Twice
a stranger...
It
is only 35 KM from here to Eindhoven I said, and before the words were
cold the strangeness of the statement surprised me and pulled me up.
I
realised than that we, my friend and I, were talking as if we were in
Tilburg my birthplace in Holland, while in actual fact we were driving
from Gladstone towards Cania gorge in Monto Queensland.
Where
then was here? And where was I? And where did I place myself? It is
not that I am homesick for Holland. I must say in all honesty that,
although I feel misplaced at times, I do not envisage ever, to go back
to the Netherlands to live.
I am really ‘twice the stranger’ because I wouldn’t fit in
anymore into the Dutch middle class environment I left thirty years
ago.
Coming
from a family of seven girls and three boys, I was the middle girl, a
rebel and different somehow. I spent hours in hidden places where I
liked to draw, paint and bury myself in books. One of my sisters used
to call me a Bohemian.
Moving to Australia may not have been so strange after all. Perhaps I
was already a stranger in my own country when I left on that very cold
and rainy day in March 1967.
I
do miss my family back home.
It
is there where all my memories are and where my ‘id’ has been
formed. The ‘I’ and ‘Me’ which is speaking here.
All
my genes were founded way back into the many generations,caucasian,
Dutch and from whatever other stock of European descent.There in the
Netherlands, with my siblings, I am ‘Me’ totally. And I am at
home. And yet.I have become a stranger in that very country, my home
country, as I am still a stranger here.
I
am not a refugee, nor did I come from a economic dis–advantaged
background. Many Australians seem to think along those lines. Nor did
I come here because I was looking for a better quality of life.
As
a registered nurse I was earning a good living and economically I was
much better off in my own country. However,I came to Australia because
there was a call for skilled nurses and I grabbed this opportunity as
well as the welcoming change from the cold wet weather of Holland. I
intended to stay for two years.
But
life being full of surprises,I married my husband, also a new
Australian, had a family and after 20 years when we separated, I went
my own way.
Australia,
as a country,is anyone’s dream. It is so different from anywhere
else. And 30 years
ago, it was so much more natural and unspoiled than it is today. It is
a pity that we are loosing our own identity to the American culture of
Cocacola ,drugs, media–hype, murder and violence. Whatever America
does, we have to follow suite,it seems.
Language
barriers and cultural differences came with their own difficulties for
the migrants.The first week after arrival I started work in Concord
Repatriation Hospital, where the wars and their heroes are being kept
alive.
Since
I had learned the English language in primary school and had done a
refresher course before I came here,I did not think that there would
be any problem with the language. How wrong I was. Speaking English
doesn’t prepare anyone how to communicate successfully with
Australians. To do that one has to master ‘strine’(australian).
Reading
and writing the ward reports was easy. However I could not follow what
was being said. It was not only difficult to understand them , but
even lip–reading was hard. We know of the stiff upper lip of the
English aristocracy. Well the Australians seemed to have a stiff lower
jaw! Answering the phone became a nightmare because the doctors would
change medical treatment over the phone and it was not only
difficult to understand them, but lip reading was of course
impossible.
One
time, when I was on night duty, one of the patients came to me and
said; ’I am going home to die’ really meaning:’ I am going home
today’. I was surprised because he did look so well. I looked up his
file to see if there was anything suspicious about his state of health
that I could have missed at the change–over of duties and yes, sure
enough, he was being discharged that day and he was not dying at all.
Not yet anyway.
It
could have been worse!
I
could have gladly crawled home during those first six months.The
Australian psyche, so very different from my own, was hard to
comprehend. There was the strong cult of ockerism and macho–ism in
the men while it seemed that the women were steeped in the prim and
proper aura of a Presbyterian upbringing. So much different from the
normality I was used to.
Also
there was this pervasive presence of a convict mentality, a
left–over no doubt from the colonial beginnings of early settlement.
And this combined with the very strong adherence to anything to do
with war and guns, seemingly necessary as a manifest of the Australian
male hood, made for much frustration.
Being
a single woman,I became well aware of the way the Australian male
treated the opposite sex. How at parties the men congregated round the
keg and the sheilas(women) were all in the kitchen! This really took
some getting used to. However things have changed somewhat. Or I have
become used to this place over the years and have come to love this
country which I have adopted as my home. I became Australian by
choice.
l
though I love Australia, I cannot easily accept some aspects of its
civilization. I wish it would grow up. Find its own strength and stop
being so adolescent in its idolatry, that anything good can only come
from overseas.
Furthermore
the media loves to cut down tall poppies but will hail any
ex–patriate who has made good overseas, as ‘one of ours’, even
if they have left our foreshores as babies in nappies. Indeed, the
Australian psyche is a strange one.
I
love the climate, the sun, the blue skies and the rainforest. And most
of all I love the freedom I found here, to be ME. One important part
of that freedom is the fact that I had the courage to throw away the
shackles of the Catholic faith. Before I left Holland, I was involved
in a progressive Catholic church.
My
involvement with the Catholics here however was a culture shock, never
to be forgotten, which propelled me back into a time–warp of at
least 25 years. Unbelievable. The realisation of all of the above did
not come without pain–any and many– sorts of pain, which
inevitable go hand in hand with being a stranger.
Such
as the non–acceptance by the ‘Aussies’ because they did or would
not understand the ‘lingo’(language) of the intruders we were.
Little
things like having a Slavic surname would at times become an issue.
As
long as the Australians knew me to be from the Netherlands, everything
was fine, because the Dutch were liked. However as soon as my surname
came into play, I was unacceptable, treated as a ‘Wog’ supposedly
ignorant and stupid. They would talk louder and slower as if I was
hard of hearing.
To
‘fit in’ I had to keep on cutting away something of my lifeline
which was holding me tied to my own culture. Time and time again.
Today,
I am thankful for the circumstances and chances in whatever form they
came, as I have found my ‘reason d’etre’ It made me realise what
life is really all about.
But
yet, last month it happened again.
I
had been notified of my eligibility to receive part of the Dutch
pension on reaching the age of 65. Never before, in all the time I
have lived here, did I feel as much a stranger in this country than on
the day that the Department of Social Security informed me that I had
to apply for the Dutch Pension.
I
was angry and indignant. How dare they!
Had I not chosen to become an Australian Citizen? Had I not worked in
and for this country for thirty years? More years than I worked in the
Netherlands. Had I not brought up a family of good Australian
citizens?
AM I NOT AUSTRALIAN?
And now I feel that I am being cast off, away from the responsibility
of the Australian Government. The faceless men in their ivory towers
do not think about people’s feelings. It seems that humans do not
count but are used like pawns in the games they play.
It hurts. I know I will be better off somehow, but it hurts just the
same.
Life
goes on however .I have made a new beginning and laid down new roots
like a tree, having been transplanted from the solid dark fertile
earth of the old country with its rich European history and culture,
into the dry arid hot country with its wide open spaces, blue skies
and sun, endless sun. My new country with the ‘she be right mate’
attitude and everything else.
Sometimes
I wonder how my life would have turned out had I not migrated. I have
done things with my life here, I probably would not have done in the
Netherlands.
I
went to the university and did my B.A.(visual arts) in 1991. I enjoyed
the challenge of formal study. Today I am very much involved with
social issues pertaining the older single women and I am enjoying my
life as a senior citizen. I am learning every day, still.
I
think back how the first step had been so easy because Australia was
very much an unknown country, and I myself was none the wiser.
If
one would ask me now about any regrets, I would have to be
philosophical about it, such is life!
However,
I am still a rebel, riding the boundaries.
‘Twice
a stranger’.
Always.
