[ On]geloveluk - Valery

It's a fact that does not make her mother very happy: "As a 16-year-old girl, she has her whole life ahead of her. She can't go to the pool, she can't go dancing. A lot is just forbidden by this culture. And I don't think that's good for your development. You should be able to enjoy life and discover things." Still, the pure-Dutch Valery decided to become a Muslim, and an orthodox one to boot. So she dresses herself in dark gowns and goes out into the street wearing a tight headscarf. She still finds the Islamic taboo on music a bit hard, but she intends to respect that as well. She converted nine months ago, and not because of her preference for Moroccan boys, she ensures. "If it had been on a whim, I wouldn't have endured so much." Valery claims she won't discuss the opposite sex with her secular Dutch friend, but that same friend says that they discuss little else. "I was always searching for something in my life," we hear Valery say while riding her bike through a new neighbourhood in Hoorn. "So I started looking. And in Islam, I simply found everything I needed." is part of , a series about teenagers who have found an own way of dealing with a religion they're brought up with.