Today’s run took us from the Royal Military Academy in Breda, where we had enjoyed a wonderful night’s sleep, all the way to The Hague - the seat of the Dutch government.

A funny incident occurred when we were still in Breda and had parked our van somewhere to wait for our team members. Suddenly an impressive Mercedes Benz pulled up right in front of our vehicle and out came the mayor of Breda, in full costume complete with chain and accompanied by a horde of photographers. The mayor was there to honour one of his citizens with a special award. Naturally, when he came out of the building we seized the opportunity and presented him with our Harmony Torch. He was extremely kind and encouraging.

Our first stopover was after about 30 kilometers in Dordrecht, a friendly town lying on the borders of the river ‘Dordt’. Here we had a busy program, visiting a total of three elementary schools altogether. The first school, “De Driehoek,” gave us an overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception, complete with harmony-banners and self-made paper torches! City representative Mr. Van der Zwaan was also present to offer us a message of encouragement and finished by reading out a beautiful poem. Poetry was the theme of the day, as many children from several schools expressed their feelings about world-harmony in beautiful poems.

We went on to visit “De Driehoek” again, at a different location in Dordrecht. Here the children greeted us singing cheerful songs, one even in English to accommodate our international team! Holding our Harmony Torch brought a glow to their faces and they concentrated deeply on their wishes for a better world.

After that it was on to “De Repelaer” elementary school, where children had been eagerly awaiting us in the schoolyard. Even though it was the last day before a two-week holiday, they were patient enough to stay for us, as we were a little delayed. They asked us a hundred questions about the Run and we happily fed their curiosity. Here also some of the children expressed their concerns about this world in poetry and one girl aptly asked herself, “when will we all start walking in the right direction?”

After Dordrecht it was on to Rotterdam, where we visited the “Eduard Van Beinum” elementary school. While passing the torch to the children we had to remind some that wishing for a game computer or a large sum of money wasn’t really the idea of the World Harmony Run - which was mostly understood. After the ceremony was over the kids showed us that they could also run, and fast too!

We had some traffic problems coming into The Hague - what with the holiday season starting and all that - but fortunately we made it with just a minor delay to our last meeting of the day: a rendezvous with three politicians from the Dutch government in front of the “Binnenhof” government buildings. The late afternoon sun bathed the paved square in its warm glow and the three parliament members, Mrs. Varina Tjong-A-Tjen from the Labour party, Mrs. Gerda Verburg from the Christian Democratic party, and Mr. Arno Visser from the Liberal party, greeted us warmly with open smiles.

They all offered their tremendous encouragement and even ran with us for a few hundred metres (after changing shoes). Mrs Verburg, herself an excellent and avid marathon runner with a personal best of 3:22:48, promised she would join us for a few days on our next World Harmony Run. We fervently hope we will be able to keep up with her.

It was a perfect end to a beautiful day.

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