Belgium

French is difficult for me. So many words sound the same. Roue and rue for example. See, in English that’s wheel and street and quite hard to confuse. A longish anecdote follows on this point. Try to bear with me.

The other day I was on the tram with my loving husband and bouncing toddler. There was a trendy young thing sitting beside me with one of those skiing type hats with a long tail and a pompom at the end. The Princess was rather fascinated by this and started playing with it. The trendy young thing was sweet and let her. The Princess and I have been doing quite a bit of work on tails recently (she has spent some time looking between her legs for her own tail “Mama, no tail?” “No”).  So, I said that the woman had a tail on her hat. Except, I didn’t say it in English because, you know, I wanted the trendy y.t. to understand what we were saying so I said “elle a un cul sur son chapeau”. The tyt looked a bit put out and asked whether I meant a pompom waving it about. No, I said “un cul”.  I looked at Mr. Waffle, he cleared his throat and said “I think you mean “une queue”” (difference in pronounciation only discernable to bats, dogs and fraoncophones). Smiling all round. “What” I asked my loving husband, “did I say?  “Well,” he said ” you told our baby that the lady had an ass on her hat and when she protested, you insisted that this was the case”. I see. Gosh, it’s a social minefield out there, don’t even get me started on baisser and baiser.

Belgium, as you will be aware, is famous for chocolate. And in Belgium, Pierre Marcolini is the acme of chocolate shops. And they have just opened a new shop on 3 floors at the bottom of the Sablon. And the other night, we were all out admiring the Christmas lights (“lighs, lighs, lighs!) and I thought I might check out the new establishment. And I was refused entry. It was the gala opening and entry was by invitation only. I have been refused entry to a chocolate shop. I think my social life may have reached a new low.

Today there is a brocante near where we live. The roads are blocked off and our neighbours have laid out their unwanted goods in front of their houses. Oh I love brocantes. So far we have purchased:

– a dress for the Princess (2 euros)

– minature wooden table and chairs for the Princess (10 euros)

– plastic yoke on wheels for the Princess to push around (2 euros)

– waffle for the Princess – no Belgian gathering is complete without a waffle van (1.50)

And we’re going to be going back this afternoon.

In future we’ll probably stay away from the neighbour who was offering the following tomes for sale:

“Children and violence”

“Fathers who don’t know how to love”

“Bad parents make bad children”

Charitable Mr. Waffle offers the following suggestions – psychiatrist, review copies or, if they’re selling, then they’ve obviously resolved their issues. Or, the children have moved out of home or are in prison.

I may have said this before, but Belgium is a strange place.  One of the strangest things about it is how everything divides along linguistic fault lines.  As someone who comes from a country where, at least in part, many things divide along religious fault lines you would think that I might be used to this kind of thing, but no.

Any event in Belgium is a matter of linguistic divide, I offer the following random examples:

Many years ago, before we had a baby and went out occasionally Mr. Waffle and I went to a concert in Ghent, to see the American band Cake.  Ghent is Flemish speaking. This subtlety was lost on the band who said “Bonsoir Ghent” and were greeted, to their surprise, by sullen silence and a couple of boos (francophones were obviously too scared to open their mouths). Baffled band.  Someone near the stage whispered into the lead singer’s ear. “Gooie avond Gent” said he. Explosion of delight, riotous applause. The lead singer then said in English what most of us foreigners think but would NEVER say “this linguistic division is ridiculous, you’ll end up like the Balkans, if you go on like this”.  This went down like a lead balloon, understandably enough, so they just went on and played to the surly crowd.

Once, I was in the post office and there was a big queue and this woman skipped to the front of the queue to ask whether she could have a form and fill it in while in the queue. No.  Now, this is annoying. But this being Belgium, it became a question of language. He was only refusing to give her the form because she was a francophone and there was no point him denying it (he was a Flemish speaker) because she knew for a fact that Flemish speakers got all the jobs in the post office. Big row.

Recently, DHL have been looking to increase the number of flights into Brussels airport.  This has caused controversy because, you know, it’s a bit unpleasant having aeroplanes flying over your house in the middle of the night, but on the other hand DHL provides lots of jobs etc.  I’m not sure that I have understood all the details but on to this basic fact I have heard the following linguistic elements being grafted:

– it is suggested that the flights should go over the Brussels region rather than Flanders because the Brussels region is the hub that encourages the business. Please note that Brussels is officially bilingual, in reality it is largely francophone and it is situated in Flanders which is Flemish speaking, think of it as like West Berlin before the wall came down – it has its own special region, the Brussels region, which is separate from Flanders – the Flemish do not like this much, they disapprove of Brussels. You might also like to note that Brussels airport is in fact located in Flanders and not in the Brussels region. Are you still with me?

– it is suggested that flights are being deliberately routed over the “communes à facilité”. Stay with me here. Brussels is expanding. Beyond the Brussels region. It’s full of eurocrats and fat cat internationals and we like living in the distant suburbs us eurocrats and fat cat internationals (though not us Waffles, I hasten to add, we live in Brussels). And the distant suburbs are Flemish. But we don’t speak any Flemish, we get by in French so with great reluctance the Flemish agreed to the “communes à facilité”, suburbs where you could do business in French with the local authorities.  But only for a couple of years until your Flemish got up to scratch. But the Flemish are not pleased and they worry that the Flemish countryside will be overrun by these ignorant foreigners who will force them all to speak French.  Now the latest conspiracy theory which the French speakers offer goes as follows – the DHL flights will be routed over the communes de facilite driving down prices and driving the internationals and French speakers out leaving the area free for hordes of Flemish people to come in, buy up the property and turn these areas back into proper Flemish speaking zones.  What the DHL people make of this, I have no idea.

– DHL provides Belgium with a lot of jobs and a lot of these are low skill, menial jobs so they go the employment agencies and sweep up a lot of people. Good for Belgium?  NO. Only good for Flanders because they only go to the Flemish speaking employment agencies. Who knows what the truth of this matter is? You would have thought good for Flanders would be good for Belgium anyway because as any Flemish speaker will tell you they are dead from propping up the financially feeble French speaking region (Wallonia) with their thriving economy. But it doesn’t really work like that.

Have no idea what the latest on the DHL thing is but the Belgian PM (a Flemish speaker, since you ask) emerged from a 20 hour meeting yesterday saying they couldn’t reach agreement, I suspect it may be a long haul.  Meanwhile DHL are allegedly looking at the attractions of Germany for their European hub.

I have other stories along these linguistic lines but I will save them for another day, in case you get too, too excited.

We have just had a sofa delivered. The best dressed diplomat and her husband are leaving Brussels and we bought their sofa (though we took most of their other stuff – the beanbag, the mobile phone, the wine, the champagne etc.). It arrived today. We had asked for an outside lift. The movers when they arrived had no lift. They said they would carry it up the stairs. They did. They got grease from the lift on the arms and back. Which is exactly what happened to our last sofa when our movers brought it up the stairs. Which is why it was rejected by the Salvation Army and now sits alone and dejected in our garage. The movers say that this was my fault because I didn’t tell them about the lift (and ok I feel a bit stupid) but I was upstairs when they brought it up and I assumed that because they are professionals (unlike the chancers who moved our stuff) they would have wrapped the sofa. I should have checked. Bitter, bitter, bitter. The best dressed diplomat and husband are gutted (because they are very nice souls) and arrived round this evening with flowers, strawberries and promises to claim on their insurance.Is this not very annoying?

And here, for good measure, is our last sofa: