Her husband came to her village in Mali to build a hospital, but ended up marrying Ada. ‘He was in love with me first, haha,’ she laughs. Then she also fell for him. “It was tricky though. Because I am Muslim, so marrying a Dutchman is difficult. My family wanted me to marry someone from Mali. I wasn’t supposed to marry a Dutchman but I was very stubborn.” So she married Chris anyway in 1988 and left for the Netherlands six days later.
“It was cold. But I was received by his family like a queen. I was given very good shoes so they kept me warm. They were totally happy to be the first dark family.”
Greetings
The first period in the Netherlands, she thought that apart from Chris’s family, nobody wanted her in the Netherlands. “Because I greeted dark people in my language; I thought they were from my country. ‘Good morning, good afternoon…’ but nobody answered! I didn’t understand. Only now I understand that they were not from my country at all and didn’t understand my language. They were from Suriname or the Antilles.”
Sweet
Once she understood that, she got used to it very quickly in the Netherlands. It helped that her husband introduced her to many people. “Because he helps everyone, fixing washing machines, TVs… He is really sweet. So that way he knows a lot of people and I got to know a lot of people too. And I am open and talk to everyone.” That means many cultures and backgrounds in Rotterdam. Ada loves that. “I can interact with everyone and get along with all cultures,” she says.
Besides getting to know people, she also had to learn about life in the Netherlands. “Chris allowed me to do everything. So I went out, to the supermarket. Back then I didn’t even understand the currency here, I didn’t understand anything. So I just gave money and then people gave me back what they owed me. All the people back then were very sweet.”
Never went to school but had Dutch lessons
They stayed with his (in-law’s) family for four months. Ada did not have to learn Dutch right away because her husband could reasonably speak the language of Mali. “Learning is difficult, I didn’t go to school in Mali,” she said. Her husband got work in Niger. They then stayed there for four years. And there Ada learnt Dutch and French. But Dutch wasn’t much use to her, as they soon moved abroad again. They stayed for a year and then went to Guinea-Bissau. There she was also taught Dutch. They returned because war broke out and did stay in Rotterdam. Now she even talks Dutch to her children.
So learning the language is one of her pieces of advice to other newcomers. “Then you can go anywhere and do anything,” she says.