As the crow flies 8,000 kilometers from the Netherlands lies the Caribbean island of Aruba. Ghislaine and Diederik Kemmerling live with their son Dan on the sun-drenched former colony of the Netherlands. On the island paradise, they both have successful careers and thoroughly enjoy the fruits of that. That’s how it has happy couple recently moved into a self-designed detached villa.
In addition, they have built two more apartments for friends and family who come over from the Netherlands. They don’t know money worries. Their motto is therefore: ‘Why work hard if you can’t spend it just as hard?’
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A big difference with the home situation of the Knigge family from Emmen. Where mother Carolien takes care of the whole family, because father Richard can contribute less due to brain damage and has been declared unfit for work. In addition, two out of three children have autism, which means that healthcare costs are high. And where the Kemmerling family has a nanny for their little one, Carolien is completely alone. And that with 85 euros, which they have to do everything for the whole week.
The fact that the family can go to Aruba for a week is therefore a gift for them. “This is not what I can give my children myself, that touches me too,” says mother Carolien emotionally after a thorough inspection. “We’re just happy, but sometimes I’m like: sometimes I only had a little more, but this is just in abundance.”
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The Kemmerling family, who have not been to the Netherlands for three years, are less impressed. They still have to get used to their new home. Especially the amount of stuff is a bit of a shock to them: “We are fairly minimalistic ourselves, so we don’t like a lot of stuff. And this family has a lot of stuff.”
And not only in the house, the garden is also packed. And it turns out that not only the ‘rich couple’ is bothered by it.
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Rich, penniless can be seen every Wednesday at 8.30 pm on SBS6. Watch the episode here back.
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