On Holiday

Posting has been light around here due to the hectic holiday season and it's about to get lighter still. I'll be returning to the US for two weeks, and I don't expect I'll have much to report on Dutch culture while I'm there. I do hope to find some time to do some language practice, though. The past week or so I've felt as though I'm finally starting to get a grip on some simple conversational Dutch. Hopefully I don't lose all of my hard won progress whilst in my native country.

I guess what I'm saying is, if anyone in Florida wants to get together and spreekt Nederlands met me let me know.

In the meantime, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Turnover

As the year draws to a close there are a lot of changes happening in the community. Several people in the 'Opstaap' program are moving on. Some are leaving us entirely, for various reasons. Others will still be around, but are moving to more independent housing outside the main house as they continue the process of figuring out their lives. We wish them all the best.

Meanwhile, there are new people coming in. It's funny how people find us. Some of course come in through approved, official channels - they are referred to us by the government or some sort of program or shelter - but it seems that fairly often they just stumble across us. They come in through the window rather than the door, you might say.

A recent example: one night Marco and I were in the kitchen watching a movie on TV when one of the doctors from the Kruispost, the medical clinic in the basement, knocked on the door. She had in tow a patient - a mother with a young boy. While treating the mother for a fever the doctor discovered that the two of them didn't have a place to stay for the night. So she brought them around.

They stayed for a couple of nights while arrangements were made for them and then they left (the mother completely recovered, by the way). And now, a week or two later, they're back to stay for a while! So you can see the way things tend to work around here.

Also in the realm of the unplanned - the sudden turnover around here. There's no rule, as far as I know, that everybody has to be out by the end of the year. That's just the way it has worked out. Hopefully folks are moving on to bigger and better things, getting their lives back together and charting a new course for themselves. And new folks will come in through the doors and windows to replace them.

In the meantime, things are a little bit quieter around here.

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On a purely meditative note: it occurred to me yesterday that living in different countries is a really good way to observe the different forms that grace can take. I've experienced faith related work in China, in Haiti, and now in Amsterdam. And it seems as though in each place they experience grace differently.

In China, the grace they need is freedom. Freedom from political oppression and millennia old traditions that have bound that people in servitude. In Haiti, the grace they need is the day-to-day necessities of survival. And here in the Red Light District, a different kind of grace again. A grace to overcome addictions and troubled pasts and all the baggage that life in the modern world can saddle us with.

In each place I've seen radically different people with radically different needs. In spite of this, I believe that the same grace covers all of them. If it looks different from place to place and person to person, that's just because we in our human limitations can only perceive a small part of it at a time.

What a great motivation to travel, though! If we stay at home in our own comfortable spaces we might never get to see all these many other faces of grace. We might think that God worked the same way, every time, for every person. And that would be a tragedy, because my experience of him is that he is so much bigger than that!

Grace is bigger than we are. It's not defined by our limited perspectives. It's wildly different from person to person and from nation to nation. And you can't truly begin to understand that without experiencing it for yourself.

Introducing

I would be remiss if I didn't introduce you to a very important member of the community. A German psychology student currently residing at the house, he was a volunteer last year and lived at the Mission House and this year is very much a part of Oudezijds. He enjoys soccer, is good with children and speaks Dutch and English fluently.

None of these things is what makes him special.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the real Franz Ferdinand.



Yes, that's actually his name. Franz Ferdinand. Like the Archduke. And the band.

Yes, wittingly or unwittingly, his parents certainly set him up for success in life. Who knows what doors of opportunity will swing open to his famous name?

'Ferdinand', as he sometimes goes by when he feels like avoiding the limelight, would like it to be known that his favorite band is actually Interpol.

Seasons Greetings from The Netherlands, or A Very Politically Incorrect Christmas

Well, Holland is certainly not escaping the early winter that's settling on the rest of the world. It's been hovering around zero on the Celsius for weeks now, and we've seen snow most weekends (although, alas, not enough to do anything with). But that's okay, really, because there's been plenty of holiday cheer to spread around. First there was St. Martin's Day, and now Sinterklaas! Or 'Sint' as he's generally known.

