Realizing I live in Montreal for 11 months and still don’t feel completely at home, makes me think about The Netherlands a lot. I don’t know if it is because Dutchland might win the World Cup tomorrow, or because my Dutch blood came to visit me. Or it might be the fact that I just watched ‘uitzending gemist’ all evening. Whatever the reason, I feel a need to express the love I feel for my mother’s land, les pays-bas, there where my roots are, The Netherlands.
I love The Netherlands and feel very privileged for growing up where I did, the way I did. It will be impossible to list everything I love about it, but what the heck, it is Saturday night and I have no plans so let me try. Let me start with saying that my friends and family that know me longest and possibly best are all home in the Netherlands. I miss everyone I love always and this only makes me love them more. Weet dat ik jullie allemaal bij me draag, altijd! Ik hou van jullie, heel erg veel.
But, the people I love are not the only factor that makes me long for home. I also miss expressing myself in my native tongue, and the fact that I develop an American accent in my Dutch is rather disturbing to me. I try to make peace with myself by talking Dutch to our dog Bourbon and singing De Dijk’s songs a lot.
With language, comes culture. I miss Dutch culture for various reasons. I love Dutch humor, I do. We know what’s funny, at least what I think is funny. Nowhere, but in the Netherlands, people understand my jokes the way they should be understood. And in The Netherlands you can make fun of anything, as long as it is somehow intelligent. I have always felt I could speak up and share my thoughts, even – or especially – when I disagreed. In The Netherlands I can say no, without being disrespectful and we can give each other feedback face to face without getting insulted. People might call it blunt, or hard, but I call it honest and I love it. In The Netherlands we are stimulated to think for ourselves, to be critical. This might make us stubborn naggers, but it also made me decide to go to Palestine.
Another thing I came to realize with living here is that Dutch cities are just the right size for me. Montreal is too big. In our cities you can leave your home without a plan and end up having fun with people you run into on the street. In the hearts of our cities you find people of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientation and different looks in the same place. It is small enough not to divide everything in to sections like they do here. A couple of blocks for gay people, a block for Chinatown, some streets for hipsters and a little Italy are just examples. I rarely see people younger than 18 or older than 40 in the city centre because they mostly live in suburbs. It is big here and nobody knows each other. When I said hi to my neighbor for the first time he looked shocked, now we have a small ritual I memorized in French. But if I had not started it, we might have never said a word to each other unless there is trouble.
I miss cheese, the country, biking on seemingly endless flat land, predictable weather, eating poffertjes on De Pier, coffee shops, the wind from the sea, crossing the country to visit a friend in just a few hours, dancing to good techno, cooking on gas, having a toilet outside of the bathroom, good fries, having tall men around, and so much more. I miss The Netherlands and it makes me love it more.
I truly am privileged and living in different cultures has only made me realize this more. I have always felt free and able to enjoy this freedom and this is a very precious gift. A gift from my parents in the first place, but I’d also have to thank Dutch society. I know things are changing, people change, and I change… This is the way it is supposed to be, the world has to turn, cannot stand still. But I have a feeling – you might call it hope – that when I come back, home will still feel like home for me. And I will embrace it with everything I have.
I love The Netherlands.
Hello my friends,
How is your summer going so far?
I am sitting on our new deck enjoying the sound of the wind in the trees around me, seriously procrastinating being productive. I should write a paper about the trauma and treatment course at McGill that I did this summer but discovered that it is actually pretty hard to work without a deadline for me. Summer broke loose in Montreal, so there is always something better to do. Plus writing about collective violence and trauma is not quite a happy occasion. And going to street festivals, meeting new people and enjoying the sun is.
I am happy winter is over. I am happy with my new place including funny, charming and very kindhearted roommates and a lovely puppy. I am happy about the fact that my sister will come visit me next week. It’s going to be lots of fun to show her around. I am also enjoying memories of my parent’s visit. It was very special and my gratitude for having such amazing parents is huge.
There are a few things I still have to get done. I need to find a practicum placement for next year and it is not going very well. The fact that I do not speak French is not helping. I’m sure it will all work out, but I would like to get it organized so I can stop thinking about it for the rest of the summer.
I am trying to do a drama therapy project this August within a Cree community in the North of Quebec. I wrote a proposal and have send it to the people that decide about these things. I have not yet heard back from them, so not sure if all will work out, but we will see. It would be an amazing experience for sure.
