The berch of a tree is a little landscape in itself

Viagra

He took the change and I said: ‘Thank you sir, have a nice day!’ The guy had just paid for a magazine and was about to leave the shop when he dropped his keys. He turned around and picked them up. Then I saw it: A huge bulge in his pants. I had just turned 15 and it hadn’t been that long ago when I had gone to the library to learn about the birds and bees and all the things men could do with their lower body part besides peeing. Quite shocked I stared at him. He blushed and strode quickly  to the exit door. How embarrassing!

If you have ever watched Wall-e you will remember the way people moved in the space ship. They didn’t walk, but were flown around in space lounge chairs. I wonder how that had started. Who had decided in those seven hundred years that men were not really able to walk themselves and needed to lie down all the time? Let’s make a simple guess. One guy had invented this chair and cunningly realized that if he could just make the people believe that they were actually not able to walk properly anymore, he would be able to make a huge amount of money, or let him have all control of every person’s whereabouts. The result is quite sad: a huge bunch of overweight, helpless and totally dependent people. Fortunately, Wall-e and Eve saved their day!

This is what I thought of after watching a documentary on Viagra, world’s most popular medicine. Ever since its launch in 1998, the number of users have rocketed, resulting in a multi billion yearly turnover for its developer Pfizer. Strange enough, the problem it’s supposed to cure isn’t called ‘impotence’ anymore, with a relative small amount of mainly older men suffering from it. No, the problem we’re talking about is ‘erectile dysfunctional syndrom’. Lots of men seem to have it. And guess what, it doesn’t have anything to do with the psychological, cultural, social or emotional aspects of a man’s being. This is a pure physiological dysfunction. And it can be fixed with one simple purple pill.

This approach fits really well in the way people approach sexuality nowadays. It seems to have become an individualistic act of meeting your biological needs. And whether these are met by an other person, or by watching porn or other DIY’s doesn’t really matter anymore. Love has gotten a different meaning. Feelings apart from physical sensations are completely shut off. What matters most is that sex is always available, doable and different. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a relationship or not, old enough or even physically up to it. Whereas the monkeys still have their mates, we people are certainly down to rabbit level.

It’s just like lying in the chairs in the space ship. Even though we are moving we have forgotten what it was like to feel our feet after a long walk or to gasp for breath after a good run. Somehow we have started to believe that it’s all about getting from one place to the other and that there is no way that we could do that on our own.  Sex has lost its original drive, we hardly know anymore what true intimacy is like. An essential part that brings meaning to being human is gone.  And Pfitzer laughs in his sleeve and cashes an other billion.

I wonder what our sex future will look like. If the number of Viagra and related drugs keeps on rising like it does, in a few decades we might all be completely dependend on pills. This is what a regular night for a couple might look like: Man and woman go to bed, take a pill, have a massive orgasm on their own, turn off the lights and say ‘Love you and goodnight!”

Some alarm bells need to start ringing. We need to make a big effort to get love back in our sex lives. Stop wanting (to be) a Mr Darcy, a Pamela Anderson or a supersized Duracell-powered porn star. Start caring about and be faithful to our innerselves, our bodies and most of all, our partners. Find back the meaning of being intimate and loving each other. And I bet that there will be a huge amount of men with ‘Erectile Dysfunction Syndrom’ less!

Well, the alarms certainly went of for the guy in the shop! The manager ran after him and dragged him back inside. They took him to the back and were also rather struck by the swelling in his pants. They searched him and you know what: He had stolen a lightbulb and had put it in his underwear! In a way a fortunate, but certainly unexpected ending to my first encounter with men and their bulges.

My Great-Grandfather

Last Saturday, I heard a very interesting story about my great-grandfather. He is the head of this happy family. My mother’s father is standing on his right. Mr Hendrikus Landeweerd was born around 1870 and was the proud owner of a big farm, somewhere in the eastern part of The Netherlands. He was quite an extraordinary man. Not in the least because of his somewhat compact build, but also because of his outspoken character. Every Sunday after church, groups of men would circle around him to have lively debates about politics, that Sunday’s sermon and theological issues.

He was a man of influence and as I found out, in quite a profound way. You have to know that up till about 20 years ago, people in most churches would have their own seats. I remember churches where every bench had little lights on the back and when those were on, you were not allowed to sit there. These seats were reserved and in a lot of cases, paid for!

And guess what, my great-grandfather was in charge of designating the seats to the people. Everybody could place a bid and then he would decide where they would sit. The more you paid, the more in the front, the less you paid, the more in the back. A nice reflection of society those days. I wonder if my great-grand father enjoyed his churchly responsibility, and can just imagine all the fuss and gossips and power struggles that must have come along with it! And where did he actually sit?

I am always quite shocked to hear these kind of stories. That social and financial status can make such a difference, even when it comes to faith.

But not all churches were like that. The church my father went to as a child had a system in which every 2 months every row of people would move up one bench. And once you had been in the front, you would have to start all over from the back. I think that was a splendid idea!

Since then, things have changed completely. Nowadays churches almost have to pay people to actually come, or they sell their buildings to real estate developers to be changed into an apartment complex, museum or shop. But still, globally seen, we in the West certainly like to sit in the best spots. So I was thinking that some Sundays, we should all swap places. Let’s have a service in a church like this:

and let them have their service in a ‘cathedral’ like this!

People are always so busy worrying about their own seats and statuses, do they actually ever wonder in which row God is sitting? And how much He would have to pay a man like my great-grandfather for that?

Strangely enough, it appears that for us religious people those questions don’t really seem to matter that much!

Near Death Experiences

Santo Domingo, March 2004. ‘Out, out’, he said, pointing at the door. Julian was bored of playing with his trains and obviously in for some more adventure. ‘Ok, Julian, you can play outside, I’ll be there in a minute.’ I let him out and went back inside to finish something on the computer. I should have known, he is Houdini in the making after all, because I didn’t notice that he managed to open the gate and get to the pool. He must have taken a big jump, like he always did. But this time without his floaties…

A few minutes later, I turned off the computer and turned towards the window. It was very quiet in the garden. ‘He must be eating mud again,’ I thought. Then I saw him. Floating in the pool with his face down. I screamed, ran outside, jumped in and got him out.

He wasn’t breathing and looked purple. Julietta and the guards ran towards me and started yelling as well. I simply did not know what to do!

Fortunately, Haitian workers saw me from the building across our house and came to help. I screamed: ‘Where can I get an ambulance? What should I do?’ Every second seemed to last much longer, I felt like I was dreaming. ‘Get in the car and drive yourself, I’ll come with you and give him mouth-to-mouth’, one Haitian boy said. We jumped in and raced to the emergency room. ‘Respira-lo, respira-lo’, I kept on shouting. Had Gerco not had an accident a few months before, I never would have known that there was one so close by…

We arrived and the doctors started CPR on him immediately. I was crying so loud, that they told me to leave. I just wanted to be with him in these last moments of his life. I was almost sure that he wasn’t going to make it.

And even though I wasn’t dying myself, I have never been nearer to death than at that moment as well. The panic was so strong that it just couldn’t stay in my body. I felt like slamming my head against the wall, hurting myself, I had to physically feel something to deal with all that pain.

