Yeah, I do hear, but not a 100%.
I hear some things and I used to try to call sometimes, but I don't do that anymore. It's getting less and less. I should have an amplifier in my ear.
–You would always pretend that you didn't hear anything so that you didn't have to call.
–My mom sometimes asked me if I could call someone for her and I hated that.
I always tried my hardest. But they misunderstood me and I misunderstood them. I would tell my mom what had been said...
...and then it ended up being different. Well, I just stopped doing that. –No, you're right. –And then the text phone came.
–We used to always go to the neighbor with some money and asked if she wanted to call for us.
You know, Mrs Ribbels, the neighbor downstairs. –Oh, you mean the one with the daughter. –Oh right...Mrs de Wit.
We would give her a few cents and the question: could you call for us? She would go call and after a little while we would go back to her for the answer.
If we needed a quick answer, for example from the Elferink family. Our neighbor would call Elferink's neighbor, ask the question...
...and they'd hang up. Then the other neighbor asked Elferink the question and she'd call our neighbor again and that's how we'd get the answer.
A letter would take too long so we'd call using the neighbor.
–Now you just send a message with your mobile phone. –Yeah, and you expect a quick answer. Back then you didn't.
–That's my point. Now you have an answer within two minutes. It doesn't matter anymore if you're deaf or not. How great is that!