
In retirement
This was followed by a correspondence course in human ecology at the University of Tübingen, which explores the connections between population dynamics, food production and the environment. The causes of poverty, hunger and war have now become clear to me. After my retirement, together with my partner, I founded the Ethiopienhilfe-Freinsheim e.V., whose project coordinator I am today.
Comment
Hans-Jürgen Dahl: I was in Witzenhausen with Mark in 1963. I, too, am a "war child". I experienced nights of bombing in the cellar and went through hunger. Only, . . on the other side. As a pacifist, I rejected the Bundeswehr at that time. The right to conscientious objection did not exist at that time but I managed to avoid the Bundeswehr, I already had the draft card. In 1955 I became an apprentice in agriculture. Already 57 it pulled me abroad, (Sweden, USA) since Germany was too narrow for me.
In 1963 I came back to Germany and started in Witzenhausen. With Mark the training comes away there somewhat briefly, perhaps, because he had already studied before in Deventer trop. Agriculture had studied. For me, however, the studies in Witzenhausen were the leap into development aid. The lecturers were partly employees of the training center, partly guest lecturers from the University of Göttingen. Many of them had worked abroad before, so that the students from Iran, Togo, Nigeria, Colombia, etc., had the feeling that they knew what they were talking about. The workload to be handled was very large, it was up to the individual whether he wanted to take it up or not. There was contact with the former listeners of the "Colonial School", from which not least the greenhouse under Mr. Schminke profited. The lectures of e.g. Prof. Dr. Mitscherlich and Prof.Dr. Chaika, which I took part in, I still have today.
My professional curriculum vitae took me to all parts of the world. I have worked as a consultant, expert or expert witness for national and international institutions and banks (GTZ, AHT, World Bank, IFAD, AFC, KFW, EC, UNDP), most recently for 8 years as a government consultant in Nepal.
I have often been asked: Did the development aid bring something? I say: A clear yes.
Witzenhausen is and remains a fixed point in my life, not least because I found my wife there. My children were born in Kenya and spent their childhood in Malawi. Today I enjoy retirement with 7 grandchildren.