Jenny from the Block

In the spring of 2009, I posted an ad on the internet in which I offered a room for rent in my apartment. I had just decided that I would go traveling through South America for six months (which eventually became an internship in New York) by the beginning of 2010. Therefore, I needed someone, preferably an exchange or PhD student, to live in my apartment during my absence.

I received an e-mail in June 2009 from an Anthropology PhD student from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Her name was Jennifer Long (hereinafter J-Lo) and she was coming to the Netherlands for one year to study Islamophobia and Nationalism in Rotterdam. My first thought was: ‘’A Canadian doing her PhD research on a controversial topic in Rotterdam. Why and how?”

Intrigued as I was, I replied to her message and we soon started an extensive exchange of e-mails; firing all sorts of question at each other. I soon learned that she was affiliated with the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam and that she was coming to Rotterdam to gather empirical data for her research through interviews with people living in the Rotterdam community. I also learned about her Dutch heritage (her mother moved from Maastricht to Canada at the age of nine) and she even made an attempt to write to me in Dutch. Her genuine openness and sense of humor made me soon realize that I had finally found my new roommate. Especially after she made the comment: “I think you've established yourself as not-being-an-axe-murderer via email.”

J-Lo would eventually become my roommate from September 2010 until last Friday. Her presence in my apartment and in Rotterdam did not go unnoticed. On her first day in town she managed to get her first e-mail contact by walking straight into the Islamic University of Rotterdam. This became the beginning of many research related activities over the course of a year, like teaching English to Turkish women, teaching immigrant women how to cycle, having frequent meetings with neighborhood organizations, volunteering at the neighborhood center, helping out at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, volunteering as the Miss Tour de Bergpolder-Liskwartier (not sure how this fit into her research) and many other activities that I probably forgot to mention here. By the time I got back from New York she was speaking Dutch like never before and she told me that she was even conducting some of her interviews in Dutch. I was literally amazed…

In the end, J-Lo taught me a lot about the community projects in my neighborhood – especially through her must-read blog – as she was involved in nearly all of them. Besides being an enthusiastic researcher, she turned out be an amiable and fun person to live with. She also proved herself to be a reliable housekeeper during my stay in New York (even managed to keep my precious plants alive).

Last Saturday she returned to Canada to complete her research and write up her dissertation. Before she left, I told her jokingly that she should come back after her graduation and run for major of Rotterdam. She laughed and raised her fist angrily saying: “Aboutaleb you’re going down!”