Now, before we go on we need to have a nice, mature discussion about Black Pete. Zwarte Piet is very much a part of the Sinterklaas experience here in the Netherlands. There's actually a bunch of Petes (the exact number has never been determined) and they help St. Nicholas with the messy business of distributing presents to all the deserving kinderen and bagging and carting away the bad ones (yes really!). And they have a couple weeks to do it. It really makes more sense then one fat guy on Christmas Eve, if you think about it!

Oh but of course there's the fact that Black Pete is, well, uh... black.

One story you'll hear a lot is that he got that way from climbing down chimneys. Fine, but that doesn't really explain the big red lips, the large ears often seen in illustrations, the short curly hair, or his general resemblance to a character from a minstrel show. You know what I'm saying?



Every so often I have to stop and giggle and say "This would be so Not Okay in America." Be that as it may, Pete is a generally embraced part of the festivities here, and even the African immigrants here in the community seem not to mind.

So, bearing in mind these key cultural differences, we proceed.

Sint doesn't sneak into town by the dead of night. He arrives by boat on a bright November morning and disembarks before throngs of screaming children. Then he rides a white horse to Dam Square, pictured above in celebratory expectation of this event.


The Petes have formed a live band belting out thumping pop renditions of popular Sinterklaas standbys. One thing you quickly learn about The Petes: they can do anything.

And then, the moment everyone's been waiting for: The former Bishop of Turkey, riding on a white horse!


Don't be fooled by his kindly appearance - he still packs bad kids up in sacks and hauls them off to Spain.

Another black man who can't catch a break. Sorry Darth, everyone's here to see Sint today!

I'll stop soon, really, I will.

Here in the community we get in on the fun, too. Anne and Jorine dressed up as Petes to visit the local kindergarten. Yes, Petes can be a bit feminine. Sort of a "Don't Ask Don't Tell" thing.

Jorine's got the bag. Uh oh!

Anne looking jaunty.

Dressing up as Pete is apparently good for one's ego. Everybody says hi and you get to make fun of total strangers.

It's good times, or so I'm told.

Now 5 December is Sint's official last night in town. That night all the hopeful little ones leave a shoe out (probably a wooden one in days of yore) in hopes that some helpful Pete will stuff a present or two into it. Thank God for iPods, yeah?

Here at Oudezijds 100, we have our own visit from Sint and Pete - a gift exchange. Everyone is given a name and then you go out and spend no more than €5 on a gift. For €5 it's going to be a pretty lame gift, but in a Dutch gift exchange the gift isn't really the point. It's all about how you wrap it.

The expectation is that a Dutch present, at minimum, will liberally misrepresent its actual contents. If you're lazy, you might just wrap it twice, but the creative gift giver may incorporate such things false bottoms, empty boxes and misleading shapes into their packages. A poem is then affixed, signed "Sint and Pete" (in a Dutch gift exchange the onus is on the receiver to uncover their 'benefactor'), and the deal is done.

Poor Anne received a screwdriver and a wrapped wooden box, which was fastened with dozens of wood screws, at least three cm in length, that had to be laboriously unscrewed for a half hour. I don't even know what she got.

My favorite 'surprise' though... well, I'll save that for later.

Anyway, we all gathered in the kapitaalzaal and, armed with lots of hot chocolate and pepernoten, awaited the arrival of Sint and Pete.

They came!







Ferdinand proves that grown up kids can get gifts too.



The spread.

But yeah, my favorite gift of the day? Well, it had to be this one:







Well, I don't see how whatever was in the box could be anything but a letdown after the Jesus Action Figure! Ah, well.

That's all the time we have for today kids, but if you're craving more Dutch mirth and merriment, you need to hear David Sedaris' reading his essay on Sinterklaas, entitled "Six to Eight Black Men." It's absolutely hysterical, and it's here, here and here.

Translations

I thought I would post some representative selections from 100 Praatjes, the community's bi-weekly newsletter. These are rough translations done with the aid of BabelFish and then cleaned up with some Anglicized embellishments, so bear with me.

