Chronicling the sludge fields

On Monday morning early, January 7, 2019 (the day after Epiphany), ADM was brutally cleared, buildings and art works were flattened, and 130 women, men, children, and babies were evicted from their homes of 23 years by order of the new Green Left mayor Femke Halsema and Amsterdam City Council. ADM had become world renown and, after Rock ’n Roll temple Paradiso, Amsterdam’s best known alternative culture center.
A core group of some 30 diehards stuck together and Amsterdam Noord district council provided them with a temporary site known as the Sludge Fields (De Slibveld) to move to.
Following is a partial description moving from east along the north side to the west end and returning on the south side, stopping by occasional individuals in directional order along the way. Only the residents’ names have been fictionalized in this writing, and the pseudonyms reflect a little bit on the character being described.

Chronicling the sludge fields (De Slibveld)
One of Amsterdam Noord’s favorite fishing, walking, cycling, and jogging routes loops along the North Holland Canal through Amsterdam Golf Course, and on into Waterland. Snuggled in the corner of the Canal and the driving range of the golf course is the hidden settlement known as De Slibveld (Sludge field). At a graffiti-decorated shipping container, open and proclaiming itself a Free Shop, goes a gravel lane down through a grove. What’s down at the end of that lane? In the daylight, it seems kind of idyllic - not ominous but maybe mysterious about what’s around that curve at the bottom. At night the lane is rather inviting with its line of colored lights - not the normal string of colored light bulbs but ingenious large plastic jugs in blue, green, yellow, and orange, forecasting approach to an unusual space.

The lane bends 90° to the right and leads over an old metal and wood bridge construction across a wide ditch. Do folk live further on? Lining the side of the road are bus-like vehicles and containers full of items that had been rescued from the demolition gang connected to the nefarious Bertus Lüske/ Chidda/Koole names brought in to flatten the ADM to the ground. Tire sculptures hang on tall posts like sentinels on either side of the muddy lane. Dark totems. A young woman walks big dog Neco here. This is La Chica who lives in the first red trailer after the road bends left. La Chica is from Calí, plays the trumpet, and works in a sewing atelier in Amsterdam with two other women. Like most of the folk here, she has a pet and is single. Hers is the first of a conglomeration of abodes right and left of this the settlement’s main street called ADM Avenue. A couple of muddy side streets intersect right and left (south and north), and they lead to clusters of trailers of all forms: buses, vans, tractors, and campers share space with innumerable bicycles and motorcycles parked in the mud among the trailers and along the drives. Cars of all makes and models, among which a TESLA, Volvo station wagons, Mercedes vans, DAF trucks and even cars, a beautiful red 30-passenger Setra bus, a Canta, a big Bus Tour bus, and an antique red fire engine. Several forklift trucks, three-wheeler mini trucks, and carrier bikes. These and wheelbarrows stacked full of seeming junk, yet are prized possessions with known owners.

Clear across the Sludge Field on the same side of ADM Avenue as La Chica, La Manchega is building her abode. It is almost up against busy Ring Road A10, in the farthest corner of the complex. This area is not protected from the underlying ground toxins by the layers which the municipal government laid down, so she has had to set her own self-made rubber tire piles on which to place her self-made house above the potential poisons. She is also single, living with big dog Willy Boy. Though trained and schooled in Video and Graphic Design, La Manchega prefers construction. She cooks in a Zaandam restaurant, is an idealist and a freegan. While building a kitchen for refugees in Greece, she was drawn by ADM’s fame and moved there with the puppy she rescued.

Sax Lady blows a mean sax among other wind instruments, keeps a cat somewhere, is vegetarian, and has an alternative music studio in the city. She too lives comfortably alone in her gypsy-like trailer with the art deco door bearing a sax etched in the glass on the north side of ADM Avenue on the side street named Laan van Verloren Vrij-Plaatsen (Lane of Lost Free Spaces) across the road from La Chica in a cluster of trailer-like vehicles on the right. She is from Hilversum, spent a year traveling around Spain, and went to the ADM in 2000. An organizer of festivals, she continues being a squatter because of the freedom and the enjoyment of being with these people.

