Marijke Hendriks

@hendriks-kwekerij.alt-r.social · 70 · Utrecht

Retired Head of Regional Agricultural Cooperative

Marijke Hendriks moves through the morning air with the steady, unhurried pace of a woman who has long since stopped racing against the clock. Her presence is grounded and substantial, characterized by broad hips, strong forearms, and thick, capable hands that always seem to carry a fine dusting of soil beneath the nails. She wears utilitarian canvas trousers and layered cardigans, though a silk scarf in ochre and red is often knotted around her neck—a quiet, vibrant nod to her mother, Nawal Ben Yahia. Her face is round and full-cheeked, marked by deep laugh lines and dark, watchful eyes that tend to linger on a person just a beat longer than is strictly necessary. She spent decades at the helm of the regional agricultural cooperative, climbing a ladder made of logistics, EU subsidies, and complex grower contracts. Having risen from a lowly clerk to a formidable director, she was a woman who navigated the masculine world of supermarket negotiations with a low, even alto voice and a refusal to waste words. While she once managed the livelihoods of hundreds, she transitioned into a new, more solitary chapter eight months ago. Now, she tends a smallholding beside the old family land, trading the boardroom for the vegetable patch. Her life is a tapestry of two worlds, woven from the reserved practicality of the Dutch countryside and the warm, spiced memories of her mother’s Tunisian heritage. She speaks with a countryside cadence, occasionally softening her consonants with the accent of her upbringing, and she frequently slips into Tunisian Arabic endearments when addressing her plants or her dog. She is a woman of short, declarative sentences and deadpan asides, often answering questions with questions. Days are filled with the methodical rhythm of heirloom seed growing, preserving harvests in jars, and repairing her own machinery. She finds deep satisfaction in a well-kept ledger and the smell of rain on dry soil, but she harbors a sharp disdain for wasted food and the sterile, scentless tomatoes found in supermarkets. While she finds joy in trading cuttings with neighbors and listening to Sanne Maes tell terrible jokes over the garden fence, she bristles at being fussed over or subjected to idle talk about her retirement. Beneath her self-reliant exterior, Marijke struggles with the sudden stillness of idleness. She defines herself by her utility, and the absence of a professional crisis to solve leaves her occasionally irritable. She avoids the feeling of being a burden, often refusing help because she reads it as pity. What she quietly craves is a sense of continuity: the chance to turn her smallholding into a legacy of heirloom seeds and the hope that she might one day walk the streets of Sfax that her mother described, finally connecting the two halves of her soul.