Lieverd
Let's connect!
Lieverd, she calls me.
To be honest, she calls everybody lieverd.
But I’m the new one here. And she treats me as an old friend.
Just like me, Farah volunteers at the buurthuis in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. She hosts the gatherings that are organized for the mothers from the neighborhood.
A part of town with apartment buildings from the fifties, largely inhabited by families of Moroccan and Turkish origin.
In the kiosk-like corner of one of those dwellings is a little space. ‘Our’ little space. A table, a couple of chairs, a bookcase and a whiteboard.
Here I teach Dutch to the neighborhood mothers who came to the Netherlands some twenty-five years ago.
Not that they don’t speak Dutch. They do!
They only never learned Dutch in an official school situation—or if so, very briefly. Instead, they learned it out on the ‘streets’.
This means they know more or less how to convey a message, but grammatically speaking, there are some challenges.
The simple past, for instance, is something they never learned to use. They will say: ‘Ik ga gisteren naar huis.’ (I go home yesterday)
Is that a problem?
They think it is. They want to learn to speak better, and this binds these Moroccan and Turkish mothers, for whom Dutch is their only common language.
“Lieverd, wil je thee?”, Farah asks me before we begin, as she puts a bowl of pepernoten on the table.
We start practicing the simple past, but not accustomed to a school-like approach for so long, it’s difficult for the mothers to focus.
They rather speak of their cousin’s wedding they just attended and the beautiful dresses they wore. About the differences between a Turkish and a Moroccan wedding.
And, frankly, I love listening to their stories.
Told in perfect Dutch? No.
But they make a connection. And isn’t that what any language is about?
“Tot volgende week, lieverd!”, Farah calls out to me as I get on my bike after class.
“Tot volgende week, lieverd!”, I call back.
Lingo
Lieverd - sweetie/honey
Het buurthuis - community/neighborhood center
De pepernoot - micro cookie spiced with a.o. cinnamon, eaten around the Sinterklaas celebration
Tot volgende week - see you next week
Buy my bilingual book Nederlands is zooo makkelijk | Dutch is sooo easy here now; Sinterklaas is nearing rapidly!
On Saturday 22 November, I organize De Indie Boekenmarkt, a book market with an all female writers cast (native and non-native) from Amsterdam, signing their books on the spot. Kom langs en ontmoet de schrijvers!
