Emma was born in 1989 in Groningen in the North of the Netherlands. She first came to Vinstra in 2009 to work on a farm for seven months. The next time she came was in 2012 for work practice on another farm in the Vinstra area. After this, she got a job and decided to stay in Norway. She had been on a teacher training course in the Netherlands, but she dropped out and tried to find her own way in life. The city girl discovered she was very fond of farm work and wanted to make this her future. In Vinstra she works both with animals on the farm and as a personal assistant for children and adults.

In the Netherlands Emma was quite busy. She trained as a swimmer and took part in competitions, and was also a scout leader. She spent time with a large circle of friends. When she first came to Norway, she did not know the language or anybody in Vinstra. It was the middle of January and many degrees below freezing, but Emma fared quite well in this climate. When she went back to the Netherlands, she spent every holiday in Vinstra and worked on the farm where she had worked the first time.

Emma still lives with the family that runs the farm and gives them a little help with the animals, but mostly she works as a personal assistant for the local council. She thinks she has been lucky to meet so many nice and friendly people in Norway.
Emma feels she just as busy in Vinstra as she was in the Netherlands. The swimming club in Sør-Fron and her job take up a lot of her time and energy. She has a number of friends in the area that she meets occasionally, but friendship in Vinstra is a bit different from in the Netherlands.

It needs more effort and attention. The biggest difference for her is that in Vinstra she needs to use a car as her means of transport, while in the Netherlands she could cycle everywhere.
She has her own horse in the stables on the farm where she rents a flat. Emma plans to become an independent farmer in the future and wants to buy a farm where she can have sheep and room for other animals, such as horses. She says that her migration changed her from a city girl into a real village girl, and she is very pleased about that.