Piratesk Miracles of 't Houtdok Zuidkaai in Antwerp

 t Eilandje once was the flourishing area where all the sailors used to go to find a job on the 'koopvaardij' and the dockworkers used to come for daywork. The sailors are now retired and live in 'het zeemannenhuis' but the dockworkers are still there…. In the old abandoned trashy streets men and a few women wait for the 'auction' of the day. they walk in and out Petra's cafe, the dockworkers cafe where beer is 1.50 and open from 5 A.M.
          

                                           Dockworker's trick...ooh la la! You naughty dockworkers:-)

                                                              A common day in dockworker's bar Petra's cafe....
                                                                                   Bienvenue on 't Eilandje!

Petra's cafe is the dockworkers cafe, open from 5 AM. The dockworkers start their days early, drinking beer on an empty stomach… There are three auctions every day, one early in the morning, just after the first beers, one midday and one later on the afternoon. The workers come to a big hall with their dockworkers passports and wait to be elected for a day job. After the auction they meet for a beer in Petra's cafe, to drink in courage before work. The cafe is packed when I enter. In Belgium there is smoking prohibition since 10 days, but in Petra's cafe they don't give a shit, if authorities would come to check, the strong men would stand up and kick them out rudely…. they laugh loud and brutally over the oldfashioned discomusic….when they see little Fabel enter their bar they all turn around and start laughing at me. "What are you doing here?" "I come to collect stories…" "Haha, stories, here there are plenty of stories….but hey lady, why don't you come over tonight and I will tell you some fine stories." They all start laughing again. I insist and ask if there is anybody who would like to tell me something about the dockworkers life. Well they say, Gaspar might have a story…. Gaspar is sitting in the far corner of the bar and looks at me shyly when I approach him…His friends on the table laugh and push him to tell something. They all talk in an Local dialect which I hardly understand…. Finally Gaspar is willing to tell me something about the dockworker's life, but not in front of the camera. I can record the sound though…. And tells me that life as dockworkers is tough and it's not as it used to be….people are less generous and times have changed. Very few people are still willing to work as dockworker for it's a tough life but the freedom is inexplicable. You can work whenever you want…. and your friends are always near…



Gaspar is the oldest dockworker of 't Eilandje. He was too shy for the camera, he said. So I just recorded his voice...


I go to the big hall for the auction and there I find all men in orange costumes, I'm quite undercover in my grandfathers raining suit:-)…A young man approaches me and is eager to tell in front of the camera about his life on the docks... a bit more optimistic and poetic than monsieur Gaspar...


Dockworkers wait for work during the auction of the day....an old tradition still alive. Aren't they sexy!

Then I met Jef...good old magic Jef…. Great adventurer Old sailor and Diamondseeker
My perfect Man!!!

I met Jef de Visser in Petra's cafe... In my search for miraculous stories all the signs leaded to Jef de Visser. When I finally found him it was love at first sight! He and his wife Lis, who wrote the below poem  feel like my family, as if we know each other from a long time ago. Thank you so much for your wonderful stories and your loving help. I wear the talisman and the poem is in my museum. And with your VHF I contact the world:-) I love you Jef and Lis! Tot ziens!

           After Jef changed his career as a sailor for a diamondseeker he became a diamond expert.
                                              In this movie Jef draws the work on diamonds...


 
Another story...... In Petra's cafe

Gedicht van Lis, de wonderschone vrouw van diamantzoeker Jef, die de allerbeste bananensoep maakt van de hele wereld. Zij schreef dit gedicht na de nacht van de fabels.

Toen hij thuis kwam en zei,
Ik heb iemand leren kennen,
Zij gaat helemaal alleen,
Verhalen verzamelen en trotseren de zee,
En ik dacht, ocharme mijn man, Jef,
Die zit ergens mee.
's Middags in die gore kroeg, leerde ik haar kennen,
Je moet lef hebben, of je gaat er niet binnen,
En ja, zij heeft lef, anders zou je die tocht niet beginnen
Ik stond versteld,
Want wat Jef heeft verteld,
Is waar
heel waar.
Zo'n tengere lieve meid, vol passie, vuur en dromen,
Die eindelijk uit mogen komen.
Enkele uren later, gingen we naar haar boot,
Die op een groot gezelschap lag te wachten,
En ik voel het, ook naar de zee is aan het smachten
Tijdens het avond vallen,
Kroop ze in de mast, ontstak haar licht en hees de vlag,
Een moment heel ontroerend,
Dat ik dat aanschouwen mag,
Muzikanten, dichters, vertellers en veel bier,
Een leuke avond vol plezier.
Een grote bende, die iedere dag naar dezelfde zon kijken zal.
En denken, is ze op zee, of ergens aan wal.
Maar zeker weten,
We zullen je niet vergeten.
Binnen x aantal tijd, kom je naar Antwerpen terug.
Met de wind in je rug.
Dan is er weer een feest.
Met al je verhalen over je tocht, hoe die is geweest.
En wij zullen luisteren,
En stilletjes fluisteren,
Nee, dit is geen fabel,
Maar de grote droom van Helena Fabel.

Voor Helena
van Lis
xxx
Antwerpen 16/07/2011





 Dutch version of the Drunken Sailor
I discovered this band on Friday afternoon in Petra's cafe and after their concert I invited them

for de Nacht van de Fabels. And they came!

                            Mister Merlin

Mister Merlin is the hidden magician of the Kempisch dock....on a dreary day I knock on his door....he sticks his head out of the window and screams: What do you want!? I'm dying! And then he laughs as if he were athunderstorm....

