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May 18, 2002 : regular saturday
What started out as a trip to town to buy contact solution ended up being a trek around town with us getting home at 2 in the morning. (yes, I fibbed on the date...just to keep it chronological.) Contact solution at Kruitvat led to a new comb and a new brush for Eva. New bras at Hema led to a new striped nightie for me. Not pajamas, a regular ol' slip-looking pastel striped nightie with spaghetti straps. Not too sexy, just practical and cute. I swear that turning 26 did something to me. Now I've just got to do something with the hair. My hair is helmet-like and not too becoming. For some reason I couldn't see myself being 26 with a hairdo I would have had back when I was 22. I'm really straddling the fence on this issue...when boy-girl becomes man-woman Maybe I should grow it out?!?!? Last night Eva and I had a late night as well. What started out as a 15 minute bicycle ride ended up to a several hour adventure; us arriving home 2 and a half hours later with a cheap tent, and two even cheaper sleeping bags. We have plans to go to German sometime this weekend...but it has yet to be seen if we will actually cross the border. On the way home we had, as Eva would call it, a run-in with Belgium. In the states I consider myself pretty self-sufficient and confident. Here, I find myself stumbling around for words or even spending hours in a store looking for salt when it would ordinarily be so easy to just ask. I want to ask, but I want to ask in Flemish. I want to chat with people at the tram stops about the weather, but I would want to ask in Flemish. I must look fairly friendly because people always seem to want to ask me if I know where a certain street is or if I know where the milk is...and I do my best. But I see myself struggling here. It's good for me, and sometime I will get a second wind or break down some sort of premanufactured wall I've made...but until then, I'm pretty small and insecure. That was a pretty bold statement...but only because I'm typing it in English. If I had to go into my insecurities in Dutch...I guess I would say... Ik ben Andrea, en ik kom uit de vrendigen stadten. Nu ik woon in Belgie. Maar omdat ik woon in Belgie, ik ben neit un vrouw. Ik ben un kleinje meijse omdat ik spreak engles en un beitje nederlands. In drie maandan, den ik ben un vrouw nog eens omdat ik spreek met mensen op de straat, in de winkel, op de trein, en in onze huis. That was quite a feat in and of itself. I'm goign to leave it in butchered, spelled-wrong dutch as a reference point. Back to the "run-in with Belgium." We have discussed the summer over and over again and come to the conclusion that I should submit myself to emmersion therepy. Emmersion of Flemmish with children. I would rather emmerse myself in a Flemish restaurant in the kitchen of Pizza Hut, but Eva seems to think I should be playing softball with pre-teens, or teaching arts and crafts to 9 year olds. One block away from home I see a girl about our age with a baseball bat sticking out of her backpack. I see this as an opportunity to find a place to work for the summer. There are only so many softballs and bats you see while living in Belgium. We have two of the countable gloves...and we've seen two other people playing in the park in the last 7 months. So I yell at Eva, "Hey Eva, it's a girl with a baseball bat." The bat-girl stops and I peddle over to strike up a conversation...enter my imaginary road block. Language. Of course she can speak english, but wouldn't it be easier if Eva just takes over? Eva is tight lipped. Am I speaking too fast? What do I want to say? "You see, I want to learn flemmish, and we thought softball would be a good way to be around people." She looks confused and asks me if I am on holiday. "No, I live around the corner." I look at Eva and motion for her to help me out...I'm obviously not making any sense. We leave the bat-girl and peddle home...by the time we get to the door I'm crying like a little girl because I felt stupid. Eva ends up feeling bad for not saying anything, and I vow to never utter another word to a stranger in Belgium. After an hour of holding and comforting...we decide that I must not give up, Eva must fill in conversation holes, and I'm going to learn Flemish if it's the last thing I do. Not the last thing, because I intend on living a long life. Not the last thing, because I intend on learning it rather quickly... Today a trip to Hema to buy bras led to a new stripped nightie for me...the nighty led to post it notes, not just the square, yellow ones...a pack of 450 rainbow ones. We're going to note our entire house. A rode post-it on the window that reads: het raam It's gonna work, I swear it. IN THE NEWS: |