'Africans going Dutch' - Part Three: Dutch endangered species

Starting this month, our new weekly blog 'Africans going Dutch' will follow the highs and lows of living in Holland from an African perspective.
By Ayobami Ojebode
In Leiden, I had three favourite friends. One was Jan, a man with little schooling, so little that the day we met we could hardly communicate. I didn’t speak any Dutch and Jan didn’t speak much English. He said: “I don’t good err… speak English”. Yet, we clicked. Jan ran a tiny shop on Steenstraat. Note that Steenstraat itself is so small you won’t even notice it if you pass it by.

Jan repaired computers. He knew little engineering theory but he could solve practically any laptop hardware problem - from screen to keyboard. At first glance, he would tell you which of those thousands of tiny wires was crooked and was causing you headaches. Jan wasn’t making much money, I imagine. But he made ends meet.

Super supermarket
My second friend was a young man on Breestraat who repaired mobile phones. Instead of pursuing a college degree that would guarantee him a steady job, this young man had chosen to learn a trade and become self-employed. My third friend in Leiden was a Moroccan-looking guy who ran a chicken-and-chips shop. Industrious, humorous and enterprising is how I remember him.

I was away from Leiden for about 18 months. When I returned, Jan was gone! And so was his shop! Where his shop had been, a huge supermarket was being constructed. Three or four other tiny shops around Jan’s former shop had also disappeared. Where was he? What was he doing? And how was he doing? No one knew where to find Jan. The constructions workers had never heard of him.

With a heavy heart, I trudged on to Breestraat. Fortunately, my young phone mender was still there. But he wasn’t mending phones. I asked him if he knew Jan. He did. “Jan’s business got bad; he closed shop.” Then he went on to tell me about his struggle to keep his own business afloat. He was planning to relocate to a remote section of town where the cost of hiring a shop might be lower. My chicken-and-chips friend was still there, but he wasn’t humorous that day. “We are trying, you know, business is not easy in Holland,” he said.
Faces behind the figures
What is happening to small businesses in Holland? I see the big businesses growing: HEMA, H&M, Bristol, Digros, Kruidvat, ALDI, Gamma, BelCompany and their counterparts seem to be multiplying in this land. Yes, I know, economists say that this great nation has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world (4 percent); its purchasing power parity is 22nd in the world; the GDP per capita is in the world top 21; and only 10 percent of the population is living below the poverty line.

But the economists who roll out these figures, and the politicians who brag about approval ratings, need to examine the human faces behind these figures. What's happening to the small fruit vendor? Where is my small Jan? How is he doing?
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