Thuis

Names of Dutch plant species on window at Amsterdam Airport

Language is a powerful thing. It can be used to inspire hatred, unite people for a common cause, convince someone of your love. But there is more to language than mere semantics—and I'm not talking about poetry. When you've been on the road for a while, you tend to lose touch with whatever it was that defined you at home. Social ties lose their hold, the job that once absorbed you is but a dim memory, and what's making headlines at home is anyone's guess. The one thing you take with you, wherever you go, is your mother tongue. Call me soppy, but I scream with delight when I spot a Georgian lorry carrying building materials, huge letters on its side suggesting I try 'hartige hapjes van bakkerij Roelvink'. (It seems more than just a few Dutch companies have found a profitable way of getting rid of unwanted trucks and vans.) And even though most of what passes my lips in the course of a day is English—not that it gets me anywhere in these parts—the last thing I hear before falling asleep is the familiar murmur of Het Bureau, a five hundred-episode Dutch radio play that has a particularly soothing effect on me.

Winding my way through the crowds at Amsterdam Airport, fresh from Tbilisi, I found I kept pricking up my ears. Hey, that's Dutch! Hey, Dutch again! I can understand what these people are saying! Suddenly, I was overwhelmed by a tremendous affection for these kind souls rambling on about TV shows and what to buy for Christmas. I simply revelled in those guttural consonants and lowered dipthongs.

Beach at Monster (Holland)

Of course, after ten minutes this language high I was on had fizzled out. Then again, I hadn't come to Holland to feel phrases such as 'Wilt u het bonnetje?' or 'De sprinter naar Den Haag Centraal van vijftien uur zesenveertig vertrekt vandaag van spoor acht b' ripple down my spine. There was some serious business that needed to be taken care of. Ten days of excruciating phone calls from a hotel room in Tbilisi to the Pakistani embassy in The Hague had left me spent and frustrated. I was told that my visa application, filed by my parents, had been rejected because they wanted to see me in person. Why? They couldn't tell me. I didn't even get a chance to reason with the visa officer as he stubbornly refused to come to the phone or return my calls. Which, of course, makes him an excellent visa officer.

Once in Holland I quickly managed to smooth things out. The visa section of the embassy turned out to be a cramped two-room basement occupied by three listless clerks rather than the beehive of activity I had imagined it to be. The oh-so-important interview consisted of the visa officer checking my full name and inquiring as to whether I was planning on doing any hiking in out of bounds areas.

Interrupting the continuity of this journey so crudely wasn't something I had been terribly keen on. However, it allowed me to spend Christmas with my family and share a couple of beers with my friends. Moreover, I got to meet my fourteen-month old nephew for the very first time. Initially, he watched me somewhat suspicuously, bright blue eyes darting across my face. Then, all of a sudden, using the sounds of a language that one day will be his, I managed to make him smile. And no words can describe what that did to me.