Services auction
"A massage and dinner for four people. Who offers thirty euros?" UM employee and 'auctioneer' Michael Capalbo points his hammer in the direction of the audience. "I hear thirty-five, forty, forty-six. Going, going, gone!" Within the framework of Rag Week, study association Orakel and the Maastricht Student Alps Club (MaasSAC) organised an auction of services last Monday evening in the auditorium of the economics faculty.
"Is there anybody in the house who can't understand Dutch? Then I'll speak English," Capalbo starts. The services are offered in rapid succession. The audience, mainly MaasSAC and Orakel members and organisers of Rag Week, is generous and enthusiastic. "The idea, accidentally, came from the two associations," says Jesse Mertens, second-year Arts and Culture student and a member of both MaasSAC and Orakel. "The sensitive spot of the auction is co-operation. It may sound naive, but there simply has to be an offer and there have to be buyers, or it won't work."
The first service offered - a djembé lesson for two people - goes for fifteen euros. Not much money compared to the proceeds of the washing-up help. "Two ladies in your own kitchen. Your greatest desire to have the dishes done. Five days, two ladies," the auctioneer calls out. The gentlemen's signs fly up into the air followed, by much laughter. It is therefore miraculous that a female student takes off with the dishwashing service. She felt it was worth 55 euros. A lot of money was also bid for the painting service provided by the Orakel board (a metamorphosis for your student room including pink and red paint) and the mystery box, "guaranteed useful for mothers' day". Approximately twenty services, including a lesson in playing the didgeridoo, a massage, a henna tattoo, a capoeira lesson, an erotic cooking workshop (it is not the cook who is erotic, but the ingredients), personal shopper, Turkish lesson and hit squad (having a container of cold custard thrown over your enemy), yield 444 euros. All for the good causes of Rag Week: the Horizon Foundation and Vangamarthy. WD
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© Observant, © HOP | laatst gewijzigd: 21/04/05