It was horrible, but strange enough, this moment did show me who I really am and what I truly believe about this life and after. Because the only thing that I could think clearly was a prayer. ‘Thank you God that he’s with You, there’s nobody else that could take better care of him, no other place that I would want him to be with if he cannot be me.’ I know, this is not a philosophical nor scientifically reliable proof of God or life after death and of course all very subjective, but for cynical me it has been enough. I know how to trust.

Julian lived! He got CPR and his little heart started beating again. They transferred him to the hospital where we used to go to, since the emergency room where we had gone only had one respirator. Dr Garcia, our pediatrician waited for us at the door, carried him to the IC and hooked him up on all sorts of machines. He joked: ‘It doesn’t matter under what circumstances you see him, he’s always drop dead gorgeous!’

That night I stayed with Julian. So did the doctor and he took such good care of him. After a few hours his worried look started to ease up. Even though Julian had been without oxygen for quite a while, it seemed that he hadn’t suffered severe brain damage. He was going to be alright. I felt such a relief, but was still very upset and especially angry with myself.

And as soon as Julian woke up, he was his active self again. The next day, Julian was allowed to the normal ward and I had to stay with him as well. There was no baby cot, so we slept together in one bed. Then, in the middle of the night, Julian woke up and literally jumped out of bed! He fell straight down and started screaming. The nurses ran in and I was just completely shocked. Even when the kid is lying next to me, he still slips away and almost kills himself!

We were allowed to go home the next day. Julian seemed to have forgotten the whole ordeal and played nicely that whole day. Later in the evening Julian and Aaron were watching television. Then all of a sudden, Julian started jumping on the couch I told him to stop, but before I knew it, he jumped so high that he literally flew over the couch and smacked on the tiled flour, head first. Still quite upset I started sobbing. ‘Can somebody please take this child away from me, I’m obviously absolutely incapable of looking after him!’

Fortunately after this dreadful weekend, no more life threatening things have happened. At least, short term. Never know what damage all the parasites and bugs that he has had will do to him longterm! And you know what, he’s never been afraid either. Not of water, heights, or anything else.

I like to think that he had such a nice Near Death Experience that all fear of dying has left him forever.

Not for me though! I sometimes have nightmares of people drowning, or floating with their face down. I am conscious of the fact that within a few minutes, something life-changing can happen. I know that I’m incapable of looking after my children all the time and protect them for every danger that’s lying around the corner. It’s scary. But do you know what? There’s not a day that I don’t realize how blessed I am to have Julian and my other children with me. That they are healthy and such wonderful kids. So I just do what I can do and try hard to leave the worrying to moments that there really is something to worry about and nothing else.

Julian and I both had a Near Death Experience that afternoon. And even though Julian’s was probably way more fun, I’m thankful that I had mine. The Life After Near Death is much better!

Pooh in the Cave and Safety in the Class

Warning: This blog contains some very gross elements.

It was pitch dark. We had hiked for about 2 hours in peanut butter mud, paddled through little lakes and at a certain point even had to crawl through an underwater entrance to get into the next cave chamber. We were all wet and extremely dirty. Some of the unfortunates hadn’t payed enough attention to the instructions on how to waterproof your backpack.Their sleeping bags were completely soaked. Poor teenagers, this survival camp would turn out to be a lot nastier than that they ever could have imagined! We had cooked ourselves a meal in the biggest chamber of the cave and got our mattresses out. It was time to go to sleep. One by one, the little flashlights were turned off and there I was, lying on the cold cave floor, not being able to see a single thing. ‘Try not to panic, just fall asleep’ I kept on repeating to myself, ‘enjoy the uniqueness!’ And that’s what I did.

Our camp leader had instructed us very carefully before we had entered the cave. That we needed to stay together, keep the flashlights going, waterproof our bag and most important, not leave anything behind. A cave is a bit like a fridge, it takes ages for things to rot away and you guess it right: Number twos included. So we all received a little plastic bag in which we would have to scoop our pooh and then take it back outside.

I’ve been teaching at a high school for about three months now and I have to say that things are getting harder every day. I haven’t been very consistent in my disciplinary actions and that has resulted in quite a bit of chaos and disrespect in the classroom. I am thinking really hard on how I can turn this for the better and fortunately, I’ve got some wonderful colleagues helping me along the way. This afternoon I’m going to a course that all new teachers have to take. It’s called: ‘Learning in Safety’. The main goal is that you learn to create an atmosphere in your classroom that has clear boundaries, so that students know how they are supposed to behave and also know how they will be treated by their teacher. This clarity makes the classroom a safe environment in which ideally, the children will flourish and learn.

For me this involves a few heavy learning curves. First of all, I have to set the rules, that are also given by the school and stick to them. Second, I have to respond directly to the behavior of the students, whether it is positive of negative. Well, I don’t find it too hard to respond to positive behavior, but in these past months it has happened more than once that I saw something that was not allowed and just let the student get away with it. Often because I didn’t know how to respond, but also because I couldn’t face an other argument or was simply happy to finally get some work done and didn’t want to interrupt the lesson.

And outside school the same thing happens. I don’t know how to deal with the consequences of my response, or I am afraid of them. And when it comes to raising my own kids, I simply let them get away with not cleaning their mess, talking back, well the typical naughty things, because I’m fed up of having to say the same things over and over again. So in the same way that I’m confronted with my laissez-faire attitude in class, also at home it gets a big mess, the kids fight and I get very frustrated and grumpy. I used to be quite different though…

Back to the cave. When I woke up, probably a few hours later, it was still pitch dark, no wonder, we were still in the cave! Even though the floor was hard, I felt quite comfortable. How annoying that I really had to pee! So I got out of my sleeping bag, turned on my Petzl and walked around the corner of the chamber. The little creek over there would carry my water all the way out to the river and finally in the Mediterranean Sea, since the cave was in France.

Psychologically seen, peeing in a cave is not easy, the sound echoes through the whole chamber, but I managed to anyhow. Some kids started to giggle and woke up the rest of the group. I was about to hurry back, but luckily enough could stop just in time to not step into an enormous pile of pooh. All the rules that were told the night before, the plastic bag in my pocket, the cave’s temperature and the horrible smell reminded me of what a terrible thing this was. Somebody had just left it there!

I spoke up in a loud voice through the cave: “Who has left his (9 out of 10 boys and size wise, quite logical) shit out here, Can you stand up right now and put it in your plastic bag! The giggling stopped, some flash lights turned on and it was all quiet for about half a minute. Then from the corner of the chamber a huge figure stood up. Our camp leader stepped forward and murmured in a soft voice, ‘Oh, that was me’. He walked around the corner, scooped up his remains, put it in his plastic bag and that was it. I don’t know who felt worse, me or him. Unintentionally I had put him to public shame. And I’m not sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was really angry with me as well. ‘Me and my big mouth’, I thought. Why can’t I handle these sort of things in a better way?’

But do I regret the fact that I did do something about that enormous pile of pooh? No, because if I hadn’t, chances would have been big that even now, 15 years later it would still be there. Later confrontations and consequences with my own and others’ faults have made me more and more insecure about how to handle them. But I’ve seen that not dealing with them isn’t getting me anywhere either. I need some of that boldness back, especially at school. I want to find a way to be consistent, but forgiving, outspoken but wise and most of all to keep the places and relationships where I work at and live in safe and happy.

