Visitors in the Night

It is after 9 p.m.  It's cold and dark outside and then our door bell rings.  Our door bell rarely rings, so I was honestly a little nervous answering it.  I call Brent's' name just in case I need a back-up for the mystery that awaits outside  He tells me, through our awesome video surveillance phone, that it is our next door neighbor.  Ok. No major problem, unless you don't speak any Dutch and she doesn't speak English, and she has a touch of dementia.

I open the door and invite her in. (It's cold outside).  She stands at my doorway and looks around.  She walks down the front entryway and looks in the kitchen and then our living space.  I "ask" her in English and with hand movements if she want to come into the living room.  She walks in and shakes Brent's hand and then starts talking rapidly in Dutch and to help us out she uses gestures.  She is very excited as she is speaking to use.  We here the words doctor and she is holding her chest and then gesturing the hand across the throat..you know...death. I am thinking that something is happening to her husband.

We are not quite sure what to do, so Brent calls our Landlord, her son.  No answer.  I end up taking her next door, hoping that this other neighbor (who I haven't met) knows some English.  (A lot of the Flemish people know at least a little, once again amazing)  I ring his doorbell.  He come to the door, but doesn't open it.  He yells through it in Flemish, of course.  I say, in English, "I am sorry.  I live next door and only speak English, and my other neighbor is very excited and trying to tell me something and I can't understand her."  He talks in Dutch again and then opens the door.

I ask him if he speaks English and he says a little and that he will try to help me.  He talks to my other neighbor and she repeats (I assume) what she told me without the gestures. He then translates for me that she wants me to know that her uncle and some of her extended family are in a bad way.  They are dying.  Phew.

I said, "Ok.  I am sorry to have bothered you.  I thought that maybe something was happening with her husband."  He says, "No, no.  By the way let me introduce myself properly.  I am Jan.  Welcome to the neighborhood.  My wife Betty has some short-term memory loss (and in walks the son-in his 40's?)  this is my son."  I attempt, "Guten Abend".  And he says to me, "You just spoke German,  in Dutch it is Goedenavond".  Oh, sorry.

Then Jan asks me, "Are you here on holiday?"  No. My husband works at research park.  "How long are you staying here?"  We will probably go home next summer.   "Are you learning Nederlander?"  I am currently trying to learn French and a little Dutch, but am doing both terribly.  We talk a little about the kids.  They can hear them.  I don't ask whether that is a bother or not.  I am sorry to have bothered you.  Thank you for your help.

My neighbor and I leave.  I ask her if her husband is home, with pointing, and she says yes but stops at my front door.  She wants to come in again.  Ok.  She comes into the living room again and sits on our couch.  I grab my handy, dandy computer and go to my good old standby...Google translate.  I start typing and she reads the translations and answers my questions.  "Do you want to stay here?"  Yes.  "Would you like to talk to me a little?"  Yes.  "Ok."

Her son calls Brent back and talks with his mom for awhile and then Brent. For the next 10 minutes or so I type questions while she answers them.  I attempt to speak what I am typing and she just looks at me and says.  Hmnnnn, no.  We "talk" about the chickens in the backyard and her beautiful walnut tree, and about our families.  I show her some pictures form facebook.  Her husband then comes and gets her.  He tries to just call her from the door, but she ignores him.  He comes in and then she goes with him.  I type, "Thank you for the visit" (dank u voor het bezoek).

Tonight was interesting.  Kind of sad ,a little crazy but mostly weird.  Sometimes you just have to accept the abnormality of it all, be creative and use the tools you have available.  Then again, maybe I just needed one more thing to make me stand out like sore thumb.

©ColleenFisher