Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
First day at Mennorode
This morning we met with our practicum adviser and former head of the Intermenno program Johannes van der Meer and by the sounds of our conversation this year is going to be a very fun year (he emphasized fun a lot, even attempting to convince us that the papers we need to write for our university credit could be fun). One of his goals is for us to try and learn dutch as he feels we cannot truly understand the culture without kind of speaking the language (which is good as I was hoping to learn the language anyways). Part way through our conversation he handed us his business card which had the sheep that adorns our blue Hymnal on it. I had heard the sheep was in a church out here so the first thing I did after seeing this was made sure I asked him if we could see this sheep wherever it may be (unfortunately he informed me that the original one was no longer where is should be). Not that is was never here, just that the original symbol has been lost (there's still one on the secret church, but apparently that's not where the symbol originally comes from). The story is that back before official addresses became something of importance, buildings apparently used symbols for their address and the hidden church was near a house with a symbol of a sheep for it's address. The symbol for the church therefor stood for the church near the sheep house (or something to that effect, the sheep house actually being a brewery owned and run by a Mennonite fellow from the church itself). It does not mean the lamb of God as so many likely think it does. But the stone with the original sheep on his has disappeared, so I guess I'll just have to settle for the one in the hidden church in Amsterdam when I finally wind up going there (as apparently they still have the symbol there). And Johannas also said that he would take us to Menno Simmons house... or maybe it was his church (I've forgotten which one it is, although either would be truly fascinating for a Mennonite such as myself).
After that we ate lunch did some paperwork (not the most exciting of afternoons) and attempted to learn some dutch. I'm starting to get the hang of pronunciation with the few words we were studying ("goe" makes a phlegmy "who" kind of sound) and I can now greet anyone at any time of day. Eventually we wound up stopping to watch some English TV with subtitles in hopes that this would help... Speaking of which, the other night I also attempted this and found a nice easy to understand show that I had watched frequently back home. The only difference is here, they don't warn you when potentially inappropriate programming is about to his the airwaves, so as soon as the program I was watching was over I was greeted to quite the shocking title sequence of what appeared to be a hidden camera kind of reality show full of naked women, nudity and somewhat sexualized objects (and I got all that from watching maybe 10-20 seconds of the opening theme, so just imagine how explicit things may have gotten if it had taken me any longer to find the remote). It actually makes me miss those "Warning the program you are about to watch may contain 'this' and 'that' and is not suitable for anyone under such and such an age... viewer discretion is advised" style of messages that we have back home before the show starts. This afternoon, however, proved to be a much safer bet for learning English off the TV as the raciest thing in the first show we watched was the girlfriend being pregnant. The second show we watched was "Friends" (which is nice and familiar). After this we met someone in the bar here at Mennorode to chat about our experience so far (that's right, there's a bar here, and I might get to work in it if my dutch gets good enough... here's hoping that it actually gets good enough to not only bar-tend but also hear some of the sweet dutch stories that the people I am serving are bound to tell).
As exciting as the day was, one thing I realized I am really gonna miss are sesame snaps. For lunch today I found some sesame spread and it smelled like it could taste somewhat similar to them but in actuality they tasted nothing alike. Although on the brighter and less home-sicky side of things, they definitely do a way better job at having drinks readily available than Schoorl did (Which makes dehydration something I no longer need to worry about). Unfortunately I still haven't taken any pictures of the place though, so you folks may just need to wait until it's a little less rainy out here to see things like the Bar or the Giant Chess Board (that or I may just have to suck it up and take some rainy day photo's for the lot of you keeping tabs on my little adventure).
Goedenavond (that's "good evening" in dutch)
Zach
- comments
pauline roth Well Zach, that sounds very much like a low german good evening to me. johannes is(was?) married to a woman named Rose from Ontario. Erinne loved Johannes and she says he's the most fun intermenno guy. The church Johannes is speaking of is Singlekirk(sp) and I think he may be the pastor there. Erinne worked there for her first half year in her term. Look forward to seeing the rainy day pictures.
pauline roth Erinne said the good evening word to me and it doesn't sound like low german afterall.