So I’m off to my course now, there’s enough to learn!

Guns

About 10 years ago Gerco and I went on a last-minute holiday to Orlando, Florida. We had tons of fun in all the theme parks, saw a shuttle launch at Cape Canaveral and ate fried food all week long. On Sunday we decided that it would be nice to go to church. We went to a Baptist church just outside of Orlando. We were warmly welcomed, joined the young-couples Sunday school and then sat down for the standard service. I don’t do very well on jetlags and sleep deprivation and felt quite spaced out that entire morning, but there’s one line that I remember vividly. The pastor was talking about discipleship and money matters. I don’t remember the clue, but this line woke me up in an instant:

‘Sometimes you have to make responsible choices and spend the money that God has provided you with wisely. Do you really need that new gun that you’ve been thinking of buying for such a long time, or can you simply keep the one that you already have?’

2 years later, we moved to Angola. One day I was driving through town, when at a certain point I was stopped by the police. The guy was a bit stressed out, quite understandable because the president was about to pass by and he was responsible for getting the road cleared. So he held up his gun and pointed it at me. I had never experienced something like that before and was shocked to the bone. The realization that this guy could simply end my life in that moment, just by pulling one little trigger.

An other time one security guard dropped his loaded gun right in front of me, fortunately it didn’t go off! Whenever I opened the door of my appartment I would find at least one guy sleeping with his automatic rifle ready to be stolen. I cannot say that I wasn’t happy with having an armed guard. 2 out of 3 people in Luanda owned a gun, it certainly was not a safe place to be in! But even though they had all the best intentions of protecting me and my family, the dangers of them having one were also quite significant.

In the summer of 2007 Media, one of my best friends’ cleaning lady was visiting her mother with her two kids. All of a sudden, her brother-in-law showed up. He was looking for his wife and very angry. Media and her children were standing in the door opening when he opened fire on them. Media died on the spot, her daughter was severely wounded and deeply traumatized. A daughter, wife and mother lost, all in a single second. It’s still unclear where he had gotten the gun from, but in a place like Macedonia, it’s obviously not such a big deal.

And the same counts for the United States. Tonight I read a news item from March this year about Mr John Maxwell, a writer, preacher and consultant on leadership, He had been arrested at an airport, for trying to board a plane with a concealed weapon. In his blog he admits that it was a stupid mistake and that he’s not a gun person at all. But since this was a gift for his wife from a member of the church where he had spoken, he had taken it and put it in his bag and dumb enough, completely forgotten about it.

So you can actually give a preacher a gun as a present, and he will accept it as a nice token of friendship!

Surfing the net a bit more, I came across the website Church Solutions, a very informative site about all sort of practical issues churches deal with in America. One article talked about how a church should set up a security plan to keep criminals, terrorists and random shooters out. An other on how to deal with crying babies during the service. But this one totally flabbergasted me! Church cancels gun giveaway at teen conference.

Read the article yourself to draw your own conclusions.

Here in the Netherlands the only people who own guns are policemen and soldiers and a handful of heavy criminals, who use it to mainly shoot each other. For a regular girl like me there’s no need to have one for your own defense, there simply isn’t a whole lot to defend ourselves from. And even if you wanted a gun, you could never just buy one over the counter, get one from a friend from church or let alone win one at a teen camp raffle! And even though it might seem that we have put ourselves in a very vulnerable position, we don’t have to worry too much about some idiot shooting randomly in public places. Or about leaving a gun in a place where kids can find it and kill themselves. That does have everything to do with the regulations and licenses that are needed before you would ever even touch a gun.

But back to a person’s own decision. How on earth or in heaven can you approve of owning something that is designed for killing, nothing more or less. Your protection means the end of somebody else’s life. Is that a responsibility that everybody can just carry?

I wonder…

Gyneacologists and cross stitching

I don’t know about you, but I have always been quite amazed with people who deliberately don’t want to know the gender of their baby before it’s born. Having a little creature growing in your tummy is weird enough and quite spooky if you have watched too many sci-fi movies. I mean, there might as well be a rabbit or gremlin kicking your insides constantly! Anyway, knowing that you’re going to have a little girl or boy makes everything a bit more tangible and helps in the bonding process, I’d say!

We Dutch are well-known for our outspokeness and bluntness, but in other areas we can be quite reserved. It is quite normal for a couple to already know the sexe and name of their baby, but decide on not telling anybody else. To keep the surprise, or people like me in a constant state of high curiosity. Well, how totally different in The Dominican Republic! There everybody will ask straight away whether you will have a boy or a girl, what the name is going to be, who is your gyneacologist and whether you will be ‘preparaste’, a nice term for tying your tubes, after the c-section, that is planned about 2 months ahead. Because sure enough, no natural births for the Dominican chicas.

I wasn’t quite ready for all of this when I entered my gyneacologist’s office for the first time in September 2002. She has her practice in a nice private clinic, where most of the expat women and rich Dominicans go for their check-ups and of course, to have their babies. The waiting room was wonderfully decorated, with jars of candy and chocolats, embroidered table cloths, flowers, glossy magazines and a perfectly manicured assistant. I sat down and looked around. 4 out of 5 women were cross stitching! One woman looked at my belly and asked: ‘Are you having a boy or a girl?’ A bit taken aback by the directness, I told her it was a boy on which she immediately replied: ‘So have you finished all your blankets yet?’

And then I knew why everybody needed to know everything as soon as possible. You have to embroider your baby’s name on every single bib, blanket and towel possible and that takes a hell of a time! So did I crosstitch? Yes, I actually did. I had already started something when I was pregnant with Aaron and would have a friend finish it after Eva and Michelle were born. I adapted fine with the culture on the crafty side. With giving birth it was quite a different cup of tea.

I’ll spare you all the gross details, but after seeing my doctora for a few weeks and giving birth to super baby Julian, I could tell you all about the birth pains, baths, epidurals, heamarroids, stitches, even vaginas of every pregnant expat woman in the DR. And I am sure that I got quite famous as well with my pain killer refusal – Gerco and Aaron and sister in the room – something went wrong with the local anasteasia while doing the stitches – natural birth. I wasn’t too happy about my instant fame and went to an other gyneacologist when I found out that I was pregnant again. This guy had his peculiarities as well, but at least kept his mouth shut. And again in the waiting room, all the women were cross stitching…

I bumped into this website: www.purlbee.com and was immediately touched by it. Let’s get a few things clear: I don’t cross stitch anymore and am certainly not planning on having any more babies. But this website reminded me of the enthousiasm that the Dominican women had for making everything pretty for their little ones. The hours and concentration that I put in my little piece of art as well. And all the birthing, baby and gyneacologists’ stories that came along with it!

Nothing but cloudy skies and salty water

A beautiful afternoon in Scheveningen

 

 

Blink

So here we are, recently arrived in an other country. My belly is huge, only 2 more months left before Julian will be born. We are taking our first stroll through the colonial zone, the beautiful old part of Santo Domingo, with houses and walls that were built in the 16th century. People of all sorts have lived here in the past centuries, Indians, slaves and their traders, Spanish settlers, adventurers and pirates. We have a drink on the main square and I’m watching the people pass by. “Well at least the street kids are not as poor as in Angola” slips through my mind. Why am I thinking this? What is it that lets me make such an unfounded conclusion?

