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| Tuinstraat Today |
As I closed the door of our home for the last time, Volkjie,
my wife of two weeks said, “Goodbye sweet life.” “What?” I replied, for it had
not been sweet or easy. Amsterdam is a city reclaimed from the sea, each day new people arrive, competing for the few scarce jobs
and fewer places to live.
I am a seagoing man, able to eke out a living catching mackerel
in the cold waters of the North Atlantic, but the catches are fewer and further
away. It is not an easy life. Volkje, who once gathered Eider eggs in the
marshes of the North Strand and drove geese to the city markets, now sells tulips
for farthings in the local market. It is not an easy life.
Hand in hand we left Tuinstraat, and the place we called
home.
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