These women don’t choose… between Istanbul and Amsterdam!

Move to Istanbul? Or stay in Amsterdam after all? Aygül, Cigdem, Mine and Ebru decided not to choose, but live their lives in both cities!

(These are not the pictures used in ELLE, these were provided by the interviewed women themselves.)

She remembers exactly how it was twenty five, thirty years ago. Her parents would buy plane tickets to Turkey …

Freelance correspondent doesn’t get satiated but specialized

After almost five years of freelance correspondence, somebody recently asked me if I’m not satiated by now. Am I still able to look at Turkey with ‘Dutch eyes’? Can I still think of stories that appeal to Dutch readers? ‘It is not for no reason’, this colleague and friend mailed me, ‘that correspondents with a contract rotate after about five …

Being a contract correspondent? Please, no!

Sometimes I am asked who sent me to Turkey. Which paper or broadcaster delegated me to this journalist’s paradise? Well, nobody. Or I should say: my boss. Me.

Entrepreneurship is the new form of foreign correspondence. And that means: look as far and wide as possible to where you can sell your stories, develop yourself in multimedia, specialize yourself, and look …

Happiness – 4 women share their story

Are you happy? Where ever in the world you ask that question, you can always identify with the answers. Journalist Frederike asked women in the Turkish city of Bursa. What defines their happiness?

‘Green Bursa’ is how Turkey’s fourth biggest city, Bursa, about a hundred kilometres south of Istanbul, is often referred to. And indeed, there is …

The euphoria of a new language

Lots of young people enrol in courses at all sorts of language schools to learn a new language. From business English to Japanese, from Spanish to Turkish and Arabic. Freelance journalist Fréderike Geerdink, herself studying Turkish in Istanbul, explores the backgrounds of this language passion.

Evelien still feels the euphoria when she thinks back: in a supermarket in Utrecht …

Around the world

(For monthly magazine Onze Wereld – Our World – I often write short interviews that are used in bigger articles to which different correspondents contribute. My interviews are used alongside interviews on the same subject with people from countries in south-America, Asia and Africa.)

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“This is where the action will be, not in Europe”

Turks all long to move to Europe. Isn’t it? Well, not the more highly educated Turks. Turkey offers them enough opportunities!

Exactly one week after finishing his studies, he found a job. Majoring in environmental technology, Kaan Alpaslan (24) modestly says he ‘was lucky’, but there is more. Not only the company that hired him apparently sees a future for him, …

Back to Turkey

The number of migrants returning to Turkey is increasing. The more negative attitude towards foreigners plays a role, but is not the main reason for leaving Holland. Four women share their motivations for taking the step.

Cabaret artist and writer Nilgün Yerli (37) has been back living in Turkey for a year
“I left Holland because I love it so

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I am where I’m supposed to be

Emigrating is still popular. Freelance journalist Fréderike Geerdink (36) made the decision too: a few months ago, she moved to Turkey. With the help of some psychological research and an ‘emigration-coach’, she reflects on her reasons to go and her future.

On the left the lights of the mainstreet, a bit further to the right a big rock with carved in it the houses of the old part of town. On the left on the rock a viewpoint, a Turkish flag on it. The viewpoint opposite of it (an appartmentcomplex against a hill), that’s where I live. The village: Ürgüp, in the middle of Turkey. This is where I’ve lived and worked for a few months now.