Forced Prostitution, Credibility, and the Maria Mosterd Scandal

A variation of the following blog entry has also been published on my "Recent Reading" blog where I infrequently write about books that I have read.

In her book Echte mannen eten geen kaas (2008), Maria Mosterd tells her story of being involved in prostitution via a relationship with a loverboy. As I've once again been reading books about prostitution and trafficking, it seemed only appropriate to read one of the most famous ones. The edition I had from 2009 was the twenty-second printing of the book (on top of this, sequels were written, numerous interviews were made, and film rights had been sold) - and then came the scandal. Maria's supposedly true story was filled with lies (see the dutch article on wikipedia). Most notably, the lawsuit against the school for neglect was dismissed - in the book, Maria claims to have attended class only on days when there were tests, which should have raised questions. Yet, according to the school, Maria did not skip class at any level of significance (and significant contact was attempted with her mother - about her lack of motivation and frequently arriving late). Classmates/friends of Maria testified in public to her being present at school - and that she had a good imagination. There is little doubt any more that significant parts of the book are fictional.

Before reading the book, I knew about the scandal - and I'm sure that influenced my reading. I found the book itself hard to believe; yet, at the same time, in the midst of this rather nasty and depressing story, I am unsettled by the belief that not all of it can be fiction and even if a little is true, it's cause enough for sadness and concern. Of note was the way in which Maria related to her loverboy - it came across as strange because it was the wrong kind of strange. The relationship with a "loverboy" - a dutch term for a guy that uses the guise of love and promise of a future together in order to convince a woman to prostitute herself for his benefit - is for me, by definition, strange: a woman, because she has "fallen in love", accepts things/situations that are clearly not loving. The relationship gets more complicated with time, but the desire of the woman for her loverboy and his (positive) attention to her remains, irrelevant of everything that has happened. Maria tries to convey that desire, but it falls flat as it misses the echos of a longing for an addiction that you know you need to rid yourself of.

Maria, as she presents herself in the book, is not a sympathetic character. She is unmotivated and lazy with regard to school and studies. She claims to be looking for trouble in the beginning of the book. She claims to know how to manipulate people well. She acknowledges lying (or at least withholding information) in regard to police actions in a rape case. She regularly does drugs. She doesn't appear to care much about other people - she expresses some desire of protection for her friend and sister - but generally seems indifferent. If such a character were to write a book, what kind of book could we expect? A book that bends the truth and tells people what they want to hear (i.e., manipulates) seems not unlikely.

Yet, even if I find Maria presented in the book to be rather unlikable, I do find it a pity that her story has been completely dismissed. Her book suggests that she knows a lot about having sex with strangers - and not good sex (and this is only partially because she was a minor when it happened). It is also obvious that she was mixed up and hanging out with a bad crowd. Both of these things should raise questions amongst Christians and Dutch society (see Guardian article from 2009). It should also raise questions about how much catering to popular taste messes with truth - both on the side of the writer and on the side of the reader. Have we avoided the real story - both with Maria and others - because a story was written that would sell?

and that was May

The following are some of the statistics in my life from April 26 until today:
- number of days spent travelling - approximately 4; of which about 28 hours were spent in airports or planes, 30 hours in a car or van, 4 hours on a bus, and about 15 hours in a train.
- countries visited - Canada, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, United States and Germany (the last two don't really count since it was only an airport).
- number of nights not spent sleeping with Matthijs - 17 - mostly because of my visit to Canada, although a few nights are because of work things that Matthijs has had to attend.
- number of different places Matthijs and I have slept - 9 - the visit to France, conferences and my visit to Canada all make for a lot of different places to sleep. 
- hours on a bike: maybe 20 - it's been a really bad month in that regard - fortunately, I've been walking tons so I don't feel super unhealthy.
- number of loads of laundry I've done - probably 20 - it's also been a bad month in that regard - it feels like at least one load every other day.
 - cities and/or major attractions visited: Toronto, Hamilton, Strathroy, St. Thomas, Chatham, Cluny, Deventer, Kampen, Taizé, Haarlem, Zaanse Schans.
- read/completed morning and/or evening prayer almost every day - taken from the lay person's variation of the monastic daily offices (in Dutch)
- number of out-of-town visitors - 5 (but only 2 tours of Amsterdam given) - May is the month to visit :)
- number of guests for dinner - only 6 (the 20+ nights of one or both of us not being home might relate to that).
- less than 20 hours in church and chapel - this is actually really low (4 hours are from church services last Sunday!) mostly because I haven't been at chapel often - either because I was away or because I preferred not being around other people much.
- hours worked - way too few.
- books read - at least 10 - noteable have been Berlin's Dynamics of Parallelism, Dossier Vrouwenhandel, Genova's Vrouwen te Koop, Bessenecker's the New Friars, Mosterd's Echte mannen eten geen kaas and novels by Lynn Austin and Steven James.
- average temperature - too cold or too warm. Honestly, we had a couple of days that were 30+ degrees and super-humid so that the house was almost unbearably stuffy, and in France we were freezing - the temperature at night getting down to less than 5 degrees!

