Hook and Pulley

Our new downstairs neighbors are having some work done in their apartment - a lot of work. They haven’t moved in yet, so they’re having the place renovated: new floors, new kitchen, new walls, etc. These are the people who - according to local legend - were visiting our former downstairs neighbors when they said something in the way of, “If you ever think about selling this place, give us a call” and six months later, our apartment was filled with the sounds of hammering and sanding. The economic crisis is over!…for the workmen downstairs.

I came home one day and I could hardly breath because they had varnished the floors downstairs and the fumes had made their way upstairs - as fumes will do. And one day I was running from room to room trying to hear the person on the phone because the noise was everywhere. It’s been an annoying process, but it’ll be over soon, and I generally have an amazing capacity to put all that noise in the background.

Some days at school, when I’m teaching and the walls shake from the music and dancing going on in the room above my classroom. Sometimes the beat of the music hits the door just right and the door shakes and makes a buzzing sound to the beat of the music. The other day I looked at the buzzing door and said, “When I tell people I work at a dance school, this is not what they picture.”

Anyway, back at the house, the day before yesterday, a man came up and asked if they could use the hook that is outside one of our front windows. I said, “Natuurlijk!” He came back yesterday morning (I was working from home) and he and a co-worker put up the pulley and rope that you see in the photo. They were both fairly large guys and one of them was leaning out the window trying to get the pulley onto the hook. The other guy had a hold of the first guy’s thigh. And I thought, Man, if you fall, he’s going to need help pulling you back in the window. Please don’t make me get off the couch. I’m..working.

We talked a bit while they were setting up. One of the men asked me if I could hear them working downstairs and if it was annoying. I said, “Now and then, but it doesn’t…last too long.” I was speaking in Dutch and had to search for the word “last.” The guy just smiled and nodded and kept talking to me in Dutch.

I love Dutch people who just continue speaking to me even when I’m doing a terrible job of  speaking their beautiful and melodious language. At the time, I was in the middle of doing something in English, so I wasn’t really prepared to have a conversation in Dutch any further than a little nodding and a “Ja, zeker” or two.

Sometimes at school, a kid will ask why I’ve never learned Dutch. Certain people (read: teenagers and people with teenage-sized brains) tend to assume that because I’m speaking English to them at that moment, I can’t speak Dutch. At school, I think it would be ridiculous to speak to the kids in Dutch. It’s English class. However, I apparently promised one class that I would give a five-minute talk in Dutch after they’ve all given their five minute talks in English. That should be interesting. The difference is that I’ll prepare for my talk.