Expat Ragini Werner landed in Amsterdam on her birthday (April 10th if you really must know) back in 1980 but now runs her business NEEDSer – Native-English Editing Service – from the comfort of a country cottage in the far north of the Netherlands. 

This little rhyme learnt at school taught me the date of Abel Tasman’s discovery of New Zealand. Somehow it’s stuck in my memory, which is strange because when I was at school I couldn’t have cared less about New Zealand’s connection with the Netherlands. Nor would I have dreamed that one day I’d be living evidence of a not so hidden connection between New Zealand and old Tasman’s homeland.

That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds because, after all, my parents were Dutch. Our family moved to New Zealand during the 1950s exodus. Once we got there, Mum and Dad continued using their own language at home, while my brother, sister and I grew up understanding Dutch but speaking only English. I soon turned into a proper little New Zealander, a good little ‘Kiwi’, which is what New Zealanders call themselves. It is not the same as that furry brown fruit you might know. In fact both are named after New Zealand’s national bird, the kiwi, a flightless nightwalker. And while we’re on this fruity subject, did you know was originally called the Chinese gooseberry? It was rebranded by Kiwi growers who wanted to market their produce to the world. This they have done with such élan that you can’t go into a Dutch veggie shop these days without seeing piles of juicy kiwis just waiting to be scooped out with a spoon. But I think the success of this marketing strategy just sucks. I mean, who’d want people to think you’re a hairy little fruit, sour green inside, when in fact you’re a sharp-nosed but fluffy little bird? But who else gives a hoot what a kiwi really is? So do you, hey?
Ahem. I digress. Like any good Kiwi I wanted to see the world and on applying for a passport found I had a choice of nationality. According to length of residence I was a New Zealander but following birthright I could stay Dutch. Feeling disloyal to my Kiwi upbringing I chose the nationality that would let me live and work in Europe.

Middle Earth
Not long after, I left Aotearoa – the Land of the Long White Cloud, the Maori name for New Zealand – and landed at Schiphol, Amsterdam Airport. Now, nearly 28 years later I speak Dutch well but still haven’t lost my foreign accent. It’s not unusual to be asked where I come from and people usually guess, the United States or England. In the past, whenever I answered ‘New Zealand’ they used to say, ‘Oh, where’s that?’ That’s all different now. Some great Kiwi films have launched New Zealand’s cinematic landscape onto the wide-screen world and put the country slap-bang in the middle of the global map. People understand at once when I say I come from Middle Earth. I mean, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings was filmed in many parts of the land I’ve actually lived in or at least spent my summer holidays in herding sheep.

Ommelanden
So okay, the Netherlands may be tiny and crowded compared to the rugged land of rugby, racing and beer, but who cares? I’m rarely homesick for my old homeland. Before moving to Groningen, to a village near Abel Tasman’s birthplace, I did miss wide open New Zealand at times.

 Now I’ve found that space again where I live in the middle of the Ommelanden. I came to the Netherlands needing to work out the irony of being Dutch yet inescapably non-Dutch. I settled here with some vague idea of searching out my roots and I've found them growing deep in the Groninger clay. Now I’ve lived here long enough to accept that I’ll never be as Dutch as my passport says I am. But hey, that doesn’t matter. I still feel a deep sense of connection with my new ’omeland.

Soon after my arrival in Amsterdam I discovered that nearly everyone in that cosmopolitan city speaks fluent English. I’ve been told by a sensible Dutchman that there’s a sensible reason for this. Dutch is a minority language and, practical as always, Dutch people don’t expect foreigners to be able to speak it. This attitude is terrific for tourists but, for learners trying out the new language, it can lead to unsettling situations. Like the time I was at the main post office trying to buy an airmail stamp for my very first letter home. Possibly put off by my lousy accent, the man behind the counter gave me a look and sold me a stamp for something like eight cents. I hadn’t yet come to grips with the value of guilders compared to the Kiwi dollar, but even to me then it seemed cheap for a stamp that would fly my letter all the way to New Zealand. However I was too shy to check, just took the stamp the man gave me, stuck it on and posted my letter. Only when Mum complained about how long that first letter had taken to arrive – three months by boat – did I realise what had happened. The man had sold me a local stamp for the Dutch province of Zeeland, the very place from where Tasman sailed the ocean blue in sixteen forty-two to bump into New Zealand. So there you have it: Zeeland, New Zealand, my personal connection. It gets there in the end.

“Uitsmijter”
Ask your average Kiwi where the Netherlands is and most likely they won’t have a clue. This is crazy considering about 100,000 Kiwis can lay claim to some sort of Dutch descent. Thanks to all those Dutch migrants now living Down Under, New Zealand exports tulip bulbs to – wait for it – the Netherlands.

Photo credit: Moonrise, Cremorne beach, Tasmania - by Chalky lives

 Lonely tree, Wanaka, New Zealand - Kangotraveler

Ommelanden - near Abel Tasman's birthplace - by Ragini Werner 

[Copyright Ragini Werner 2008]