Ahem.

• A stomach virus or flu has spread throughout the Father House. This just in! You're in good hands!
• Veronica, Charmala and Favourleen are moving soon to #87 across the street.
• Br. Luc stole a mouse from Magi the cat. He quickly put it outside.
• Meta has only three boxes left to unpack in her new flat!
• The Florentinus family has a new puppy, Simson.
• Jorine and Anne have a secret career playing Black Petes.
• Zr. Rosaliene and Br. Sjoerd are expecting a baby! The future little brother or sister of Muriel will be born in May if things go according to plan.
• The engine of Eric Jan's boat was fished from the canal by the fire department, in exchange for three apple pies.
• Do you want to try out the Tom-Toms? Br. Sjoerd is looking for help!

Just another couple weeks in the life of the community!

Anne dressed up as Black Pete for a trip to the local kindergarten!

Yours truly was one of the lucky ones to fall under the influence of the dread stomach virus, so I apologize for the dearth of posting around here. Plus, it's just been stinkin' busy.

Poor Meta, who was teased above so mercilessly about unpacking, is actually my own personal Angel of Dutch. She's been a professional Dutch/English translator for a long time, with a comprehensive mastery of both languages. We discovered we enjoy talking about language with each other, and she offered to give me some Dutch lessons!

I can't even describe how helpful this has been. I knew that lessons would be very much preferable to the slow, haphazard way I was picking up the language, but I didn't realize how lost in the forest I was until she appeared between the trees holding a lantern. I've also acquired some more professional learning materials through the generosity of the Mission House, and so I now feel that there's some real direction to my study.

That said, some days progress feels slow! And while I certainly no so much more than when I first arrived here, the truth is that it often seems I'm simply becoming more aware of my total ignorance about this language!

Don't get me wrong, the similarities to English are there. Old English, that is! For any given Dutch word, there seems to be about a 50% chance that you can find its analog in some Engels word that has fallen out of favor since Shakespeare's day. Some words are almost identical: op means 'up', huis means 'house', vader means 'father'. Still more are easily recognizable once you figure out the pronunciation: uit looks quite alien, but in reality it's pronounced identically to 'out', which is what it means.

But, as I said, more words still are just old. For instance, vast means fixed. Doesn't sound like English, huh? But wait. In Nederlands a 'v' sounds a lot like an 'f'. So you can pronounce it 'fast'. Have you ever heard of 'making something fast'? That's an old way of saying, yes, to fix in place. Another example I've noticed is jongen, a word for 'boy'. 'J' in Dutch gets the 'y' treatment, so this winds up sounding a lot like 'young'un', an old-fashioned word if ever there was one.

I could go on, but I'll spare you.

The trick is that Dutch grammar is just as old as its vocabulary and so it can be very Yoda-like.

To give you an idea I've played the traditional auto-translation game with a paragraph of text. I put it through Babelfish in English to Dutch, then translated the resulting Dutch to English. Here's what I got:

Last night I did the bread run. I road to the bakery on my bike and picked up a bag of the day's left over bread. Then I pedaled home across the canals with a bag of bread balanced carefully on the rear of my bike. I felt very European!

Last night did I the bread course. I gone taken to bakery on my bicycle and a pocket of day's leave concerning bread. Then pedaled I house concerning the canals with a pocket bread carefully balanced on the after part of my bicycle. I felt very European!

If one ignores the garbled word choices (Babel Fish seems to have trouble reading its own writing) you'll note that some weird things are happening with the verbs and the word order. Dutch grammar is very particular about where you put things, but at the same time it's less straightforward than English's subject-verb-whatever structure.

Sigh. Well, they do say it's easier than German*.

I'm by no means conversational in the language, although depending on the subject matter I might be able to get an idea of what's being spoken about. I've also stumbled my way through a couple halting conversations with a three-year-old girl. Specifically, I told her that I eat little girls. At least, I hope that's what I told her. She giggled.

* The Germans I've spoken to deny this.