As a 22-year-old, Ans Cotting-Westerhof left Tynaarlo by train for a summer job in Switzerland in 1991, full of zest for life and a sense of adventure. When she got off the train in Giffers, Switzerland, she immediately knew that she would not leave. She met her great love Marcel there, but even without him she realized: ‘I am at home here.’
As a young woman in her twenties, the Tynaarlose native has some time to spare before she starts a new job in Eelde. “My niece worked in a restaurant in Switzerland. She asked: ‘Don’t you want to work with me in the restaurant?'”
In the summer of 1991, the young Cotting-Westerhof packed her bags for the west of Switzerland. “I actually had no idea where I was going. You didn’t have the internet yet where you could look something up.” The Swiss mountainous environment amazes her.
That first week there was a lot of holiday celebrations before her work in the restaurant started. “We went swimming in the river with friends that first day. Everyone knew my niece and she was dating a boy from the neighborhood, so I immediately had a circle of friends. That just fit.”
That group of friends also included Marcel, a musical, quiet Swiss. “He was the opposite of me, very quiet. I didn’t speak German at all, but I just tried to speak it. He was also my neighbor in the village and we just clicked.”
Although Cotting-Westerhof likes him, the feeling is not immediately mutual. “The first contact was a bit slow. It didn’t matter to me that I couldn’t speak German, so I talked and talked and talked. And then I thought we would meet up on a Sunday and go to Schwarzsee. But he didn’t understand that at all. He went to play billiards with friends that Sunday,” she says, laughing.
But the couple soon becomes good friends and just before Christmas they spark in Switzerland. “During the Christmas holidays of ’91 we held hands and gave our first kiss,” chuckles Cotting-Westerhof. “You don’t need words for that.”
Two years later the couple married, and Cotting-Westerhof settled in completely. She now speaks fluent German, including the Swiss dialect. She was a member of the municipal council and held administrative positions at her children’s school and at the local music association. She also organizes many walks in the mountains, so she sometimes knows the area better than the original one locals. “If anyone from here needs tips for a holiday in their own country, it is: ‘Just ask Ans, he knows’.”