In an hour I begin a long journey … learning Dutch.  I don’t have a photo to show you now, but I will – the cover page of the textbook.

I told Lydia that I’d seen the class list.  There are ten men and eight women, and every woman is named “Elise”.  (I’ve determined that the next love of my life will be called Elise, even though I haven’t met her yet.  So I’ll have lots of choice in class!)

***

It’s such a lovely half-hour walk to school. Much of it borders the river. And cyclists are heading to and fro to school or work. Ghent is alive!

***

It’s 8:40.  I’m sitting in Room 13.  No one else is.  Hmm …

8:50. Now there are thirteen. Isabel and twelve of us adult students. A whirlwind of learning is about to take off.

The course is thoroughly conversational and after today no English will be spoken. It’s deep end stuff.

I’m by far the oldest student, and it shows. Over the two-and-a-half hours, the book throws lots of questions at us and Isabel is 1-1 with each of us. In one memorable moment, she asks me:

Uit welk land kom jij?

And I softly stare. I couldn’t remember the question and thus the answer (which is “Canada”). Despite the moment of emptiness, I see the road ahead. I’ll keep walking.

Someday soon all of this will be so easy:

Dag. Hoe gaat het?

Welke taal spreek jij?

Hoe kom jij naar school?

We learned each other’s names and I actually had my first conversations! They were error-filled and silence-filled but so what? We’re in the game together.

I can feel us already being a group, cheering everybody on. We all speak English but it’s the mother tongue for only two of us. Isabel put up a map of the world and we each came to the front to point out our homeland. The map zoomed in to show cities and we shared those too. So cool. Here’s where we’re from:

Bangladesh
Thailand
Australia
Canada
Dominican Republic
South Korea
The Philippines
Ethiopia
Colombia
Argentina
Japan
China

The world!

Here we come, all you native Dutch speakers!

P.S. There are nine women in the class, none named Elise