I just have to finish my paper and get ready for my sister and her boyfriend to arrive. There, I just gave myself a deadline. July is going to be beautiful!
Thanks to my generous, awesome, loving and supportive parents I got to see quite a bit of Canada. I’ll tell you what we saw through pictures.
Soon an update about what keeps me busy these days, I promise.
Big thanks to my parents who made this all possible! It was amazing to see, hug, laugh and talk with you again.
I’d like to write a super quick update about how weird the weather here is.
Picture this.
Yesterday I was on my way to visit an apartment. I had already found a guy with a really nice place and he had let me know I was welcome just last evening, but since I had the appointment already, I decided to check it out. The place sounded interesting to me, because it was the home to a blind pitbull, called Steve who, and I quote the add, “would steal my heart”. The apartment is in a really nice neighborhood, and a very nice walk from where I live now. It was nice and warm out, the sky blue and the sun shining. I was already a bit burned from playing badminton in the park last Sunday; just enough to feel the perfect amount of sunbeam sensation.
I’m really enjoying my free walking time a lot. I had a very busy period and now I have a better perception of time again and so do the people around me, which makes it even nicer. School is over and I did well. My summer course starts only in May and all I have to do is find/create a practicum site for next year, find a job for the summer and find a new home. It is a lot to find, so I try to focus mostly on the creating part. I think I might be able to do some really interesting projects next year.
Alright, I’m digressing; back to the weather.
The weather is weird.
You have pictured yesterday’s weather right? It was NICE!!
Today, I woke up thinking it was the middle of the night still, because it was so dark. I have a window right above my head. I lift the curtain with my right hand middle finger and glance up. I see something that makes me doubt either if I’m dreaming or if I slept through all summer: it is SNOWING…
And even though it is almost 8 PM at the time I am writing this, and it is really getting darker, I can still see the white flakes curiously whirl down. The roofs of the city light up in the dark again.
I went within 24 hours from walking around in a T-shirt, whistling, to sitting in my room between boxes hugging a cup of hot tea, called sleepy time, which I like, because it keeps me warm and awake.
Oh, and by the way, I am moving this weekend. Not to live with Steve, even though he did steal my heart, but to an even nicer place. So I hope the weather will be back to better by then.
Almost done with the semester, the weather is seriously marvellous and I am seriously torn between lying around in a park all day and writing my last papers. I decide to start my day with writing. But since I can’t bring myself to do some actual work I decide to give my blog some kind of update. It has been so long, there is no way to summarize everything I did in a way that you would actually like to read this. In stead of getting lost in details, I decided to give you an idea of my thoughts and feelings of today. If you want details about my life, you can email me, skype me, or come to hang out with me.
Yesterday I was watching fragments of ‘De Wereld Draait Door” (the world keeps on turning), which is a talk show I usually enjoy watching. This time it made me feel sick to my stomach. Everything seems to be about money. First there is a discussion about what would be best for The Netherlands to come out of next elections. Maurice de Hond explained to us in his usual very simple language that it is all about the cuts the government will have to make in their budget that will decide what to vote on. The right wants to cut in our contributions to Europe and developmental aid. The left wants to cut in defence and mortgage interest deduction. It will be incredibly hard to form a functional coalition between parties with the polarization going on. Rich vs. poor, white vs. black, capitalism vs. socialism and war vs. terror seem to tear the world apart.
Maurice the Hond makes it sound like there is no way we can have a successful government in this economical crisis. Willem Vermeend suggests something that makes very much sense to me: let’s meet each other. He talks about making agreements between employers and employees. I would like to add to that with saying the conversation should be opened between all so called opposites. Reach out to immigrants, elderly and the poor and get to know them for real, instead of basing our opinions about each other on what main stream media feeds us. Make sure we understand that we live together in this country, in this world. Together we can work on rebuilding this economy is what Vermeend states. Makes sense to me. Or, better even, we could just decide not to participate in this capitalistic false idea that everything is about money and consumption.
May I remind you that The Netherlands is one of the richest countries in the world (thanks to colonialism). Still, many Dutch people seem to be unsatisfied, scared, angry and frustrated. Money is not the answer to everything.
