Knock, knock...
The world on my doorstep
Since I started teaching Dutch as a second language to people from all over the world, the entire world has come to my Amsterdam doorstep.
Knocking on my door.
In many ways it meant the end of an era for me, and the beginning of a new one.
It was definitely the end of living in an Amsterdam city centre bubble where life seems calm and easy. Where—as long as you don’t spend your days doomscrolling—you can still believe the world is a good and safe place where girls and boys bike to school together, laughing and singing, enjoying their freedom to move, to play and even to go to school.
The freedom to learn.
For as long as I have been teaching, my evening class has been filled with Iranians, Ukrainians, Palestinians, Lebanese, Venezuelans, Russians, US citizens and many other nationalities, learning my language.
Very often these students come from areas of conflict. They’re worried sick about their friends, family and country, while dutifully practicing with ‘er’, ‘zou’ and plusquamperfectum.
How futile this all must appear to them.
I cannot begin to fathom what they must go through, when they try to make contact with the ones they left behind and they don’t receive any news, because the internet has been shut down. When they hear there was an air raid over their hometown, and their families had to seek shelter. When they watch from afar their democracy crumbling down, their long-time neighbors dragged through the streets.
Torn as they are between being with their loved ones in their thoughts and being physically here in Amsterdam.
In the past, events in countries far from my own often felt like something of a ver-van-mijn-bedshow—however terrible, not really affecting my daily life. Now I search the media for information about my students’ respective motherlands, check Google maps to locate the troubles and hope that their families will be save, their countries freed.
The only small contribution I can make, is to distract them for a few hours with de, het and een exercises or some scheidbare werkwoorden, and teach them words like ‘vrouw’, ‘leven’, ‘vrijheid’.
Lingo
De vrouw - woman
Het leven - life
De vrijheid - freedom
Want to support my work? Order my book here, or ask for it at your local Dutch or Belgian bookseller.