The Good ol' Family Table

The family meal, in my real life it is a time when we all gather together to chat and catch up with what is going on in each others life, laugh, and just enjoy each others presence. Now, in the Dutch life which I now lead I do believe that my host family enjoys these same things, but they sure enjoy them for a much longer period of time. I was definitely a bit shocked when I first came here and meals lasted for at least an hour at a time, and I was completely amazed when after such a long gathering they decided to come together once again for coffee and tea.
Now this time together is all well and good, but the thing for me is that I understand very little Dutch. No let me rephrase, I know nothing (absolutely nothing worth knowing at least). I have my little phrases here and there that make the Dutch smile with joy as I recite lines in order to get the encouraging applause a young child receives when he first begins to string together sentences. But I am 20, and not a young child and you would think I would be beyond the need for this encouragement. Yet, I won’t lie, I find it outrageously comical to encourage such exaggerated reactions which are meant for little children from my host family and other individuals by speaking what little Dutch I learn. It is very enjoyable.
Yet, there are other times, mainly around the dinner table, when the Dutch is spoken in large amounts and with great speed, and I am not able to tell when one word ends and the other begin. I initially nod and transfer my attention between whoever is speaking, but eventually my attention wavers and I find my thoughts leaving the discussion at hand and entering the discussion in my head. This discussion is the result of whatever Dutch word is most recently said that has a phonetic similarity to a word in English. It is here where the story in my head begins, and as my family speaks, and expressions become larger, or hand gestures become rapid, my story begins to flow even faster. Soon another word with similarity is heard and the story continues on this tangent. Needless to say these stories are rather outrageous and have little to do with reality, but they are quite enjoyable. Yet, there is a danger in these stories, for while they are talking I have often found myself on the brink of laughter only to look up and see the seriousness in their faces. Lucky for me I controlled my chuckle and adverted sheer embarrassment.
Another little thing I should tell you about my family here in the Netherlands is their practice of singing hymns after every meal. To tell you the truth, I am not much of a singer, and the Dutch language in no way increases my talent. Therefore I am usually mumbling through words not knowing what is said only to realize that “Hey, that sounded a lot like…” here let me give you an example from tonight:
Number 501 line 6 reads “Heilige Geest, U mijn Trooster,” Now I have come to know that mijn means mine, that is the easy part, but to me trooster looks a lot like toaster, and therefore God now became my toaster. And a few later lines throw in the words “Redder” and “tot” and therefore God is now my toaster which makes my tater tots redder and I later find out that it is all “in mijn hart”. I guess when you don’t understand what is being said for an hour long conversation you have to do something right? The real sad thing is that the song ended in a few lines of English and I did not notice that until it was finished because I was too busy mumbling and trying to figure out how the words (this time English) could make a story.