“I now know what ‘stoep’ means”

Juliet has been living in the Netherlands since May 2014 and wants to improve her language skills through volunteering. She meets with Mrs. Van De Voort (91) once a week to go for a walk together. Juliet always addresses Mrs. Van De Voort as “mrs.”

Juliet: “I wanted to connect with other people. I have been living in the Netherlands since May, and your circle is still quite small. Besides, I am working on learning Dutch, but by using it in daily life, you learn it well. I got in touch with Burennetwerk through Vrijwilligers Centrale Amsterdam.”ContactMrs. Van De Voort: “I need help with walking, and it seemed nice to me to get in touch with people from a different culture. When I moved here (Bos en Lommer area), I knew that many people from different cultures live here. I wanted to have a nice chat and exchange recipes, but many people are quite closed off. Burennetwerk called me and told me about Juliet because it could be a problem that she speaks little Dutch. But that actually seemed very nice to me.”First appointmentMrs. Van De Voort: “I remember the first time she called very well. She said: ‘with Juliet from Boerennetwork’ and I thought, farm network? Did I sign up for something? I immediately thought of cows and sheep. When she explained it afterwards, I only then understood that she meant Burennetwerk.”

Mrs. Van De Voort: “We have been seeing each other for a few weeks now. Sometimes we take a walk and if the weather is bad, we have a good excuse not to do it. We also often talk about recipes or how we prepare dishes. She recently wrote one down for me.” Juliet: “Sometimes we just have a cup of coffee or tea, and sometimes it’s longer than other times: sometimes twenty minutes and sometimes an hour and a half. It’s nice to chat with someone. Even though it’s short and doesn’t seem like much, it can mean a lot to you. I always look forward to these outings.”Handle with careJuliet: “I learn a lot from our meetings. It’s actually forbidden by Mrs. to speak English, haha. While walking, we talk and I learn new words that you can use in everyday life, but don’t quickly learn from textbooks.”
Mrs. Van De Voort: “That’s right. It’s forbidden. For example, when we walk, I explain that when children are playing, you should tell them to stay on the sidewalk. So now she knows what ‘sidewalk’ is.”

Juliet: “Recently, Mrs. waved goodbye to me after a meeting. She said, ‘cycle carefully, okay?’, but I didn’t know what she meant. Then she explained it. I also go shopping once a week with another lady, and she said it recently too. It’s nice to notice that I already learned it from Mrs. Van De Voort when a word is used somewhere else.”With thanks to Burennetwerk, from whom we received this interview.