improvement in domestic hygiene and thus health. Access to a proper bathing routine inside the home would have had a real impact on the people who were supposedly being educated by living in these new houses. While many of Oud’s and De Jonge van Ellemeet’s decisions seem to derive from their assumptions about what they called ‘the social weak’, both expressed concern about the municipality’s decision to exclude washing facilities from the houses. As was common during the time, the De Kiefhoek compound instead included a water distillery where people could buy hot water to bring home for washing, laundry and personal hygiene.
I am sitting on the ground at the playground opposite the museum house and I notice the neighbourhood children observing me. They seem immediately curious about my presence and I am not sure why. The streets in De Kiefhoek often seem deserted to me, people pass through and linger less. The two playgrounds of the compound open up the space for me, it is where people stay and where I see life and affection. A child waves to me from the top of the climbing frame but when I smile in acknowledgment, he ducks and hides. When he reappears I wave back and feel shy myself. He makes loud sounds to catch my attention but then he and another girl laugh and hide. But the boy emerges again and waves as if to reassure me. He is transmitting a gentleness that seems unusual to me for a boy of his age, around six. The boy keeps making contact without coming closer. The children walk away and he jumps up and down and waves again from a distance. I wave back, uncertain about what step to take. Now he comes running over, jumping on the swing close by, looking at me. I start talking and he bubbles up with everything that’s been contained inside him so far. He very freely shares his thoughts with me and finally comes to stand next to me to show me a silver tooth in the back of his mouth. His friend returns and they swing on the swings together while talking to me, telling me about which candy they are allowed and not allowed to eat. They lay with their stomachs on the swings and spin around and around, until the chain of the swing is turned so much that it captures their bodies inside and then they spin out again while screaming briefly and softly. I explain what I am doing in the neighbourhood, how I’m working at De Kiefhoek museum house, and that I am sitting in the playground to think and write. They ask me what I am writing about. I tell them that I write about this very encounter. It amuses them. I later propose to show them the inside of the museum apartment. They are not impressed by it. They know the houses as they are inhabited now, and this one doesn’t look so different to an ordinary home; it just appears old to them, I guess. The museum house becomes more significant when I tell them that it is actually famous and that it represents a very old house. My drawings are lying on the table and they instantly ask if they can also draw. They think that it is an activity for everyone, and one to do together. Maybe it is also something they can relate to the most; they too make drawings. They are the first children who draw alongside me.