Asian Lady lives across this north side street from Sax Lady in a large trailer forming the edge of a circle of disparate wagons. She lives with partner Uhm Man and two very little ones. Taiwanese mama from Buenos Aires, she is a theatre set and art project maker graduated with a BA(Honors) from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She welded bicycle and kitchen articles into a 5-times-larger-than-life big dodo bird which keeps appearing in pop temple Paradiso and at cultural events. Husband Uhm Man is a Dutch musician of several genres on several instruments with several groups, grew up in Tennessee; is a gardener, handyman, and frequent media spokesman for the group. He and Sax Lady did the satirical ADM newscasts as Aatje and Beetje.

Squatter Lady lives in a circus wagon further forming the circle. Another large trailer, it also houses foster teenage daughter Ami, dog Zef, and cat Soep. This ever-in-motion Dutch lady can be seen all over the place doing lots of things when not working and fierljeppen four days a week in Friesland. Her squatting began with her Psychologist parents and two brothers some 30 years ago when she was but four years old. She became a vegetarian shortly thereafter, but is now trying not to be because she hates seeing all those good meat cuts being thrown away by the grocery stores. She claims to be on a bowling team.

A woman living in a very small gypsy wagon in this circle is Lady of the Beautiful Hair. From Brabant of Turkish parents, she has done a pre- Masters in Theatre Science. She keeps busy defending women’s rights in other countries and trying to make the Slibveld nicer while helping regulars La Chica, Sax Lady, La Manchega, and Squatter Lady along with others of the community take care of Asian Lady’s babies, Princess Girl and Newest Girl. Distance separates her for long periods from her partner Wolf, who runs the Buluntu Culture Club in Mugla, Turkey.

Another couple live in a very small Fiat Ducati redesigned to be a motor home in a cluster on the second street of the north side of the ADM Avenue. Bergamo Guy was trained as Electrical Technician to work at Fiat in Italy, but here on the Sludge Field he is in charge of land management to optimize space more efficiently and he handles the recycling of things. He worked on draining the swamp around the garden area, and he lives here with his Italian partner who is a veterinarian and his 4 yr.-old son Italian Boy. He went to the ADM in 1999 and built his home there from old windows and doors before it was mercilessly destroyed by the bullies’ wrecking crew. Since he is Italian and he baked pizzas for the community there in a self-made oven, the tall structure became known as the Pizza Tower. Beatrix their white dog also lives with them but she carries the name Bea on her passport because the Dutch authorities then didn’t think it appropriate for a dog to bear the name of their queen. Bergamo Guy values living here because the community accepts squatters in their diverse life-styles. His one irritation, though, is that everyone has a smartphone with which they constantly change plans and time appointments already agreed upon at the weekly business meeting.

Almost at the end of this side street is a rather nice chicken coop with 3 or 4 hens and a frequent visiting peacock. The hens belong to Lady Belarus from Braslaw. She lives in the 6-wheel trailer and can be seen in the morning drinking her tea on her tiny veranda and watching the birds. Though not a vegetarian, she doesn’t like to cook meat. She is a printing technician and works at her studio in the Binnen Pret in Old South with another lady; at the Slibveld she helps in the bar.

Next to the chicken coop, The Mayor lives alone in his trailer. He more than anyone is responsible for the fate of the Slibveld. With his experience working for Urban Resort (urbanresort.nl) he with the Special Task Force makes the contacts, writes the proposals, meets with the officials and is constantly busy handling the legal and political matters of the community, as he was for the ADM where he was one of the first squatters of that terrain. In fact, he was docked there on a boat for 4 years before squatting the ADM along with his wife and daughter.
Born in Venlo, of professional parents, he has always squatted since the beginning of the 80s. The Mayor has organized festivals and tours for bands, DJed, and spoken at manifestations. He is a cultural entrepreneur and financial director and one of the very few that can write the legalese required for dealing officially with the government. He does this because he values this natural environment here, the free way of living minus luxuries, and these special folk who as a group achieve much. Believe it or not, he feels proud chopping wood for heating and walking through the cold and mud to get to the toilet or shower. In the future he would like to join others to acquire land and set up a permanent freespace community with its own internal economy. It would have to be far from Amsterdam, though, where land has become much too expensive - maybe somewhere in the northeast of the country. His daughter too is going far away - to Hong Kong for Leiden University to study International Relations.

