“Old woman’s summer is the term used in Russian to describe the period of post-holiday, early fall when the sun is still warm and the skies are cloudless, when the midsummer heat has moved on, ushered out by the gentle autumn breeze, when crowds of noisy children and their busy parents have moved back into their schools and offices, and the grandmas and grandpas can peacefully enjoy summer’s last sunrays on their front porches.
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That’s the way I’ll always remember my grandma: squinting, her head tilted to catch the afternoon sunrays, on her front porch, watching the chickens feed, smiling at passersby. Sadly, she won’t catch this year’s warm autumn, having passed away two weeks before the end of summer. I was sad to see her go. As the last of my grandparents, her passing opened a new chapter in my life. As my father put it, from now on I’m no longer the-granddaughter-of, but the-daughter-of. Grandparents go away, leaving us grandchildren to make new grandparents of our parents. Sad as it may be, death is an everyday, beautiful part of life, just like the changing of the seasons.
As summer changes into autumn, people love to complain about the weather. It’s the type of suffering we all have in common and is impersonal enough for us to open up about. It’s also something no one has any control over, so by lamenting the weather we unite against a common enemy without putting the blame on anyone in particular.
‘Everything ok?’ I ask my dentist during my regular checkup. ‘Everything’s fine, except the awful weather!’ ‘Yeah, but it’s almost autumn, isn’t it?’ ‘Autumn? We haven’t had any summer yet!’ People tend to take for granted and omit from memory the occasional warm sunny days of summer. The truth is, irrespective of how you spent it, summer will pass and autumn will set in, bringing colder, darker days, leaving you to look back at the wasted summer warmth with regret.
The changing of seasons, however, brings more than just melancholy nostalgia; every ending is the beginning of something new. In the past week Delft has been a hub of the new and exciting: I’ve witnessed the wedding of a friend, the first-year students getting to know each other during the Owee, the fresh internationals cautiously probing new ground at the Aula, clearly recognizable by their colorful welcome-to-Delft backpacks.
Last weekend, while buying headphones, I found myself in line with half a dozen new students with their vacuum cleaners, tosti-makers and coffee machines – the electronic essentials of a student life. And old students are returning to Delft, too, meeting old flatmates and catching up over coffee.
Returning to the TU campus after my summer vacation also filled me with the hopes of a first-year student. The gargantuan wall of books towering over visitors to the TU library brought back memories of sweaty palms and ambitions, the excitement of a new school year.
For better or worse, the changing of seasons will always be part of life. If you’re still not too happy about returning to university life after your summer break, take the time to soak up the changing season’s rich flavors on a Beestenmarkt café terrace, where you can squint in the last rays of the summer sun and think of all the awesome things you’re going to do during the coming year.”
Delta, September 2006
Martijn Nitzsche invented a new way to distil salty and polluted water in developing countries. The inhabitants of the village of Mandinari in Gambia are very pleased with his water pyramid.
Friends told Martijn Nitzsche he was crazy when, in 2002, he started his company, Aqua-Aero Watersystems. The mining engineer and TU alumnus had developed a spectacular water purification system for developing countries: a 30 metre in diameter, sun-heated, circus-like tent in which water from a salty or polluted water source evaporates. The condensation – a thousand litres of pure water a day – is collected and sold as drinking water.
Together with an NGO, Nitzsche started with a pilot project in Gambia. The World Bank was impressed and rewarded his company with a $190,000 innovation grant in 2006. Nitzsche then moved to India to apply the Water Pyramid in the Thar Desert, and in the state of Gujarat. And recently a double system was implemented on an Indonesian island.
Success mainly depends on the willingness of the locals to pay for clean water, Nitzsche found. “The story is only starting when a government or aid organization buys a tent for a village. The water purification plant must to be operated and kept running by two local employees. These people have to earn their money by selling the water to the locals.”
Based on past experiences, Nitzsche decided to focus his activities on Asia, because of the entrepreneurship of the people there. In Asia many small companies, like bottlers, ice-cream manufactures and others, were kick-started by the pyramids.
Nitzsche, who until now has started seven tent projects, has high expectations: “Within the next three years, hundreds of tents will be made and deployed in Asia.” He is also about to start a franchise formula, which he thinks will boost the production of tents.
In the meantime, however, the tent in Gambia is also still being used, but in a very original way. “The people who operate it earn 75 percent of their salary by recharging mobile telephones. For this they use the solar panels on the roof that normally feed the ventilation system that is required in the tent.”
Nitzsche stopped his activities in Africa. “Many Africans have been using contaminated water from wells their whole lives. They accept that they’ll become sick every now and then and that they’ll die at 45 years of age. That’s normal to them. When they’re not accustomed to the idea of drinking clean water, they won’t pay one cent for a litre. It’s sad but true.”
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