I'M LEAVING, THE AFTERMATH
Imagine you are an Italian and you live wonderfully somewhere between Bologna and Florence. You have some animals, a vegetable garden, a nice piece of land. Then a Dutch couple moves in next to you who starts a B&B. They worked in nursing, felt it was enough, and went for a fresh start. They give out stroopwafels as a sign of peace and well, you'll see how it goes. But then.
This scene: Maarten and Dominique (the Dutch couple) literally have to replace the entire cesspool (the septic tank, or your own little sewer) because the old one no longer meets current regulations. There is no space anywhere, the ground is too hard, and so on. So you connect to the neighbors' sewer, but Italy is quite strict when it comes to the environment (sometimes not at all, by the way) so three drainage systems need to be installed. One for shower water, one for tap water, and one for toilet water. Something like that. It costs money, but you have to do it. But then you find out that your neighbors' sewer is also outdated and they, unasked, also have to replace their sewer for a lot of money.
Try telling that during your introductory dinner. Maarten and Dominique didn't want the camera there for that. Dominique is all about the self-help principle and wise words. “I can get very worked up about this and approach it with an anxious and thus negative feeling, but that is my interpretation. I can also look at it positively and think that the neighbors don’t mind, and then I pull out the negative (she makes a gesture as if she is opening a drawer) and then it’s gone. At least for me.”
Apparently it worked, because the neighbors reacted completely okay
Besides the cesspool, there is of course the mortgage that just won't work out. But because the participants of Ik Vertrek were at the front when optimism and resilience were handed out, that’s all no problem. If the mortgage doesn’t work out, they will buy the house themselves. Then they still have exactly two thousand euros left. “That will be an interesting renovation.” Maarten could have also become an actor, his facial expression is that funny.
And when the money is really gone, he flies to the Netherlands to work thirteen shifts in fourteen days. Hats off.
Where in Ik Vertrek people sometimes want to move to a country where they only speak three words of the language, Maarten is quite fluent in his Italian. And they just keep pushing through. There is another opening that is postponed, of course, there is the monster called corona and the waiting for the mortgage.
We end with Maarten making the bed of a tent, Dominique showing guests the other tent, and the bathroom that is not finished and where the buckets and mops and the mess are still laid out (“didn’t have time for that, mi dispiace”). Maarten straightens his back. “We are happy and we are broke. What more could a person want?”
Can I join you for a life lesson?