Mr. Green Energy, who has been volunteering with the ADM for 8 years appreciates very much the freedom and the community feeling here. He likes to make custom furniture sculpture and weld. He’s been producing electronic music for 20 years and also loves to DJ. He is building many eco, off-grid, low-impact, solutions and sculptures and loves the idea of self sustainability. Mycelium Ms. Also likes to make alternative furniture and decor for installations and events such as ADM Paradiso, an event that happens at
the end of February. One of her projects on the Slibveld is cleaning the soil of its existing toxins, with mushrooms which she raises on straw and wood chips. She say's "the garden group made some soil tests to see the levels of toxins, and we are hoping to see the levels drop in the years to come as the mycelium spreads into the earth".  For more info on this project check https://admnoord.org/garden.php

On the south side of ADM Avenue there is a muddy loop through more clusters of dwellings of all sorts. At the top of the loop is the ”business center” of the settlement where the communal buildings are: a prefab frame building used for meetings, classes, and workshops; a tall 2-storey A-frame with terraces front and back that serves as bar and stage. The busy kitchen building next door has two big freezers and two airtight chests to hold food acquired thru the network of surplus food distribution. The various cooks often make vegetarian meals there for the public in return for donations. In front of the kitchen is a small tap bar serving Friekens craft beer for less than in any café. Stacked containers house the laundry, shower, and toilets which are washed and disinfected regularly by community members. Adjacent is a workshop for welding, carpentry, plumbing, and mechanics. The business section ends at assorted containers stacked on each other topped with a gigantic skull.

Where the muddy street loops back onto the ADM Avenue is Bucket Boyz Recycle/Tallbike Worksopp, an ingenious cabin serving as a a bicycle shop in the middle of piles of bikes of all shapes, sizes, and kinds. Most of the equipment and tools are donated or are found items, especially by Krispyburger. He is another Dutchman who often works here deep into the night but who lives in Amsterdam center. Besides bicycle maker, he is a drummer in bands and works odd jobs. He has been helping to put in a small idyllic library under the tall shrubs down along one of the diverting wooden slat paths from the garden. Perhaps to compensate for the city council’s intention to save money by shutting down public libraries in poor neighborhoods and build a glitzy new one in the Zuidas business center, according to HET PAROOL columnist Michiel Couzy.

Across the looping street from these buildings lives Little Cook Lady. Born in France, she lives with her big black dog Akra in a self-made abode incorporating a food truck which she opens up for festivals. She is a Chef Cook graduated from Professional Cooking School and prefers making experimental dishes. Her dream is to be the master cook in her own freaky restaurant anywhere as long as she can cook. She also makes electronic music and eats everything.
Little Cook Lady does cooking and food demonstration workshops for children at the OCCII with The Big Gentle, like making rice cake castles. He was of the original ADM squatters 23 years ago and is one of the devoted Slibvelders who doesn’t really live here but is one of the community. Born in Leiden, he has a 9-year-old son who comes with him on weekends. He is a lover of all music including Zangeres Zonder Naam, except André Hazes. The Big Gentle hopes to keep enjoying the here and now and being a sort of ambassador for the OCCII.

If a bubble drifts through the air, then Princess Girl may be wandering in the neighborhood blowing soap bubbles or Bubble Man is practicing his bubble-making attraction for a festival. His mobile home is next to Little Cook Lady. Since it’s across from the community’s toilet, he cleans it whenever he notices that it’s dirty. He speaks Dutch, English, and the Slavic languages including Russian and Polish. He starts his job for DHL at 4 a.m. where he starts unloading and sorting and he works until noon every day 5 days a week. He calls himself a performer, making bubbles which he learned in 1990 from a mime who taught him about the ”magic soap.” In the future he hopes to continue making bubbles for festivals and to live somewhere warmer, farther from a highway, where he can have animals again. The Slibveld is not a good place to keep chickens because it’s hard for them to scratch in this gravel laid down by the municipality. He’s squatted for over 25 years, likes the feeling of surviving together, and finds amazing what Ms Garden and others are making of their circumstances. Usually he goes home to visit his parents every year at Christmastime. This year he couldn’t because of Covid 19 and more sadly because it was his mother’s 80th birthday.

