Description
Blowing In The Wind is “Tales from an immigrant kid to international consultant” as told by Wim M. Veldman.
Experience the world via Wim’s illustrated straight-forward and often self deprecating tales, as he takes you from growing up in the Netherlands, moving penniless with his family of eight to Canada at the age of 10 to becoming an award-winning international engineering consultant.
He survived health scares and multiple operations as a baby during the “Hunger Winter” of the war – the valor of the Canadian-led allies is forever recognized by Wim. In Canada he worked in the sugar beet fields from day one while starting in Grade 5 knowing five words of English.
Follow Wim as he avoids hippos in Tanzania, bears and caribou in Alaska and snakes almost everywhere, meets the Dali Lama in India, slides down sand dunes and navigates Marco Polo’s yellow brick road in the Taklimakan Desert, Xinjiang, China. He prepares “what if” kidnapping plans for Ecuador and Peru and travels in a convoy with AK-47 gunners in Ethiopia. Wim discovers that the real dangers may not be what you prepare for.
Wim overcame the economic challenges in Calgary in the early eighties, if not for an understanding bank manager and his wife Shirley cleaning homes six days a week he would have lost it all. He incorporates both negative feedback and positive reinforcement in his business and personal life.