In Angola there’s a group of people that are both from African and Portuguese descent. So their skin is much lighter than that of the other Angolans. These people belong to the middle and upper class, live in the cities and have the better paid jobs. And when you have a better paid job in oil and diamond heaven Angola, better means a whole lot better. So whenever I would see a person with a lighter skin, I would, and as I often would find out wrongly, assume that they were richer. And that is exactly the reason why I had such a dumb thought in Santo Domingo. I soon found out these street kids are just as poor as in Angola. There simply is a much higher percentage of ‘mixed blood’ in Santo Domingo and that’s it.

I thought about this incident and a number of others while I was reading ‘Blink’, a great book written by Malcolm Gladwell. I love it because it actually approves of impulsive decision making! Well, at least in a few cases… It talks about how we understand the world around us and that we respond and decide on way more factors than that we consciously know and experience. In tons of striking examples Gladwell explains how

‘…..our unconscious is a powerful force. But it’s fallible. It’s not the case that our internal computer always shines through, instantly decoding the “truth” of a situation. it can be thrown off, distracted and disabled. Our instinctive reactions often have to compete with all kinds of other interests and emotions and sentiments. So when should we trust our interests and instincts and when should we be wary of them?’

Having read the book has made me aware of a lot of other automatic assumptions. For example, I notice that when I’m grading papers I’m surprised when kids with awful handwriting get high grades and the ones with nice handwritings don’t. I am much more aware of the power of positive attention and the destructiveness of negative remarks. I try to focus on my bodily reactions to situations before I draw quick conclusions or react. I discover that even though I hate it, I have racist assumptions, lots of arrogant thoughts and I make totally unfounded judgments. On the other hand, I realize that my instincts can be trusted when it comes to issues I’ve experienced before. And when it comes to decision making fortunately more information doesn’t necessarily mean that the conclusion will be better!

An other beautiful aspect of the book is that it shows that there is so much more to people and situations than that we think. There is a uniqueness in everybody and everything around us that we are unconsciously aware of and is waiting to be discovered. Now if we could just all read this book and let our dumb, quick conclusions and judgements go, wouldn’t the world be a super exciting place!

Me not being Mother Teresa or Maria von Trapp

When I was about 12 years old I had it all figured out: when grown up, I was either going to be a brain surgeon, a PE teacher or have my own orphanage. It didn’t take too long to realize that becoming a brain surgeon actually did involve investing a lot in your own. Since I had tons of other very important things going on in high school, resulting in a nice mixture of fun and laziness, my medical aspirations soon faded away. The PE teacher thing was still a good option and the orphanage even better. I remember being on a holiday in Italy and looking at big buildings, thinking: ‘This will be the perfect place for my 50 kids.’

I was the type of teenager who believed that the world can change by just being there. Looking back at it I think that that was actually quite ok. It’s a good thing at that age to see all the possibilities there are and the impact that they can have on their own life and the lives around them. But quite soon after that the disillusion began.

I didn’t become a PE teacher, but studied Rural Sociology, which has everything to do with the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of development aid in rural areas. We started with about 40 very enthusiastic people, but by the time I quit there were only about 15 left. For some it was simply too confrontational that there are no simple solutions to poverty, others wanted to do something more practical, like become a nurse or a teacher.

However, I didn’t finish anything, but got married and moved to Warsaw. I ended up doing the combination of all wishes and studies done. I worked for a small projects program of the embassy, taught gymnastics to little kids and taught English in an orphanage. It was so nice to get to know the girls who lived there. Most of them didn’t have any parents anymore and I remember starting to realize that whether they would be fluent in English or not, whether I’d take them out or invite them in my home, they would always miss the love that had always seemed so completely normal in my life. Me being in that orphanage would never change that.

Then we moved to Angola and the tragedy and poverty hit me really hard. This was the kind of place of which I had always thought that I would simply jump in and help out. It was very confrontational to discover that I couldn’t do it. The ambiguity of getting out on the streets and help the beggars, or let them suffer in the streets, go home, have a meal en sleep in a comfortable bed. I had always strongly believed that I would do good to ‘the least of my brothers’, but often I would simply close my eyes and drive on. Always with the question on my mind: ‘Can it actually get less than this?’

Then I met a group of nuns who never drove on, but would get the beggars off the streets, give them a bath, a meal and a listening ear. They would work in the state hospital, one of the worst places I’ve ever seen, caring for the people, making sure that they would get the help that they needed, if possible. They found Raymundo and his mom sitting on the pavement of a busy street. Raymundo was 3 years old, but looked like a baby. His skin was full of sores. He couldn’t laugh or cry, just sit there in the car fumes with his mentally retarded mother.

The nuns took Raymundo in their home and took care of him. Since he didn’t have a lot of other children to play with, I would sometimes come and visit him, so Aaron could socialize a bit with him. Other friends would take him swimming or in their homes, we all made sure that he was getting all the love possible.

In a bit of a naive moment I offered to take him in for the time being. Gerco was in The Netherlands and here I was all of a sudden, on my own with this little boy and Aaron. It was so hard! I realized that I just couldn’t love him the way I loved Aaron and felt so sad that again, this boy would miss out on the best that a person can get and needs in his life. After a week he went back to the nuns. It just didn’t work out, even though I tried really hard. Again, just being there didn’t make the difference, I felt ashamed of myself and very disappointed.

Raymundo had to go to a regular Angolan orphanage somewhere in the south. I don’t know where he is and how he is doing. I think of how I couldn’t help and make the big difference that he needed. Now I know that I have to let go of the idea of me being mother Teresa or Maria von Trapp. I’m just Leonie, struggling enough to keep my own family running. I do hope that the orphans in Warsaw and Raymundo will remember some of the love that I did share with them. That they will realize that they were worth that love and care and much more. In the meantime, I’m going to give it an other try at home and the school that I work in. To learn that me being there does make a difference, but probably in very unforseen ways.

Bold or Hairy part two!

So here’s my conclusion: We may be talented, have extraordinary gifts or superpowers. Our children might be extremely athletic, charismatic or an Obama in the making, in the end it is so important to look at the complete profile of a person. To value the total package and respond according to that. O yes, and perhaps it might be a good idea to realize what you can expect, when you’re expecting so much from somebody or from yourself.

And since we’re talking about bible things anyway, why not read the story about an other hero. The apostle Paul says that He never boasted about his divinity or misused his superpowers. He was never impressed by big-wigs or impressive buildings, but moved by small acts of love done by ordinary people. Wouldn’t be manipulated or try to mold anybody into His way of thinking. He inspired people to make their own choices. Finally died a horrible death, but definitely not as a looser.

Next time I’ll write about the day Aaron’s head was shaved….

Bold or Hairy

All mothers are somewhat happy when their baby is born with lots of hair. Let’s face it, when your baby is bold, there are no more distractions from its primal shapes. The ears look bigger, the head weirder and let’s not even talk about the wrinkles, rashes and pimples that are much more obvious when there is no black hair to hide them. Hair is the thing to brag about. It’s sad but true: If the hair’s not there, your baby will automatically be placed in category CUTE

But how would you feel if the length of your baby’s hair was directly related to his supernatural strength? You would definitely want him to be as bold as a marble! Well, this happened to an elderly lady, about 5000 years ago. One day she got a nice visit from an angel, telling her that she would get pregnant. The baby was going to be very special, a great warrior and deliver her people from their biggest enemy, the Philistines. Just like what you will read in ‘What to expect when you’re expecting’ nowadays, the angel told her to not drink any alcohol and eat healthy. And added to that, to never, ever cut his hair.