I start thinking about the unfairness of this world again and how little our current economical system does not make sense. 321 People were butchered in The Congo and nobody seems to know about it for months. All we talk about is this small African statue (from The Congo actually) which is once bought by a man for 50 euro and now appears to be worth 80.000 euro. But the man does not want to sell his piece of art, since it is much more important to him than the actual money. He doesn’t need the money and I love him for admitting that. But I can’t help to wonder; does this man realize that the children of the artist that made his precious object live in very difficult and dangerous circumstances, that they are being killed? That maybe he should give this statue back, since it was probably stolen from The Congo by colonialists? That this money he does not need might be needed in the country of origin? The man probably does not.
Feeling overwhelmed by this world’s unfairnesses and hypocrisies and the powerlessness of not being able to change any of this, I leave my computer. I open the fridge and find two eggs and an apple. Note to self: I really need to go out for groceries tomorrow. I make some French toast with my last slices of old bread and the eggs. Together with slices of the apple and some cinnamon, I create something that looks like it could be published on the culinary pages of a magazine. It can be so simple.
I step outside on my balcony. It is a nice warm night.
I take a deep breath.
And breath out.
Breath in.
Breath out.
With my mouth full of sweetness I realize I enjoy life.
I really do.
Who knows why?
I know, I know, you had to wait for this story far too long. I apologize for causing you sleepless nights and problems concentrating on your day to day tasks because your thoughts kept drifting of, thinking about me, wondering how my experience of New York City has been. And because you have been waiting so long, I will not taunt you anymore and continue with a description of my very first, and maybe last, visit to the United States.
Day 1: My arrival
All of you that are loyally reading every story I write already know that my trip by train from Montreal to NY was view wise beautiful. I slept a little, wrote a little and read a lot. Finally I had time to read what I want to read instead of what my Profs tell me to read and of course I grabbed this opportunity with both hands carrying the following three books with me: “What is the What” by Dave Eggers (beautiful, I’d say a must read for all), “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran (inspiring short stories given to me by a good friend) and “The Wayfinders”by Wade Davis. The only thing I did not like to much about the trip was the border control. Those home land security people were immediately getting on my nerves and in total we had to wait for three hours, but I did get in eventually, so I guess I cannot complain. Eleven hours after departure I sat foot in New York City. I admit, I had to smile with the thought. I found a taxi who took me to the apartment, my home for the next week. There I met Marlieke, a Dutch dancer/choreograph, my roommate for the week. After, shortly introducing myself and eating a falafel sandwich I went to bed.
Day 2: O dude, I am in NEW YORK!!!
Woke up, put some warm clothes on and went out. For the first time seeing it in daylight, I could now be sure: O yes, I am in New York! I decide to get myself a subway card for the week, but do not want to use it right away. I much rather explore this area of Manhattan on foot, since you can’t see much underground. The apartment I stay at is very close to Union Square, so it is not very coincidental that this is where I end up at first. I look around and see a street sign with ‘Broadway’ written on it. I decide this is where I want to go: the attraction of theatre is still working on me. I pass a huge comic store and go in to see if there is anything cool there I could bring my dad. But I get over stimulated by all the plastic supernatural characters staring at me right after opening the door end within 5 minutes I am outside again. I can always come back later I think to myself. Breakfast first. I find a place on Broadway, called Cozy and decide this is where I want to have my first breakfast and plan the day. 15 Minutes later I am outside again, satisfied food wise, still without a plan and a little bit disappointed. Let me just say, Cozy is about as cozy as an average McDonalds. I decide to slowly make my way to Times Square, since I want to be there for a demonstration for Palestine at 1 PM. When I arrive at Times Square I get a little overwhelmed. The mass of people is so huge that, once you enter, you lose all your ability to choose speed or direction. I just shuffled along until I saw a way out. I do manage to get to the demonstration eventually and spend the rest of the day shouting, marching and dancing for Palestine.
