The Dutch Club

Here in little ol' Waihi they have their own Dutch Club. They meet every last Friday of the month at St. Johns Presbyterian Church. I decided to go today for the first time. I was a little nervous. I was worried I might have to stand up in front of everyone and do the obligatory "Hi, ik heet Mark en ik kom uit Amerika" speech. On the drive over, I was trying out different versions, talking to myself in Dutch. I probably sounded like a complete idiot. Two things were in play here:
1. I'm not Dutch. My entry/exit story is complicated and I didn't want to babble on trying to explain. I'm guilty of being a Nederphile (I made that word up, please don't confuse it with any other word.) Would it be OK with them if I sat in on their little meetings? Even though I don't have a Dutch passport I still feel a little bit Dutch. Would that be enough? I thought I could convince them of that and it wouldn't be a problem. At one stage in my rehearsal, I even considered using Joop Fischer's line " Ik hou van Nederland, Ik ken geen beter land" (translates: "I love Holland, I don't know of a better country"). Unfortunately, the next line is "Waar je rustig langs de weg kunnen plassen" (translates: "where you can easily piss on the side of the road") and it would be my luck that someone would actually know the song and bring that up. I didn't need that first up. In the end, I got myself all mucked up and decided that I would just wing it (usually not my best option!)
2. My Dutch language skills are deteriorating. It's been almost ten years now and I struggle sometimes. My mate Ivo will call me unexpectedly and our conversation will go something like this:

"Hello, this is Mark"

"Hoi, met Ivo"

"....................(me switching to my dutch brain)......... He! Ivo! Hoe is het!"

" Goed, met jouw?"

".....................(trying to form a full sentence now) ((remember Mark, first verb in second position in the sentence, all the rest at the end!)).....Uh, Ik ben rugby aan het kijken. Jouw?

" Goed."

Eventually, I warm up and things start coming back to me and I can have a normal conversation but for a while I'll stammer and look for words, throw in an English word if I can't the Dutch one and struggle to get my point across. I was worried that I might get the same thing here at the Dutch club and look like a complete idiot.

Anyways, I got to the church and found where I needed to be and there was a group of eight people standing around with a cup of coffie and a cookie (dead giveaways for Dutchies). I asked if I was in the right place anyway and introduced myself and everyone was really nice and actually I needn't have worried. Firstly, no one asked my to stand up and make a speech and secondly we spent most of the time talking English!

It was lovely anyway to talk to Ruud and Ans and Gerard and Bas and the rest. They were all lovely people and made me feel welcome although there wasn't one of them who was within thirty years of my age. Most of them had come to New Zealand in the 40's and 50's and Nederland was very far away indeed. I heard that they used to get 75-80 people at their meetings back in the old days but that members had moved away or were too ill to come or dead. I really did enjoy my koffie en koekje and I do look forward to next month. I wonder what they think of Hans Teeuwen? In Dutch but really no translation necessary.