My motivation for establishing this website is to preserve and share the documentation of my life ’s work with who ever is interested. The internet provides a way to make this accessible to many, thereby insuring that the documentation of my experiences will continue after I am gone as another thread in the tapestry of human consciousness and part of mankind’s collective memory.
I was born in Groningen the Netherlands in July 1935 and am presently living in Bogor, Indonesia. I can be contacted at cvsanten [at] indo [dot] net [dot] id
Travel and Work
A main interest in my life has been to travel and meet people from other countries and learn about their cultures. By profession an agricultural economist specialized in tropical food crop agriculture, I traveled extensively during my professional career whereby my aim was to help traditional farmers finding practical solutions for their agricultural problems. Most of my professional work was for the Food and Agriculture Organization- FAO, of the United Nations and similar organizations involved in development of traditional tropical food crop agriculture.
For my work I lived in Iraq, 1966-1969; Liberia 1970 -1974; Ethiopia, 1975-1979 and in Indonesia from 1980 till today. I further completed short assignments in Tunisia 1961, Surinam 1963-64, Venezuela 1974, Tanzania 1974-75, Malawi 1979, Senegal 1980, Kenya 1981, Viet Nam 1992, Malaysia 1992, Sri Lanka 1993, Thailand 1993-95, Philippines 1994-95.
- In 1972, I traveled to the Tassili n’Ajjer Plateau, Central Sahara-South Algiers to study rock paintings made by prehistoric pastoralists between 4000 and 2000 BC
- In 1974, I visited the Upper Orinoco area in South Venezuela to study the Yanomamo, society. The Yanomamo are American Indians, who were still living in the stone-age in the 1970s.
- In1976, I visited the Yemen to observe a traditional rural society.
My other travels in Africa included visits to Timbuktu –Mali 1973; Tanzania 1974; The high Atlas Region in South Morocco 1973; Djerba island- Tunesia in 1961; Zanzibar in 1974; the Senegal River Valley- Senegal 1980 and The Rift Valley in Kenya 1981.
Travels in South America were to Surinam1963-64 with trips to the Commewijne district and river trips on the Suriname & Marowijne rivers; Aruba 1974 & 2005, Curacao 1974 & North Venezuela 1974.
Since 1980 I worked and traveled extensively within Asia and visited most countries, including Thailand since 1983, China 1986 & 1990, India 1987-90 & 92, Sri Lanka 1992-94, Viet Nam 1992, South Korea 1994, Laos 2000, and Burma 2001. Earlier in 1967 I traveled in Iran.
In Indonesia, my present country of residence, I traveled and completed professional assignments in most of the 27 provinces of the country ranging from Aceh Province in the west to the eastern Province of East Timor in 1997.
In Europe my travels covered most countries from Sweden in the north to Italy in the South.