THE DIVAS OF WEST - Together, out of loneliness and into the world

They get together every month, and wherever they are, you can’t miss them. It’s as if Gea, Lucienne, and Erna—all in their sixties—have been friends for years. Lucienne: “Oh no, we’ve only just met. We just really hit it off.” De Regenboog Groep brought them together.

“...and you know what the best part is?” Erna leans across the table and nudges her neighbor. “We live in the same neighborhood, but we’ve never run into each other ‘in real life.’” “You live on the wealthy side,” Lucienne interjects. “Well, you have a really nice little garden; I have the only jungle on the street.” They laugh. Gea can barely get a word in. Lucienne continues with a laugh: “Gea is our driver, but we don’t call her that anymore—she doesn’t like it.” Erna adds: “But that’s how it all started. Thanks to Gea, we know each other.”

Gea is a volunteer with the De Regenboog Groep transportation project. In this program, volunteers pick up participants at home to take them to activities or appointments—and back home again, of course. That’s how Lucienne and Erna ended up together in Gea’s car, on their way to De Regenboog’s ConnectCafé. They hit it off immediately. Once they arrived, a dry remark from Gea about a tea bag bobbing up and down in a cup did the rest. “I didn’t know them very well yet,” Gea says. “Lucienne was fishing around in her cup with that tea bag. So I just asked, ‘Have you caught anything yet?’” “That’s when we really cracked up,” says Erna. “I love that dry humor.”

Loneliness

Behind their laughter lie powerful stories. Erna ended up at De Regenboog Groep when she was deeply depressed. “I’ve had no connection with my father since my childhood. My children haven’t wanted to see me since 2004, and I’ve been depressed ever since. I came to De Regenboog through buurtzorgT.” Going outside remains difficult for all three of them. Lucienne: “If I don’t have an appointment, I don’t leave the house. Then I quickly think, ‘Actually, I’m quite comfortable at home.’ But before you know it, you become lonely.” Gea recognizes that, too. “If I don’t have an appointment, I don’t always go outside either. I needed a walking buddy. Gina from De Regenboog asked if I’d be interested in being a ‘rolling volunteer’—that is, a driver for the transportation project—to make a difference. That killed two birds with one stone.” Her own experiences help Gea during the car rides. “I don’t need to know exactly what someone has been through. But I often do have a better understanding of who’s getting into the car with me. Sometimes I ask how a session with the psychologist went. If someone just says ‘fine,’ I leave it at that. Then we just start talking about soccer.” Lucienne was homeless for eight months. “Not ‘homeless’ in the traditional sense,” she emphasizes. “If you’re homeless, you sleep on the street. I slept here and there. You don’t have a place of your own. I was quite young when I had to take care of my mother. I also got married young and had three children. Despite all this, I fell in with the wrong crowd and started using crack. Thanks to my own efforts, I’ve been clean for six years now. Through the Wmo, I was offered a small house where I’m happy to live. But because of the loneliness, I called De Regenboog Groep, and one thing led to another.”

Going Out Together

The women know parts of each other’s stories, but not everything yet. “We’ve told each other a thing or two,” says Gea, “but we haven’t known each other long enough for real depth. Maybe that will come later.” That doesn’t make their bond any less valuable. They drag each other along to a dinner, a neighborhood event, or a performance. They make sure there’s something on the calendar: a reason to get out the door. They call themselves the divas of West. Not because their lives are always glamorous, but because they show up despite everything. Because they gently pull each other out into the world.