Dag 3: Some more Sightseeing
First I went out to check Central Park. And I have to say, I was quite impressed. It is a beautiful big piece of nature. Central Park is big enough in order for me to walk for hours and have the illusion at times I am the only one. The fact that it lies in the middle of this enormous city and you can see the skyscrapers dooming up behind the trees makes it kind of surreal. There is a huge ice-skating place in the south of the park, but a combination of my clumsiness on the irons and the long line-up made me pass for this. After walking around for a while I went to visit Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Huge, beautiful, rich and out of place is all I have to say of this really. You can check the pictures. Then I took a tram, which is really a small car that transports you to Roosevelt Island through the air, hanging on a cable. This was amazing! And I have some cool pictures to proof that. The view of the city was enormous. And since I decided earlier that day that I am not going to stand in line for 3 hours and pay 20 dollars to go up Empire State Building I was really happy to have found this (free!!) cool way of transportation with an awesome view. I ended my day treating myself on a vegetarian meal in a restaurant in Brooklyn.
Well peaps, it is getting late and I worked hard all day, so I will write about the second half of the week in which I celebrated new year, visited ground zero and much more next time.
…to be continued…
On the left site the biggest lake I have ever seen, half frozen and on my right side a mountain full of snow. Everything is white and seemingly untouched by humanity. I imagine this is where children from the US believe their Santa Claus lives. I am somewhere in between Montreal and New York in a train, staring at the fairytale like landscapes. Listening Tori sing. Reflecting.
I am on my way to New York where I am going to spend a whole week doing whatever I want to do. I don’t really have a plan, but I do have the right mindset and a place to stay in the middle of Manhattan (thank you Judith and Marlieke!). This is what freedom feels like.
I would love to just enjoy this moment, but my mind seems to keep wandering of, getting occupied with complicated and sometimes troubled thoughts. I was so busy with my studies the past three months I felt like being on an unstoppable train. And now, here I am: on the train again, though this time the literal version and on vacation. Of course all this sudden freedom makes me think! Finally, I have time to look back on the past couple of crazy months. It seems a good time for some reflection.
In a way the world seems to make more and more sense to me. Or maybe I should say that my place and the path I will go in this world become clearer to me. I think it is safe to say that I am doing something I love and might even be pretty good at (I finished my fist semester with all A’s). I moved into a new apartment where I celebrated an incredible Christmas with my roommates and some of our friends. I feel very lucky to have met these girls and that they took me in to what will be my home for the next one and a half years. It is a home full with love, where I feel welcome and at ease. And then on top of all this goodness there is the unconditional support and love I receive from my loved ones back home, especially from my parents, which makes me feel I can do anything. Nothing left to wish for.
At the same time I realize how lucky I am, I feel myself confronted again with the fact that this is not the same for everyone. Last time I wrote about this injustice and I want to thank my dad and my roommates for answering to the wish I expressed. You give me hope by showing me I do have an influence on people in my own little world. Thank you very much! And keep passing it forward, just like in that fantastic movie ‘with similar title. 
Walking through Montreal in Christmastime is beautiful. Even I, someone who normally doesn’t appreciate kitschy decorations of angels and all the energy-consuming corny lights, found myself in Christmas spirit the other day. I was walking through this city, which has been my home for more than 4 months now, safely covered in layers of warm clothing and scarves, enjoying the snow which makes this city look so clean and peaceful. I was thinking about how lucky I am. So lucky to be free, to be able to go wherever I want to go. A great wave of satisfaction rippled over me. Musing on my plans for the next three weeks of vacation, I turned the corner. There my daydreaming was abruptly interrupted and my feelings changed.
I bumped into a man carrying a cup with some coins in it asking me to give him some money for a smile. I give him a dollar and on the man’s face appears an almost completely toothless smile. Smiling back, I ask the man where he is going to sleep tonight. He shrugs his shoulders and makes a little head movement towards the entrance of the metro. Then the man walks away from me, trying to sell his smile to a couple passing by. Both are neatly dressed and hanged with shopping bags, full of Christmas presents I assume. They don’t even look at the poor man. The man turns around and lifts his eyebrows at me while shrugging his shoulders again. And with this last look of recognition and another smile we part ways.
Continuing my walk, I am still thinking about how lucky I am. But my mood has changed. A great feeling of injustice overwhelms me. How come people have enough money to buy each other meaningless gifts, but too little to give to the people who sleep in the undergrounds of the city? I look at the city through a very different lens now; where I saw the white city as beautiful, clean and peaceful before, I now see injustice everywhere. The billboards screaming “buy Buy BUY!!!”, frowning parents pulling their whining children forward, the many Santa Clauses in every mall, Mariah Carry in the background, even the Christmas decorations are bothering me now.