She told her husband Manoah, who instantly got really nervous about it. He actually asked God to send the angel again! Simply to repeat exactly the same thing as he had told his wife before. So the angel comes again and gives him exactly the same instructions. You can tell that he is very scared and afraid to do something wrong. I can’t blame him for freaking out about it. Perhaps he was the kind of guy who always exactly knew how to raise other people’s kids, but when he faces the hideous task himself…

When I read the rest of the story (it’s in the Bible, Judges 13), I wonder if his perfectionism and fear of doing something wrong had a terrible effect on the life of his hairy, special boy named Samson.

Samson grows into a big, super strong man, but not necessarily a smart one. He’s good at manipulating his parents and friends and very original in the ways of getting back at his enemies. But malicious women are definitely his weak spot. He looses his wife to a friend because of some stupid riddle that he had made up himself. He reigns his people for over 20 years, but looses all his strength after telling a prostitute the secret of his powers. The Philistines shave his head, capture him and cut his eyes out. In a last spur he does kill them all, but dies under the rubble of the building that he himself brought down. Definitely not the superhero ending that you would have expected. How could it ever have come this far? Is this how God had intended Samson’s life to be?

Had his parents been too scared of this little Hulk to discipline him? Were they so much in awe of his special calling that they let him do whatever he wanted? Marrying the wrong women included? Had they always made excuses for his behavior, since in the end, he was a chosen man and one with a special mission? Were they ever able to to really understand his needs, or did meeting them simply stop at braiding his long, long hair and making sure that it would never, ever be cut?

I had a thought of a very nice conclusion, but am too sleepy to write it down. So tomorrow comes part two!

Agenda

Thursday morning, somewhere in June. I’m sitting in the study, surfing the net, when suddenly the doorbell rings. I open the door and there is a friendly looking lady. ‘Hi, I’m Jopie!’ I introduce myself and she walks in. ‘O, would you like to sit down in the study, I was just finishing up some work’, I say. She sits down and we start to talk. Desperately trying to ask some smart questions about her coming, she says: ‘I guess the pastor should be here any moment’. And then I know! We are meeting to discuss a little booklet that we’re going to publish with all the church activities of the coming year. A sigh of relief. ‘Yes, she’ll be here in a second’. I make some coffee and we sit down in the garden.

For 13 years, I haven’t used an agenda and have always been sort of ok with it. I always found them a bit of a bother. First of all, you have to keep it up-to-date. Second, you have to stick to it! ‘Of course!’ you might think. ‘Your life is very chaotic without it!’ I admit, there has been some related chaos and disruption, but up to 6 months ago, life was simple enough and with ample space for spontaneity and time to deal with the unprepared surprises.

We had a very effective meeting (the Dutch are so good at that… :-) and planned a few dates. This time, I was not going to make any more mistakes. I electronized the appointments! You see, Gerco put an app on our phone so that we can have our calendars synchronized. We put all appointments in the phone, that sends them to the computer and we can keep up with all our going ins and going outs. So I typed them in, we said goodbye and see you next time!

When I started teaching in March, I got my first agenda again. To be honest, I didn’t really know how to work with it anymore! Where do I write the appointments, do I check every day what I should do that week? It sounds very ridiculous for an adult woman with four kids, but it took me a few weeks before I got the hang of it. Then I broke my foot. Bye agenda, straight in the recycle box!

During summer break, good friends from Germany came over to visit for a few days. One night, we had just finished barbecuing, the doorbell rang again! It was Jopie, second meeting! This time, I couldn’t keep up appearances, I told them that I had completely forgotten about it and unfortunately we had to cancel it. I was completely in shock that the phone calendar had let me down so much. Next day, the dentist calls. I had forgotten my appointment and if could please pay 25 Euros ‘you forgot your appointment penalty’. I remember bragging about putting the dates in my phone at my last appointment!

Not understanding at all what was going on, I realized that I had typed the dates and times in the phone, but had always forgotten to save them. And once you rely on technology, your internal agenda goes straight out of order. Whether it was a well trained one or not… So with my mind messed up and Ical calendar not up-to-date, I was a bit in a time and appointment warp. Fortunately it was holiday and we didn’t have too many very important, not to be forgotten things going on anymore.

Around the end of August I knew that we were going to have an other meeting again. One evening, after putting the kids in bed, I was just telling Gerco that I should find out which night it was going to be, when again the doorbell rang. It was Jopie! This time, I had gotten very trained in pretending that I knew exactly what was going on and Gerco acted along just fine. The only thing that might have betrayed my negligence might have been the cake that Julian had sat on in the supermarket. It was the only thing that I could offer them.

I started teaching at an other school last week. It’s very organized and asks for lots of discipline. Quite a challenge for me, you’d say! Again, I had to get used to the agenda, writing everything down and act according to it. I still don’t like to be ruled by it, but hey, that’s life in The Netherlands! Then I was asked to teach a bunch of 12-year-olds on how to use their agenda. Never have I felt more incapable and unsuitable for teaching something before!

There’s so much to learn….

Children and War

Friday night Gerco and I had a dinner with some couples from our church. It was lovely and a nice chance to get to know the people that we have been saying ‘hello’ to in the past months a bit more. I sat next to Ati, a lady in her seventies. We talked about our children, interests and where we were from. What a surprise to discover that  she had worked in the hospital in Hobart where I was born (and FYI famous  30s actor Errol Flynn as well)! We found out that she knew some people that my parents were befriended with in Tasmania and shared some memories. Then I asked her why she left and she said to me: “There was a big fire and I was so afraid, I just packed my bags and run.”

The fire she mentioned was one of the most disastrous that have hit Australia in history. On  an afternoon in 1967 within 5 hours huge parts of Southern Tasmania were on fire, leaving thousands of homes destroyed and 67 dead. My parents arrived in Hobart two years later and still remember being shocked by all the devastation that this fire had brought about. I asked Ati why she had been so scared. “It all has to do with the Second World War, that had left me with so many fears.”

She lived next to a railway line. One night, in the autumn of 1944, right in front of her house a train loaded with German munition was shot by the British air force. Ati woke up from her mother’s screaming: “Get out of the house, right away!” She grabbed her doll, ran downstairs, in the garden and away from the track. In the corner of her eyes she could see her mother throwing the baby in the carriage, running away and dragging along her 2 younger sisters. The train exploded, noise and flames everywhere. She was so scared.

Because they couldn’t return to their home, Ati and her parents moved into the office of her father’s company. Absolutely not a place for a young family to live in. The ware house was taken by the Germans to use as a soup kitchen. You have to know that in the winter of 1944/1945 there was a huge famine in the western part of The Netherlands. Thousands of people died of starvation. Ati remembers clearly the looks of all these hungry, desperate people, waiting in line for a piece of bread, or perhaps a small bags of coals to keep themselves warm. “It was so obvious that something terrible was going on, but I just didn’t understand it at all.”

