I am humbled and delighted that people have actually reacted to my call for questions two weeks ago. There were far more than I expected. Some were even hand-written, like the meticulous letter from Mr Vanblaere of Ostend who asked about the “strange suffix” –zaam, like in moeizaam or eenzaam. It is used to create an adjective or an adverb, to put it grammatically, and can be compared to the English –some. Moe, tired; moeizaam, tiresome. Een, one; eenzaam, lonesome. (Compare also the German –sam.)

It’s official: de zomer is begonnen. Summer has begun. How do I know? Not because school is out and kids run around when they should be doing long division. Not because temperatures are up, and girls look pretty, rosy-cheeked and scantily clad. Not even because I’ve met my next-door neighbour for the first time the other day when we both poked our heads out the window, drawn from our caves by the awakening sounds of life. Hello. – Hello. Beautiful out. – Yup.

I don’t know about you, but I’m staying away from groente, vegetables. Or, as the Flemish like to say, even among adults, groentjes, as if they were something cute and cuddly, like “veggies”. Whenever a stern-looking somebody dressed in white declares on public television that “er absoluut geen reden voor paniek is”, that there is absolutely no reason to panic, I panic.

One bright early morning in May, in a classroom in a typically boring government building at the centre of Leuven, I was witness to inburgering in action. Inburgering, or civic integration, is a programme of the Flemish Region that aims to mold freshly arrived immigrants into echte Vlamingen, proper Flemings.