The complete ignorance that speaks from this all annoys me. I think of the stories my Palestinian friend told me last week about horrible things that happened to him in the past. I think of Afghanistan and how it always seem to be the innocent civilians that get killed in this war on terrorism. I think of Africa and how many people are dying every day from hunger and in wars we do not even know about. I think of all this misery in places far from here, but I also think of the homeless in Montreal. And about the hardening society in The Netherlands which seems to become less and less tolerant. I think about how I try to keep up with knowing about all the injustice in the world and how this gets more and more impossible; the more I know, the more it grows over my head. I feel incompetent and useless; not able to fool myself with the usually comforting ‘I do what I can’-kind of thinking. The earlier so peaceful Christmas spirit has turned into a hideous ghost that haunts me.
I wish I could change the world and make it a better place for everyone. I wrote about it many times before. But writing about it doesn’t really help. It just gives me the feeling of doing something. So I decided that this time I am going to ask you, my readers, for help. Instead of sending me a Christmas card or present, I want you to spend that money and energy on something or someone else, to improve our world a little bit. Send a child in Africa to school for a year. Adopt an olive tree in Palestine. Go visit lonely people in your street and listen to their stories. Or just try to put a smile on the faces of people walking by, by singing a song or giving them a compliment for example. Be creative, be free! And always remember how lucky you are. There is never to much love in the world.
Since I have been such a good girl this year, Sinterklaas came to visit me and my friends here in Montreal yesterday. Of course I took care of there being lots of sweetness and together with 8 of my classmates and some boyfriends, we made it a true party.
We picked names a few weeks ago, and everyone had to make a present and a poem for the person they picked. There was some resistance to the writing poems part, but I ruled with an iron fist and scared everyone into doing it. And glad so, because the poems were wonderful and I will happily share the poem written for me, but first I will explain the ritual further for the unknown among you.
So we all gathered in my house, where Jean Valere (my new roommate) would take everyones presents and hide them in his room. The secrecy of who made a present for who is very important!!! When all the presents arrived, JV put them on a big heap in the middle of the room. One by one we unwrapped our presents and read our poems out loud.
My present where, a pair of beautiful, very styly arm-warmers (which I am wearing while writing this – love them!) and an apron which reminds me of a Palestinian dress, with a heart of beams sewed onto it. The poem written with this was so incredible that I want to share it with you:
I think everyone was really happy with what they got and all the poems were very creative, funny and sometimes touching. I want to thank all the Sinterklaasjes for making this place more like home to me.
Dankjewel, thanks, merci, grazie!
Hello my friends,
I just came back from my work with the elderly, went by the university to print a paper that is due tomorrow, took a shower and finally sat down. Now, I am allowing myself to take the time to eat an orange and write a short story about my life, all for you.
I started the third last week of this first semester, which means a ridiculous amount of assignment to do. I feel like I am on a train that doesn’t stop. And this train goes fast! Now and then I get a glimpse of something beautiful on the way, but I am going to fast to make out the contours, to see what it is. I keep telling myself I will go back later to figure it out exactly. For now, I have to keep going. I have to keep up. During the week I am away from home all day, either in university, working with the elderly or with my adolescents and travelling back and forth between the three. When I get home in the evening I do the one and only thing that keeps me sane and that is cooking myself a delicious meal. After eating that I go prepare my sessions and classes, write papers, evaluate sessions and read as much as I can. I go to bed feeling like my head is going to explode, but before I reach my pillow I am out and drifting of to dreamland. Not rarely I get visits from clients in my dreams. But I also meet the people from home, the people I miss so much.In the weekends I catch up with all the work I did not manage to do during the week. This takes up all my time lately and I have never felt closer to my computer than I do now. He is my only friend.
But I am not sad, because I know that in three weeks I have three weeks of nothing. Time to look back on everything I passed by so fast. Time to realize where I am and what I am doing. Time to chill out. Time to read what I want to read instead of what I have to read. And hopefully time to make friends.
And with eating the last peace of orange this story ends. And the train will start rolling again. I just want to say: I hope I am not disappointing anyone in not keeping up the contact. I really try to and you can be sure that I think of you. I miss you all a lot. Especially since I do not seem able to find time to make new friends. Know you can email me, skype me, or even send me a letter anytime. I will pull the emergency brake for you guys anytime.