Her father suffered from tuberculosis. She was not allowed to cuddle him or even sit close to him. Before he had gotten sick he had been in hiding, because the Nazis put all the healthy men to work in Germany. She had been so afraid of loosing him and missed him so much. There was no school, her mother had no time to play with her and her sisters. An other baby was born and Ati had to walk with him for hours, since his health was so bad.

She saw a man being shot by a German soldier, remembers the reactions of all the people around, the emotions and hidden anger. An other house in her street burnt down completely. She had to step over the ashes for days and days. She heard the rumors of concentration camps and people never coming back.

Her parents couldn’t explain to her what was going on. They were too busy surviving. She was only six, too young to understand it all, but definitely old enough to engrave all the images in her memory.

The conversation with this special woman gave all the black-and-white images of WWII that I have seen some color, some reality. It made me realize how brave my grandparents were during the war, how strong their generation has been to build up a completely destroyed country after the war again. How much children pick up and how confusing and scary life can be for them.

I’m never going to fight in front of my children anymore.

Club Social Crackers

When I crossed the old, iffy bridge I should have known, this shortcut might get us in trouble. Aaron, Julian, Gerco’s 4-week-pregnant sister, my mother-in-law and me were on our way to Punta Cana, a beautiful beach resort in the Dominican Republic. Somebody had suggested to take this little detour, promising that it would save us at least half an hour on our three hour trip, less traffic and beautiful scenery. What shall I say, for sure there was less traffic!

We ended up in the middle of one of the country’s huge sugar cane fields and the Bateys, little villages where the Haitian workers live. The scenery is beautiful, but there is no garage, petrol station, electricity, running water, well you get it. Anyway, the shortcut turned out to be a dirt road like this, full of bumps, puddles and ruts:

My sister-in-law was starting to feel sick, my mother-in-law grumpy and the kids, let’s not even talk about that! I just tried to stay happy and positive, making remarks like: “Look, such beautiful skies, how lovely the colors of the fields and the dirt! The Haitian children are so cute, don’t you think?” In the mean time we were driving from bump to bump and I was seriously starting to worry about our tires and shock absorbers. What if the car broke down here? How could I get help, would we have to spend the night at the Bateys? I really had no clue where we were and how to get out. But then there was this one very reassuring thought:

“At least we have enough Club Social Crackers to get through the night!”

You see, Club Social Crackers are the best you can get. Together with Julietta’s chicken, it was my family’s biggest comfort food in The DR. The boys ate them for snacks at school, I ate them when I was pregnant, happy, sad, hungry, full. Gerco ate them at night, well you get the idea. I used to take stacks of them on the road to share with my favorite beggars on the corners of the streets. Every place has its specialties, this for sure was the one for me! Fortunately, the car didn’t break down, we found our way out and I managed to keep my sense of panic hidden. We ate our crackers under very normal, safe circumstances and enjoyed our weekend at a nice resort.

Last Wednesday, Julian had his first baseball training. I took him there and liked the place immediately. His trainers are from the Antilles and it’s Caribbean all over. The smiles, the way they approached the children, the laughs and games, it was simply lovely. But the best thing about it was when we walked back to the car. I found a Club Social Crackers wrap on the ground! I picked it up and stared at it with amazement. Julian thought I was really weird, picking up this piece of dirt and putting it in my pocket. “Aren’t you going to throw it away?”, he said. I felt a bit dumb and did. But I kind of wish I hadn’t.

This little piece of plastic took me back to beautiful landscapes and wonderful people. Days that couldn’t get harder than they get, days that were absolutely splendid. Times with toddlers and babies, beaches and mountains. Floods, cockroaches and rats. Times of facing the poorest of the poor while living a life among the richest. Nights of partying and loud music, generators running and our crazy next door rooster cocka doodle doodling non-stop.

Times that will never come back, but all of a sudden caught up on me. A clear, plastic wrapping, with ‘Club Social Crackers’ written on it.

Mythbusters

My kids love to watch Mythbusters. In this program all sorts of myths about technology and science are tested and proved wrong or right. We love it when some great inventions turn out to be absolutely rubbish when made and tested. Or when seemingly rubbish ideas turn out to work great! There are always some common thoughts that prove to be absolutely false. For example, a car will never explode when it is hit by bullets, whatever you may have seen in movies or the A-team, it is definitely impossible. However, a car will explode when shot through the gas tank with tracer rounds though. Other very interesting facts: Christmas trees cannot catch fire because of an overload of lamps and a person cannot be blown away when hit by a bullet.

I’m not sure if my kids subconsciously are inspired by this program, but they have for sure been testing a few myths as well! A few nights ago, the boys decided that they wanted to sleep in our big bed, on top of tons of pillows. I was looking for my nail clipper and remembered that it was still under my pillow, the one on the bottom. Well, why not test their royal blood as well, I thought. But as you can see, nothing happened…

Today, the kids found 4 little frogs in the garden. They played with them, tried to train them, cuddled them and of course, kissed them! I was surprised how tame they actually are. They really seemed to enjoy it quite a bit as well. The fun came to a tragic end though. At a certain point Michelle walked in sobbing because she had lost the frog. She had dug a hole in the sandpit and buried him alive. I tried to rescue him, but was not able to dig our little green friend up. Poor thing… But guess what, Gerco just saw him happily jumping around in the garage. Michelle is going to be so excited tomorrow!

Anyway, Aaron and Julian are not princes and the frogs didn’t turn into one either. So either I’m am scientifically wrong or these myths are busted. Or maybe my snobbish assumptions of having at least a little drop of blue blood are wrong, so it never would have worked anyway.

But we will have one more go. This is what I found on the side of our house later in the afternoon.

Fortunately Jack and the Beanstalk have nothing to do with kings and queens. Now what if Julian walks in with a chicken tomorrow morning, that should be a sign, don’t you think?

Royalties meet Japanese

Bad Arolsen, picture from Slyss, Flickr

Monday, August 3. I’m sitting on a terrace in Bad Arolsen, Germany, the birthplace of our queen’s grandmother Emma. I have a nice view of the palace she lived in. It’s beautiful from the outside. I can’t go in since I’m still on crutches and the place is full of stairs, steps and expensive furniture, but Gerco has the pleasure to take a museum tour inside with the kids right now…:) So I’m enjoying some of the best coffee and cakes the world has to offer and admiring Emma’s humble dwellings before she married the 40 year older Dutch King William The Third and moved to The Netherlands

This royal splendor reminds me of the time when queen Beatrix visited Warsaw. She and her husband had a very busy schedule. Every single minute was planned, from the moment she got off the plane till she waved all the Poles goodbye again. Of course, these visits don’t take place too often. And they do get enough free time to spend in the best places you’d ever wish for. But being part of the organization of that visit certainly confirmed my idea that royalties live in a cage, gold and glittery as it may be.

However, during that visit rumors spread that Beatrix and Claus managed to escape! On the second day, between coffee and dinner time, they ran off to Lasienki park, a beautiful garden behind the little palace they were residing. The Polish security followed the couple, walking in the rain, nice and cozy under an umbrella. Finally time to talk in private for a minute and ask each other how they were doing. Maybe check if the other thought that the concert was really boring as well or laugh about the Polish president’s moustache. Perhaps settle an argument that they had three days before. Just be their normal selves, whatever that may be.

