I am sick, how are you?

I come from a country where self medicating is held in great respect. Not a very healthy trend but one well rooted in our culture. A few years back we also got the so called family doctor. The family doctor’s primary role is of giving to the pacient the precious little papers that allows him/her to visit other specialists and the second is to give some prescriptions for colds and flu. Once a problem is serious you get to a specialist, or 10, have 20 different investigations and then you are given a diagnosis. From that point on all you can do is follow the treatement and hope it works.

Things are a bit different in Netherlands. A bit more actually. Here the family doctor is the one that decides how sick you actually are. From my personal experience and from the one of my friends you have to prove at least two times that you are indeed sick. For example I had to complain of severe back pain (I had a psychotic break, thought I was Hulk and lifted the furniture by myslef) two times, couple of months appart and only then did he sent me further, to a physiotherapist. It is very fustrating to explain in a foreign language that you’re in pain…really in pain and then be told “Well if it hurts then sit in another position.” Really? Ya think?

Maybe it’s just my doctor that is distrustful, though I really doubt it since at my school (learning dutch) all the foreigners seem to be complaining that they first have to die and only then will the doctor believe that they are sick.

The Language Traps

I don’t understand what is it about me smoking a cigarette on the balcony and doing my best not to attract attention that makes people talk to me. I have no clue what they are saying so I apply my policy: I just smile and say JA! If they are making eye contact for a long time then I will nod several times to make that JA sound even stronger, as if I know what the hell I am talking about. Even if I have been taking this dutch language course for a while now, when they are shouting from the other side of the street I am completely clueless whether they are talking about the weather or about playboy bunnies. One of these days I would really really love to know what these people have been saying to me all this time.

But this policy  has bitten me in the ass several times. Not once was I at a shop, any shop, and they were asking me for an ID or for my adress and I was grinning like an idiot and saying JA! And the poor people were looking at me waiting, I was smiling, they were waiting…I was smiling. They were saying it again…I was saying JA. Eventually I would understand that something isn’t quite right so I would give them big innocent eyes and say, in dutch: “Oh sorry, my dutch is not so good. Can you say that in english?”. At that point in the game most of the people had already decided that I am missing some vital parts of the brain so trying to save my pride was useless.

I came to terms with the fact that all the cashiers from the nearby supermarket think I am slow in the head and to be honest I kinda like the special treatment.:D

  P.S.  Please note the handicap sign above my head. Says it all.

Lilliput and dutch

I was talking before about the first time I came to Netherlands. That happened in august 2008. There are a lot of things that struck me about the country as well as about the people but the thing that shocked me the most was the language. Romanian is a latin language with some influences but it is quite melodic. Hearing dutch for the first time I was completely surprised by the apparent lack of vowels and by the way they pronounce the G. To me it sounded like everyone was affected by a constant flu and they had to clear their throats every two words.

I was convinced that the weird sound I was hearing was H. It couldn’t have been otherwise. But then…where’s the G? Do they have no G in dutch? It all cleared out when I saw some written words. Well not so much as cleared out but more like “oh gosh, that’s a mouthfull!”.

I was pretty damn excited to be here so I really wanted to learn some words. Which would be better suited than “good morning”, right? Well in dutch you say “goedemorgen”.

That’s 2 G’s in one breath. Not as easy as it sounds. After practising for a good 10 minutes I had such a sore throat that I figured that saying a full sentence would probably, most surely, kill me.

From about 2008 till well, july, I believe. 2010 I had been practising my G with fierce determination. In februari 2010 I started a dutch language course. What can I say, I have never had so much honey to cure my throat as I had in that period.

Then in july, while at a party with some friends I was talking to one of them about the school, language and how I am handling it. Of course I started complaining about the G. In the end, in my little world, this was a serios problem. And then she asked me, very surprised: “Why does your throat hurt?”

I was confused to say the least. What should have hurt instead? My pincky?

When the cloud of confusion wore of I found out that in fact that terrible sound is made at the back of the tongue. Really? I had been living here for 1 year and no one figured to ask me why I complain about the G and the sore throat all in the same sentence?

I was so excited, it seemed that all my problems with the language were over. I ran to my boyfriend to tell him what new discovery just fell into my lap. Obviously, he was surprised I was surprised. What do I mean I didn’t know? I am doing it from my throat? That hurts!

No shit, Sherlock!

Here's some dutch music for you. It has some subtitles so you can play spot the G. :))

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIJWBVqJYFk

Overall view

The first time I visited Netherlands I was utterly surprised by the general height of the people here. I know I am not all that tall but I never considered myself to be small. That changed when I got here. Seeing 1.80 cm women in heels really made me feel like Lilliput in Guliver’s land. It’s easy in NL to see who’s pure breed and who’s an imigrant, look no further than the height. I never realized that my country fellowmen were so averagely sized.

As an imigrant from an Eastern European country you have some explaining to do. Then again maybe I just met the special kind of people. Some think we still live in caves and wash our clothes by the river.

Every once in a while I got asked some puzzling questions that made me wonder if I look like I got lost from my mother ship.  For example: do you have comercials on t.v.?

How to react to that one? Tell them they’re stupid? Crazy? Say: No, our stone tvs can’t handle comercials?

But of course the favourite topic is the communism and the poverty. At some point I get tired of explaining that we don’t live in shacks and to my shame I let them believe whatever the want. Sometimes, I am for them just another animal in the zoo. Coming from a communist breeder.

There are of course those ocasional dutchies that know where Romania is on the map and even may have visted it. They know the wonderfult food we have and the welcoming people that would do anything to make their guests happen. But for the most part they consider me a gypsy. At least in the beginning.

Now I am going to try my best to be politically correct… Here it goes.

Through some miracle (so to speak) gypsies are called now, in Romania at least, Rromas. Notice the dubble r please. Now I do understand that it is quite confusing having the two words next to eachother. Romania and Rroma. But assuming that all romanians are rromas is very very far from the truth. Personally I am offended when people tell me: “Oh you are from Romania? So you are a rroma! You know we have a lot of problems with rromas here.”

Whoa! Hold your horses. First of all labeling ain’t all that nice, second of all you are expecting me to be trouble. Not to mention that there aren’t even all that many romanian rromas here. Bad weather and tricky language, of course they aren’t coming.