For the most part, it's an impressive list (that's also partly because I cheated and counted about 45 days, instead of 30!).

So what are my hopes/wishes for June (and July)?
- more time biking!
- less travelling
- at least as many books read, including more on human trafficking, information visualization, Foster's the Freedom of Simplicity, and finishing up the book on parallelism.
- more time writing and working behind my computer
- less time away from my own bed (Matthijs, too :))
- more dinner guests and more eating at home, in general.
- and lots of laughter - 'cause one can never have too much!!

Eating french fries on a bench, Amsterdam-style

About a week ago, my cousin and her family stopped by on their way to friends in Germany. I thus had the opportunity to get to know them better - and enjoyed getting to show them around. We managed to cover all the major dutch highlights: windmills, canals, the flower market, pancakes, stroopwaffels, trains, lots of walking, an orange soccerball, croquetten and french fries. And the french fries were eaten in classic Amsterdam style.

We bought the fries at a famous little stand around the corner from both the flower market and Begijnhof (I take more people here, so you might recognize it!). We walked to the benches by the flower market so that we would hopefully not spill/dip all the fries and mayonaisse over everything. It being a beautiful warm day, we had to share the bench not only with the usual tourists but also some of the locals. And the locals of the day were about four middle-aged homeless guys. I'm not sure if the tourists were intimitated by the open beer cans or the two kittens in the coat of the one homeless guy, but the only places still open were beside these guys. So we sat down next to them and enjoyed some random conversation, and the kittens were a delightful and obvious distraction for my cousin's little one.

Before I moved to Amsterdam, I would have felt horribly uncomfortable sitting in the midst of a group of homeless guys (my cousin, having lived in Toronto, was obviously more used to this kind of thing). Now, however, I have a higher appreciation for homeless folk than I do for tourists! And sitting beside them seemed like the most normal thing in the world - the homeless, after all, are my neighbours and the ones I would feel comfortable greeting on the street, and they are at least as much a part of Amsterdam as I am.

Visiting Taizé

Visiting the community in Taizé has been something I've hoped to do ever since I moved to Europe. After all, considering the difference from Canada to the south of France, Taizé seems just around the corner from the Netherlands (despite it's being 850 km away). Besides that, a number of Oudezijds 100 folk have spent months in Taizé, others have a house only an hour's drive away from Taizé, and there have been stories in the past of our community going there to visit. So I was looking forward to having the chance to go visit Taizé with others from Oudezijds 100.

Despite it taking several years, my dream of visiting Taizé finally came true this past Ascension Day weekend. At 8 a.m. on the Thursday, 30 people were packed into 3 vans and a station wagon, and we arrived in the south of France a bit after 7 that evening. Thankfully a group had gone ahead the day before - so we were greeted not only with dinner but also with all the tents already set up.

Friday morning we headed out to the morning prayer. Those who had been there previously (even 10-20 years ago) found it familiar - the repeated Taizé songs, the long time of silence, the short readings. All of this sitting on the floor of the church in the midst of a few thousand others, primarily teenagers and young adults. It was special simply to be among so many others turning themselves and opening themselves up to God.

As we returned for prayer on Saturday morning and then later for dinner, a talk and evening prayers, it never stopped being special. Taizé is a phenomenon - what Christian doesn't at least know one or two of the songs, even if they don't realize that Taizé is a place in the south of France? And how many have not made the pilgrimage to this community so as to spend a week in prayer, small groups, work tasks and fellowship? Knowing the role this place has had in so many people's lives, it would be difficult to go to Taizé and not be awed - especially considering the ministry (and organisation) that the monks in the community participate in.

And yet, I think I will be more than content to sing my Taizé songs at home. It's not that I feel old or out-of-place in Taizé, it's simply that I feel more at home in traditional monasteries. As for the songs, they feel like the belong in the chapel at Oudezijds 100 - especially when we can sing in harmony. And perhaps that is also the wonder of Taizé - that it is a place to visit and appreciate, and then to go home remembering and participating in the church and communities that are close by.

