The new homepage of Peter Witteveen

Hi, I am Peter Witteveen,

Born 1955 in the Netherlands .
Oldest son of Willem Witteveen and Lidy Wartena, brother of Mieke and Jan
I grew up in Heemstede, a sleepy village just south of Haarlem near the coast.
After primary schools. ( Dreefschool in Heemstede and De Poort in Haarlem) and highschool ( ds van Eldenschool ) I started to work in Haarlem as a butcher. at the
butchershop of Cor van der Geest Just did that for about a year. Found out it was not my kind of job.

So I worked some time as a steward on board of cargoboats of the KNSM.
to Chile, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama. ( Royal Dutch Steamship Company, later part of Nedloyd).
Later as cook in a home for the elderly and in an orphanage.
A few years in a supermarket and then again I got the urge to travel.

To see the world. At the same time I worked in Haarlem as volunteer in a youthcenter called Zero
where we had a vegetarian restaurant, a shop selling organic food.
We also had people teaching yoga, astrology, Tai Chi.
There was a teahouse and a house dealer selling dope.
A number of other volunteers had been to India to various ashrams and showed slides and talked about their trips.
Well, ashrams weren't my cup of tea but I liked the idea to see a new part of the world.

So,September 1979 I quit my job at the supermarket and bought a ticket for the :Magic Bus.
That was a forerunner of the Eurolines. It was a oneway ticket Amsterdam- New Delhi.
395 guilders, wat is less than 200 Euro's for 8500 kilometer.
I traveled around in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh for almost two years.
Sleeping in rooms for half a Euro and having dinner for even less.
But even with living from about 4 Euro a day, at some moment there was no money left so I had to go home.
At this time, as far as I can remember, the Magic Bus had stopped their New Delhi- Istanbul line.
So I had to take the local busses. Not a nice idea when you have had diarrhea for two years.

I made my decision, sold my Asahi Pentax camera and bought a plane ticket.
I flew home from Calcutta via Kopenhagen to Amsterdam. with the S.A.S.
(Scandinavian Airlaine service).

It was a big cultureshock. Coming from Asia, from the unorganised but green Sri lanka en Bangladesh,
the mountainous Nepal and the dryness of India to my green and neatly laid out homecountry.
No dirt on the side of the road, no cows on the street and no hawkers on the pavement.

When I came back home I found myself a job as an assistant-shopkeeper at a home for the elderly.
Worked there fo three years, went to evening school and moved to Rosmalen in the southern part of the country.

Started to work as student psychiatric nurse in 1984. It wasn't a succes but I never left Rosmalen
Did all kind of jobs, working in a frozen vegetables factory, searching for dead frogs and mice in the spinach.
Putting mandartine parts and chocolate leafs on frozen pies and cakes in a bakery.

Somewhere in the 80's i bought myself a motorised tricycle and a few thousands of second hand books
On saturdays and sundays I went to fleamarkets around the city of "s Hertogenbosch.
And started a stall in a fleamarket together with Johny Marneef who was selling second hand records. We called it : de Boekenhoek ( the bookcorner).
In 1990 the fleamarket was going to close and we opened a shop called: The Paperbackwriter.
It was quite difficult to attract enough customers because we started with a very small amount of money in a street with only small shops.
When we started it was a reasonably crowded street. A cinema at the end, the governement employment agency almost next door.
But within a few years most of the small shops closed and were converted into antique shops or shops with Turkish and Moroccan food and trinklets.
The heavy metal cafe next door was closed and became a Turkish teahouse.
And at the same time downloading of music through internet became a big thing. Even starting with selling new cd's did not help.
In 1996 we closed down. During the last half year I had tried to keep the shop.
But during that last half year I worked 3 times a week the night shift at Van Gend en Loos. A logistic company that existed for 200 years and is now part of DHL.
So when I closed the shop I got a fulltime job with this company. After more then a year I moved on to Computer Company ( Later called CSS)
After the bankruptcy a few years later I had all kind of jobs for one or two years at the time untill my last job as klerk at the frontdesk of the Tiel plant of CHEP.
When they reorganized the plant I became unemployed. I started to work as a volunteer and became logistic coordinator during about 3 years.
Than I got a job as surveillant in the municipal city surveillance. department till I became a pensioner six years later.


Hybrid animal human page genetical enginered mythological half human half animal creatures
Sikkema, Sinnighe Damste, Beekhuis, Cloeck, van Vinceler My ancestors starting from my grandmother Bauck Jacoba Sikkema
Wartena, Brouwer, Roorda, Harinxma My ancestors starting from my grandfather Jan Rinse Wartena