The Roaming Way
Why is it that I can’t anymore, roam? Indian cow-like – slowly, on the streets of Amsterdam, gently chewing my spiritual cud if not green grass? When people here ask me about heimwee – homesickness, it’s hard to explain how exactly certain states of mind go with certain places and people. R-O-A-M. The way the…
Kapper Who?
Which was the exact day I became a ‘Nederlander’ ? The day I got my Dutch passport or the day I let kapper Hu give me a haircut? A passport looks like a little book. The kind of thing that changes when one changes passports is that one doesn’t any more have to stand and…
False Flowers and Real Wasps
My headscarf by another name is called a ‘chunni’. And this broek I call a ‘gharaara’ with a lange aaaa. They are both made of the flimsiest of cotton and fall in folds. The gharaara, from my large hips amply spreading around the clogs my feet are in. Big flowers in blues, yellows and greens…
Here Comes the Rain
The little radio on top of my refrigerator announced this morning that what we are experiencing is ‘tropical heat’. There’s a storm brewing. An unruly, wanton wind threatens to lift up my short dress to dangerous levels. Bicycling as best as I can, I try to hold it down with one hand. There’s a man…
A ‘non Western immigrant’ – or should I say ‘allochtoon’?
On the gracht If February thinks its job is to test my relationship with my beloved city, summer confirms our courtship. Short, but sweet enough. The other day I was in a chat room with some people who I have never met. I typed, ‘its sunny and warm in Amsterdam’. Someone replied immediately, ‘ Oh…