I had another life once

Today I had the delightful chance to spend time with an old student of mine from Ukraine. She'd asked to see the things that I loved about the city and so we wondered around, looking for adventure. We bumped into a wedding celebration, saw a drawbridge rise (as we were standing next to it), ate Falafels for lunch, saw lots of flowers, visited a community house (Timon woongroep), drank cappucino, and walked by/through the tourist highlights of the centre of Amsterdam. It was a wonderful day - I enjoy showing hospitality to visitors, and we had the chance to talk together and catch up.

As we talked, I was reminded of how far away and different life in the gymnasium and rural Ukraine was (e.g., another student's visit last summer). And in the midst of that, how can I really explain my life here? Here I am, a good Reformed Christian girl, married to a Catholic and living in the Red Light District. I have Christian friends that are gay, and I talk to prostitutes and homeless people regularly. This is so different from the life I had growing up in Canada, or my experiences while in university, or my time at Seminary, or my years teaching in Ukraine.

Even as I struggled today to explain my life now to someone who knew me when I had a completely different life, I realize the same would be true if I tried to explain the "lives" I had before moving to Amsterdam. In some ways, I am not confronted so often with this difficulty - in the community, we focus more on todays and tomorrows as some of those who come to live here have painful and difficult histories. Even though I think this is good, I wonder sometimes how much we forget that each of us have had another life once - I even think I sometimes forget that I had another life (or two or three) once!

And yet, these different parts of my life, even the parts that don't seem to fit so well with each other or my life now, are part of what have shaped me: the love of laughter and fun I learned from my family; the delight in learning and friendships from both university and seminary; and the many challenges, needs and extremes of life in both Ukraine and Amsterdam. And I don't want to forget those things - as they have been part of my journey in faith and my growing more to be who God has made me to be.

And perhaps that remembering was the best part of the visit today - that and the hope that God continues to work among the students for whom I moved to another country both to teach English and show God's love to them. When I moved there at twenty-two I hadn't yet realized how hard that could be. I could not imagine that people could make Christianity so lifeless: for me, being a Christian meant comfort and peace and joy and delight (see Philippians 4:4-7). Yet, instead of hearing comfort and joy and grace, the students heard guilt and the need always to work hard and be serious. I tried to provide a different, more balanced example but my laughter and delight in life was often considered silly and irresponsible. I have prayed often that the damage done by this warped message would not to too great: that the students in rejecting this false gospel would not also reject God. And it was good today to be reminded again that God continues to work among those I care about.

How do you measure grief?

This last visit to Canada once again had a lot to do with my mother. When I booked my flight, we'd made plans to get together as the daughters and sort through my mother's stuff: to pick out keepsakes, to allow her sisters and a good friend to do the same, and simply to give a chance to have her things be used by others - whether by us or those who might purchase them at the local Bibles for Missions store.

It was good. But it also meant putting ourselves back in the middle of grief. We remembered my mother again - not only on account of the things she bought and kept - but also by telling stories again. Now that the pain was less raw, we could talk together about those last hours we each had with mom. And once again, I grieved her loss and everything surrounding it, although the fullness of the grief waited until I was home again in Amsterdam.

Being in the house of my father brought me closer to his grief. It is never easy to be confronted with the sadness of another - especially not in our family, where we have learned to be strong and adapt. Yet, I had been worrying about my father and wanted to see for myself how he was doing: was he really doing okay? And the answer is yes, he's doing really well, considering everything that's happened. He's lonely and he's grieving, but it is a good sadness: an honest and healthy response to everything that he's lost. He's managing the details of life well - something that could have been an overwhelming challenge considering my mom took care of many of the household tasks and bookwork. He's still doing things he's good at and loves - he's driving truck part-time and volunteering and helping others and is very much firm in his beliefs. And he's still as stubborn and obstinate (eigenwijs) as always, but he also loves us his children as much as he always has, if not even more now. He's looking forward to a future, even if it's one that's drastically different than he expected less than 6 months ago: after all, there are grandchildren coming, and he (as do I) hopes and believes that God will be with him and take care of him.

This visit reminded me how thankful I am to be part of this family - and how proud I am of my dad. We are hardly perfect (like usual, this visit we also had some squabbles and discussions), but we love each other, and we are good for each other.

She's still here!!

My niece, Kaya, is responsible for one of my favourite moments in my visit to my family.

Last week Sunday evening, I arrived at my father's house. On Monday I went shopping with my dad and stopped in at my sister's house. My sister asked if Kaya wanted to go to Grandpa's house with me - of course! And we had a great afternoon of doing puzzles together and playing the piano. On Tuesday, I visited their house to get my hair done. On Wednesday, I went with my dad to visit friends and my other niece.

On Thursday afternoon, I was sitting behind the computer at my dad's place when Kaya came in. She took one look at me and then looked at her mom with big wide eyes and said with a voice of wonder: "She's still here!!"
I have to admit that at that moment I felt superloved.