Mister Merlin lives alone on his magic boat. He misses one arm and he starts the day with rum and coke. The morning I came to visit him it was raining. I shouted Mister Merlin Mister Merlin, and from a tiny little window an old head appeared shouting: What do you want?! I am busy dying! I said I was searching for miraculous stories. Ah! And his grimace turned into a smile: I understand exactly what you mean, he said, come in. There was mister Merlin, living in a classic tugboat, which was build in 1903. And just the t.v. showed it could just have been 1970:-) For it was an old tv. Mister Merlin was sitting on his bed, wearing a dirty overall and an old tshirt, he rolled a cigarette and took a sip of his rum coke, you want one? Or you prefer a coffee. I decided for a coffee for my fever was still on….I was dying, mister Merlin said, cause last night I went out drinking with my girlfriend and he laughed as I had never heard anyone laughing. So loud that his whole boat started shaking. He rolled another cigarette and showed me around. He showed me tiny little boats made of paper and wood. These he said, I make for the children. For each birthday one. And again he laughed as if a thunderstorm had just awoken. He showed me the little sailboat he had build from old wood. I saw Mister Merlin sailing this little colorful self-made boat in the waters of his imaginary fairyland. He showed me his colossal and well maintained engine. Proud as he was. When I left he gave me his official tug costume jacket. A  grey woolen  jacket with golden buttons. He said: "It suits you better, tug people never wear their official costumes, we only wear dirty overalls. And off I went, through the rain again with my new tug costume, extremely oversized under my grandfathers rain jacket. And I didn't care about the rain. Life was a miracle…. I had met mister Merlin.

I passed by the message in a bottle….the message in a bottle was a sort of boat in the shape of a bottle. Donia Gert had told me that the owner was Fons Oerlemans, a very special man who, together with his wife, had crossed the Atlantic ocean 6 times. Each time with a different self-made object. The first time it had been a floating truck, and the last time a 'message in bottle'  Fons wasn't home and I never managed to meet him…. His boat reminded me to start throwing messages in bottles overboard….you know what…people can give me a message in a bottle and I can throw them overboard somewhere appropriate according to the story of their message….

Donia Gert tells me over a cup of coffee that she once made a voyage together with her daughter Roos, towards the origin of the rive the Schelde (the river that passes through Antwerp into the sea).  They collected dreams about the origin of the river and recorded them. Then they took of for a voyage towards the origin of the river. She went by foot with a donkey and her daughter with a tiny little boat and when they arrived they played the record without ever listening to them under the origin of the river. They wouldn't listen to them because then the dreams wouldn't come true…..



Then there was searogue David, a real city pirate. Tough, handsome, tall, deep brown eyes, a leather jacket, full of life n fire. He always had a brown wild dog by his side and a son on his arm…
 
He would take us everywhere n showed us the madness of the human soul and our civile creation & the beauty of the city pirate of wonders life....

He was our master of adventure!

He would take us to a place past itching and burning  plants where he showed us a magic little universe fulll of little fairy lights and very old walls. A strange energy came from these stone walls. They were straight and very thin, all very tight next to each other…nobody knows what they do there and where they come from....

He would take us to a little theatre in the citypark under a tree....

He would take us to the Cabinet of Wonders of magic artist Peter Felix.....

He would take us out in his old truck and we would cross around the Antwerp harbour.
Loud flamenco from huge speakers breaking our ears.
Ik huil wanneer ik keihard dit lied hoor...Zo reizen we als zigeuners langs de rafelranden van de maatschappij.. daar waar 't schuurt, als gedeporteerden, verstotenen, vogelvrij verklaarden, gedeserteerden. Wij kozen voor de vrijheid.... yo no tengo patria....and I cry I cry and we dance....

He would bring us to deserted fields to dance with the car. His car was alive and would dance like a wild prairy dog and David climbed on top of the car and cried and sang out loud. JALLLAAA!!!
The wild cry of a free man filled the silent air of the sleeping harbour. That night I fell in love with searogue David…His dog would run around me and attacked my shawl, we danced, we fought and finally I won….

David is the man who never stops, he is the man who makes fanfares and orchestras walk with him into the mist to celebrate despair...he is the man who'll take the lead when police and authorities will try to chase the pirates away from the port..he'll open his mouth, raise his fists and push them men in uniform back into their self made prisons... he is the man of revolution ….he is the man who could fly if society wouldn't keep us down.... but he is also the man who suffers from a deep solitude for there are not many people who have the guts to walk the thin line between the known net of rules and regulations and the immense undefined space on the other side....he mostly walks his path of discovery on life or death alone.... with his son on his arm and his dog by his side.

Antwerp is in my blood, Antwerp attacked my soul n stole my heart.... I still cry when I think back of my dearest pirate friends of the Houtdok Zuidkaai. It was the most Fabulistic and miraculous first port of call on my voyage I could have ever dreamed..... And if my voyage brings me back one day to the Northern Hemisphere...I'll pass by Antwerp, kiss my friends,  tell them all my stories and I might stay.....
Thank you Jan, Gerda, Jef en Lis, David, Don Fabulist, Peter Holvoet, Roos, Charles, Klaas en Serge, Mister merlin, Message in a bottle, Peter Felix, Pater Theo, the dockworkers of Cafe Petra and all the other pirates of 't Eilandje, wonder creatures of the land of the fabulas!


Hasta la proxima!!!!
Hasta el pais de nuncajamas.....

MISS YOU LOVE YOU KISS YOU