Then, they were stopped by a group of Japanese tourists. The security guys were at high alert, would they be recognized or not? One lady walked up to them, asking in sign language and crooked English whether they could take a photo of the group. Of course, Beatrix and Claus helped out, giggling from under their umbrella. They gave some instructions, made a few shots and waved them goodbye. These tourists might have wondered about the lady’s strange hairdo, but surely had no clue that the queen and prince of The Netherlands took their picture!

Every moment is stuffed with history and hidden stories. I’m going to have an other sip of my cappuchino and fantasize a bit more about all the people that have taken strolls in this place, the sense of freedom they might have enjoyed and the unexpected encounters they may have had. Wonder who might be sitting next to me!

Water Lily

The Water Lily

I love the white water lily
Who sits there, quietly opening up
her crown to the light
And wishes no more

This is a very rough translation of one of my favorite poems, written by Frederik van Eeden. It’s actually much longer, but I can’t remember it all. I like it so much because it describes a moment of perfect happiness. I’m having one of those right now.

It’s dark and everybody is fast asleep. All the people that I love dearest under the same roof, healthy and perfectly content.

I’m thinking of the nice day we had together. Aaron’s face when he unwrapped his birthday presents. The girls’ giggles when they were playing on the beach. Julian giving me a big hug. A nice conversation with Gerco about matters of the heart and other silly things. The wonderful, delicious raspberry yoghurt cake we ate.

I want to enjoy this moment. Not think about hurt from the past or complicated things that the future may bring.

Because I’m sure that once we’re all awake, at least one of us will end up completely covered in mud, grumpy, whining, hitting somebody and begging for food. A key or passport might get lost. There might be arguments or full blown fights. Maybe somebody will break a stupid little bone or get stung by a nasty bug.

But not now. Now is the time to say a prayer of thanks, try to not fall asleep for a long, long time…

and wish no more.

Modeling

When I was about 9 years old I wanted to be a supermodel. My sister and I would cycle every Wednesday afternoon to the center of town for cornet lessons. On our way back, we always stopped at a toys’ store to marvel at Barbies latest outfit and crave for the new plastic kitchen utensils. Then one day, it must have been somewhere in October, the shop keeper gave us the season’s brochure. Sinterklaas was about to come and now we could read it at home and continue our wishful thinking.

I looked through it. Again and again and again. And I got so jealous of the kids in this little booklet who had all these cool toys. For some reason I thought that they were allowed to keep them all and I wanted to be in there too! My sister and I made up a plan. We decided that the best way would be first: Stay in the shop longer. Second: Be really nice. Third: Ask for more brochures.

Well it didn’t work. We tried really hard for about 3 months. Then my mother asked why we were always home so late. The shopkeeper never asked us anything at all and started to get more and more annoyed with us. It was quite a disillusion and I never wished to become a model anymore.

Until a few weeks ago. I broke a little bone in my foot and it was put in a cast. The nurse in the hospital gave me a sort of strong plastic bag with an elastic band that fits exactly around my leg. Very easy when you take a shower. If you’ve never broken a member of your limbs, you should know that to have a cast is quite annoying. It’s itchy, sweaty and well, very annoying. But I do like it when they put it on. It’s all soft and warm, it feels like you’re having some sort of mud bath. Taking it off is also a very exciting experience. The idea of a saw at work only 3 centimeters apart from the skin completely freaks me out, but when you close your eyes and don’t think about it too much, it tickles in a very nice way. My foot isn’t healing properly so I’m expecting the whole process to happen again in two weeks. Yeah!

But back to the modeling business. On the package of this bag, you see a man and a little boy. The man has a cast around his leg, the boy around his pulse. Then on the back, the man has a cast around his arm and the boy around his foot! Then on the inside, the man has one around his hand and the boy around his arm! Just imagine how much fun these guys must have had making all the pictures! Putting it on, sawing it off and that three times in a row! I would love to be a model for that!

Do you think I would be asked if I stayed in hospital a bit longer, smiled at the doctor some more and took all their brochures?

Inflated American, Inscrutable British, Underwhelmed Dutch and Flabbergasted Me

We had just gotten back in Luanda after our holidays in South-Africa. Our guard Barata, notorious for his deep sleeping skills and strange sort of intelligence welcomed us at the airport. “Hello Mrs. Leonie, you have sure gotten fat!” I was rather shocked. How on earth could he know that I was 6 weeks pregnant? Besides that, I had just recovered from the worst stomach bug ever and I hadn’t looked that skinny since I got back from a near starvation survival camp. I don’t remember whether it was a very nasty remark, or simply a very infuriated, pregnant lady look that made him apologize. For sure he had only meant to give me a nice compliment.

I’m reading a book called ‘Native English for NEDERLANDERS’. This beautifully written piece (with words like ‘pigeonholing’ and ‘guffaws’) talks about the typical mistakes that the Dutch make when they speak English, grammar and vocabulary wise, and most interestingly for me, cultural wise. When it comes to culture the main difference between Dutch and English is that to the Dutch ‘language is a tool and to the English it is a celebrated art’. And that means that, just like the Dutch architecture, Nederlands is functional, clean and with no frills or frosting. What you say is what you get. A toilet is a toilet, not a bathroom. ‘Give me the book, (and if your lucky) please’, instead of ‘I’m so sorry, but would you mind giving me the book, please?’

So you can understand that for me as a Dutch person, born in Australia or not, while living abroad I definitely had to get used to Brits and especially Americans! First of all, they asked me how I was doing all the time, but never really wanted me to answer the question. Second, everything was always wonderful, great, amazing, lovely, super, awesome. At first it made me think that they were all very positive and cheering. Later I found out, and sometimes the hard way, that their actual response or interest would be at the Dutch level of ‘nice’, ‘good idea’, or ‘well done’, or in worse cases ’sounds good, but I’m just not interested at the moment. Besides that it’s 6 ‘o clock and dinnertime’. Talking to people from the UK could be even more confusing. Because they are very friendly and polite and would never want to be rude in a disrespectful way. I’m sure that to them, the Dutch are rude in a disrespectful way.

Of course, these are all gross generalizations. But now that I’m reading this book, my already opened eyes are widened even more. I’m thinking of all possible huge blunders that I’ve made. The times that I said ’shit’ in a formal setting. The times that I was hurt because I thought people liked me, or were interested in my story, but had just been polite. I realize that back in Holland, I am a bit annoyed when people tell me the complete story of what they’ve been doing in the past week when I simply say “hi, how are you?”

So I wonder, will I ever be able to understand my English speaking friends at all? Am I actually able to express myself well enough towards them to get to know me? And now that I’m back in Holland and speaking Dutch, is my Dutch too Americanized and euphemized, am I exaggerating everything too much? I so agree with Mr. Popper who said: “It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood”. I haven’t finished the book yet, so hopefully it will come up with some nice alternative in the middle. We’ll see.

Fortunately, friendship is much more than words alone. It does entail a lot of talking and guts to ask for more words if others are not quite understood. But it is also doing things together, being there for each other when times are tough, laughing, drinking tea and lots of eating. There will always be strange and awkward moments when cultures meet. But fortunately my friends are all patient and forgiving enough to deal with my bluntness and directness. And I love being showered upon with their lavish language and big hugs.

