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Voor haar
She is a little quiet.
Quieter than my other students who, upon entering the classroom, chat with each other and make jokes.
Laleh, instead, peers into her Dutch textbook.
She and her family have been in the Netherlands for two years now.
Her shiny long brown hair, which she usually wears in a low ponytail, falls elegantly over the brim of her thick woolen winter sweater.
She thinks Dutch winters are very cold. Sometimes she even wears her winter coat in class.
In Iran she is a dentist, in Amsterdam a dental assistant. First, she must take an exam before she can start working as a dentist here.
And for that she must speak Dutch well.
Quite a job.
She finds Dutch a difficult language.
But Laleh is very ambitious. Last week she got her driver's license. Now she can drive in the Netherlands, where traffic rules are quite different from those in Iran.
It is a victory that encourages her to continue her Dutch quest.
Laleh may be quiet, but she has perseverance.
This becomes evident in her homework, in which she describes her vision for her future, ‘I’m gonna work hard and be successful in my work.’
Here in the Netherlands, that is. Because going back is not an option.
Not even for family visits.
As hesitant as Laleh is normally, she is vigorous when I ask the group to clarify through an example the meaning of the expression ‘it is forbidden’.
She takes me aside and asks in a whisper what ‘to show’ is in Dutch.
Then she states for the entire group, ‘In mijn land is het verboden voor vrouwen om hun haar te laten zien.’ (In my country it is forbidden for women to show their hair)
I teach NT2 (Dutch as a second language), mainly to young internationals who came to Amsterdam for or with love and intend to stay. The conversations reproduced here were all held in Dutch. For privacy reasons the names are fictitious.
