Research Proposals!

The last two weeks have been mostly busy with school work and group projects. We have been working on two research proposals, one for the region of Marken in the Netherlands and the other for the city of Genadendal in South Africa.

Marken is located in the province of Noord-Holland, the same as Amsterdam. It takes maybe one hour by bus to travel to Marken from Amsterdam. Marken used to be an island, until a causeway was built to connect it to the mainland. It's a major tourist attraction, with lots of tourists coming in the summer months to see the unique wooden houses in Marken. Here's a link with some pictures of the area: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Netherlands/South/
Noord-Holland/Marken/

So basically, we made a research proposal in our group, to measure the impact of tourism in Marken on locals. We want to see what kind of effects the tourists have on locals, and we made two separate questionnaires. One is for those people directly involved in the tourism industry, so we'll go to hotels, and restaurants, and attractions. The other survey is for people not directly involved in the tourism industry. We'll find these people once we're in Marken, and this second survey is only in Dutch. This Monday and Tuesday, our project group will be in Marken giving face-to-face surveys, so the results are in quickly. On Wednesday we'll compare the results of the two groups, and even try to compare them statistically with SPSS! Let's hope I still have my notes from Statistics class...

Genadendal (pronounced: HHHay-NA-den-doll) is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, built on the site of the oldest mission station in the country (so says Wikipedia). This is really interesting, because this past November, the first group of students from InHolland traveled to South Africa and went to Genadendal and other communities. These students carried out initial research, which we will be following up on when we go in April. The research proposal that I've been working on with my project group is looking at the extent to which tourism development plans have been successfully implemented in Genadendal. One of the problems is that often there are lots of great tourism ideas, but these ideas are never fully carried out. Our research wants to find the reasons why.

One of the girls that went to South Africa in November gave us a presentation in class. Here is a youtube clip of when their bus got stuck in the mud in Swaziland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45ByqB56sOE

So I'm getting excited about Africa! I will be traveling with a group of about 7-8 other students, and we will be flying from Amsterdam Schiphol airport on the 19 of April. We'll be in Swaziland and South Africa for 27 days altogether, which is when we will be holding interviews and conducting our research. We will be staying in a variety of places, including homestays, hotels, and hostels. Some of our stops include Soweto, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Capetown, and other smaller communities.

I will be getting my vaccinations next week for Hepatitis A and DPT, as well as picking up malaria pills. Most of South Africa is not at a high risk for malaria, but we will be entering a park in the North in Swaziland that most travel agencies recommend bringing pills for.

I recently received confirmation from the South African embassy in Den Haag that if I'm traveling on a Canadian passport, then I don't need any Visas or residence permits for South Africa, if I'm staying less than 3 months. I still have to check the details for Swaziland, though.

Exciting!