Another squatter of the original group who squatted ADM back in the 90s is Dutchman The Big. He was born in Utrecht, is an artist welder and a builder of wood-burning stoves heating these various buildings and trailers. He helped Italian Guy with the draining of the garden area swamp. He (and his Dominican girlfriend) are busy trying to care for his ailing 87 year-old father up in Friesland. He lives with this group because the way they live agrees well with him, they are honest folk - things don’t get stolen. The Big will be happy if this group is kept together and not be sent away again by the municipality and if he can keep playing chess - his passion.

The dude with the long braids almost as long as he is tall lives across from the bike shop in a 1982 VW bus. He is Galician Man from A Coruña with a degree in sculpting and restoration. While working in one of those artist exploiting production workshops in Amsterdam, he was brought to the ADM in 2015 by acquaintances. He has no dogs of his own but cares for those here, and he gardens, cooks, and helps with construction. Like everyone else here, he speaks several languages besides Dutch, English and his native Galician dialect. Even Princess Girl switches from Dutch, English, Spanish, and Chinese, though only 3 years old. Her constant companion, Italian Boy, being the Italian that he is, tries to get through to her in his language, with meager success.

Back on the north side of the ADM Avenue near the entrance to the Slibveld are bins of compost, piles of plant material, scattered garden tools, and heaps of black dirt. A curving path of wooden slats leads off through the shrubs and brambles into a swamp to a geodesic dome. This is Ms Gardening’s center of an extensive garden project she calls The Green Ass Garden. At the ADM it was the symbol of continued hope that Femke wouldn’t really force the group to leave their cherished site, so they were reluctant to close the dome and gardens down for the approaching forced eviction. When all hope was gone, at the very last moment the community took 12 cubic meters of that fertile ADM garden soil with them to the Slibveld and it supplies fresh organically-grown food for the community. Her plans are to experiment with growing tropical plants like luffa spons and tomatillo. Born in Brabant, Ms Gardening too is a participant in the community, but lives in Old South where she helps to run the OCCII. She plays the piano and harp and is a dancing fool. What keeps this vegetarian from being a full- fledged vegan is that she loves honey and cheese too much.

Another garden dome is recently brought in by Illuminati Man whose innumerable well-grounded theories regale a listener for hours. He drove up and back to Denmark to pick up the dome from his past partner at the ADM. No, he’s not Scandinavian: he’s Dutch from the Bollenstreek, is an artist graduated from the Rietveld Academy, plays bass in several bands, and lives in another small gypsy wagon right up against his long-time mate Uhm Man’s trailer.

Nightly activities in the Slibveld are often neighborly get-togethers around a fire and a picnic table listening to Latin rhythms or loud music in the middle of one of the various clusters, the music depending on the cluster and the language - usually English though everyone understands Dutch and is multilingual. On Monday evening is the the weekly business meeting, on Thursday nights there is a Dutch language class in the prefab building and a Spanish class in the adjacent A-frame. Friday is garden-care day followed at dusk by a big vegetarian dinner in front of the kitchen building. The weekend nights may have performances by invited acts from the Balkans, Latin America, Dutch punk, French electronic, Americana, etc. Sunday is the big jam night for the community: professional musicians mix with amateurs and beginners to play till the morning hours. Acoustic mixes with industrial noise; guitarists play drums for a change and vice versa. Violin, clarinet, charango, djembé, harmonica, accordion, brass, flute, banjo, synthesizer, vocals, and more. La Chica makes podcasts of the sessions.

These folk can pick up and be gone quickly if necessary. If there is need for help with refugees at the borders of Europe or for a mobile kitchen to be built on Lesbos; if someone’s grandmother is on her deathbed; or a site in Finland needs help to set up a festival; whatever may be the call. So trailers move or rearrange themselves. Residents move away and newcomers arrive. Life on the Slibveld is fluid, though there is protocol and voting on who may stay. Theft is about the only cause for banning an occupant: everything may get borrowed but nothing seems to get stolen. The many big dogs run free and are protective.

The camaraderie on the Slibveld, the freedom each individual has, the creativity exhibited, these and more make clear and understandable that this is a special place. Maybe for these same reasons and more not everyone may see the good here. Why not? Maybe too free, too individualist, too creative - for some. Or too muddy, too chaotic.

”In this brave new century we shall miss the tolerant, the marginals, the edge people, My people.”
Tony Judt