general
On May 14, Malia and I landed in Schiphol to visit the Netherlands. Malia goes to playgroup all five weeks we've been here and enjoys it very much. I hear from the teachers that she talks about everything in the circle and when she plays with dolls, the names of some children from her class appear. It's nice that she can speak Dutch with so many different children here, because in Tanzania I'm the only person she speaks Dutch to. After the evening prayer, the evening prayer was exchanged with the hymn with Jesus in the boat, including the accompanying movements, singing Read Your Bible, Pray every day. Multilingualism is also reflected in the songs. In daily life, she mainly speaks Dutch here, and even when I speak English or Swahili, she says: 'sPeak Keholansi (Dutch), Mama.
The first thing Malia tells her dad about school when we video call is that there are very few kids in her class. Not surprising, of course, because her class in Tanzania had 49 children and here there are only 16. When you ask Mathayo what she loves most, she says: singing and playing. Choosing your own clothes for school and not doing homework is also something you like in the Netherlands. I try hard to do some homework at her school in Tanzania every now and then, but fortunately she sees all the numbers and letters in everyday things so we learn enough. In the shower you write the letters x and b and everything is calculated to infinity.
As a true Dutch person, you should of course be able to ride a bike. Before we came to the Netherlands, I bought a 12-inch bike via Facebook and for the first few days Malia happily rode it with the training wheels still attached. After a while we decided to take off the training wheels and after half an hour she cycled across the playground behind the house. She is lucky because she can ride a bike herself and everyone she meets hears about it. While the big trampoline used to be her favorite, she now wants to ride outside on the playground every day.
While Mathayo had been counting down the days until we returned since the day we left, Malia told her father over the phone that we would return to Tanzania when we finished with Holland and told him it would only take a while. “Bado Kidogo”. When Mathaeo asks: “Are you coming by bike?”, Malia starts laughing and says: “No,” a phrase Mathaeo already knows in Dutch.