Of course, I forgave Barata. In the end, being fat is beautiful, especially in Africa. And he just wanted to cheer me up a bit, even more so after seeing my skinny, greenish, grumpy face.

Bush, Kant, Teresa and the Teletubbies

Luanda, somewhere in the year 2000. I’m watching the inauguration of president Bush. Still quite surprised with the democratic system of the United States, in which you can somehow become president without having the majority of the votes. Where some votes all of a sudden don’t count while others turn out to be so important that they have to be counted a few times again! Bush is just saying: “So help me God Almighty”, when Teresa, our lovely cleaning lady walks in. “Look” I say, “This is the new president of America!” “O”, is her reply. “Did the other one die?”

Königsbergen, somewhere in the 1770s. Immanuel Kant is walking his ‘Philosopher’s Walk’. Every day you will see him taking the same route. One of the smartest men who has ever lived, the first to come up with a complete system of thoughts about reality, God, perceptions and ethics. He lives a very strict and punctuated life. It keeps him focused on his work. He has already waisted too many years wining and dining. He can tell you everything about different cultures and places in the world, but hardly ever leaves his hometown. He knows all about what is right or wrong but is one of the lucky Germans who has never been involved in some horrible war. He has written a book on the ‘Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime’, but has never been married, rumours say never even kissed a girl.

Sometimes I’m a bit jealous with people who have it all figured out. They are the proud owners of a huge halo of certainty, know exactly what is right or wrong, true or false, beautiful or ugly. I have lots of respect for a person like Kant, who spent his entire life thinking everything through and coming up with wonderful explanations for the visible and invisible world and the existence of God. But I do wonder how much of his conclusions would have differed if he had actually been in the countries that he knew so much about, or had been married to a vicious woman. What if he had suffered from a mental illness? Or had taken his walks at 10 o’clock in the morning in stead of half past four in the afternoon? How much does the truth as we perceive it depend on the way we’ve been brought up, the people we’ve met and well, you know what I mean!

Perhaps Kant didn’t even want to test his theories in real. It can be very discomforting to discover that what you’ve always believed in turns out to be a scam. ‘Loosing your faith when you are old is like declaring bankruptcy over your life’, I heard somebody say after he had stepped out of a religious sect after 20 years. How did Teresa feel when she discovered that her idea of democracy was actually more that of a dictatorship? How do I respond when my system of values and beliefs threatens to be a house of cards? Do I start blowing, or try harder to let it all stand?

I prefer to huff and puff and blow the house down! There’s nothing better than being confronted with different realities, world views and faiths. It is in these experiences that I discover what stands strong. It is here when I feel closest to the things that I cannot explain and loved by God. And want to read a good book, pray a bit more and go search for more explanations.

I had to explain to Teresa that in a democratic country presidents do step down after four years if they are not re-elected. That the Teletubbies are real people in coloured suits. (And yes, the little one is probably a dwarf). That I had the opportunity to go to university for free but didn’t even finish it. That we don’t all drive BMW’s and Audis in The Netherlands. Teresa had to explain to me how she was able to raise her 5 children under really hard circumstances. How she managed to build up her life after loosing her parents in a dreadful civil war. Why the Angolans put all the most yucky parts of a cow in their national dish. How to be faithful to your friends, family and God, even if it costs you almost everything.

What if Kant had watched the Teletubbies, or had met Teresa? What if Bush….?

Watermelons

It’s watermelon season again and I’ve been indulging myself quite a bit on this tasty, healthiest fruit imaginable. Whenever I eat it, I think of Ahmad, our neighbour in Skopje.

Ahmad was from Jordan and according to him, in the season Jordanians have watermelon parties. Every child gets a watermelon and they are supposed to open it without using a knife. So on one hot summer afternoon, Ahmad and I decided that we needed to explore his culture a bit. We bought a few huge watermelons and had a go at it. We had great fun as you can see!

We decided that we would turn this into a yearly tradition and use the watermelons that for sure would be growing in the garden, considering all the seeds that were left in the grass.

Ahmad was great with children. They simply loved him and he loved them. That same summer we had made a deal that I would cook dinner every night and he would play with the kids. Every afternoon was filled with weird games, chasing each other, volleyball, dressing up, mud pies and on and on. Ahmad enjoyed it just as much as they did. He fixed Julian’s bike and was about to teach him to cycle.

But that beautiful summer came to a tragic end. A few weeks later, Ahmad died in a car accident, leaving behind his wife and five-year old girl, Sara. He wasn’t a saint, or a hundred percent pedagogically responsible parent. But he did know how to live life, enjoy having children and how to be a friend. He had his struggles and was wondering what his next steps should be as an unemployed expat partner. He was thinking about faith, grieving over the death of his father a few months before. He had a Macedonian shepherd dog puppy that turned out to be an enormous, barking beast that ate about half a cow a day.

I still miss him. Never will I get a neighbour like him again. I am so thankful that I got to know him. And I hope that Sara will keep on remembering him the way he was, one of the best dads a child could ever have wished for.

We didn’t have a party that following year. Without Ahmad it would never have been the same. I did look for watermelon plants in the garden, but no seed had decided to sprout as a remembrance of that wonderful afternoon in the summer of 2007.

Natural Enemies

To believe something is one thing. To be moved by it something else. But to actually act on it, that is the hardest!

Last week we had a little fly plague in our house. Big, black, fat, flies were buzzing around the house. I found out that their nest was somewhere in a pipe that exited the bathroom and was ready to attack. Being a newly born-again environmentalist, I went out to the garden shop and asked for a ‘green solution’. The guy advised me a ready-for-use insect spray, without propellent, made from organic fatty acids and of course 100 percent biodegradable! Just what I wanted. I paid the 9 euros, a lot more expensive than the regular, poisonous ones, but hey, you pay a price for a cleaner world! I asked the guy that if the flies weren’t dead by the day after tomorrow, I could get my money back. He simply grinned.

So I got home and started spraying. Despite my high expectations, the flies didn’t drop dead immediately. I sprayed a bit more and they still flied on! Then I read the instructions and this is what it said: ‘Bimex insect spray is developed to be used in combination with natural enemies. Bimex lowers the immunity of the insects. After using the spray, wait 24 hours before setting out their natural enemies…

And they were right, the next day, the flies were still buzzing around just fine. I was just wondering who the heck could be their enemies, when believe it or not, a toad jumped in the kitchen! Yeah, nature does its work with the help of a little man-made 100 percent recyclable spray! Of course, I scared the living daylights out of the toad. He jumped up and escaped. He hadn’t even caught one single fly! The last thing I saw of him were his little legs being stuck in the smallest door opening possible. Then I decided that I would do the job. I got the vacuum cleaner and sucked all the little monsters straight into fly heaven. And fortunately, I haven’t seen them back since. Aren’t we nature’s worst enemy anyway?

For sure we are. I think that it is high time for us to realize that we are loosing the battle though. We are on our way of becoming victims of our own created toxic spray. The spray of fast food, made-in-China products, big cars and huge fridges. The globe’s ecosystem we are so dependent on is loosing her immunity and health rapidly. It is only a matter of time before our planet’s forces of nature will strike back full force.

And that brings me back to the beginning: Do I believe this story, am I moved by it, do I know how to act on it and do I actually do that? Unfortunately, most of the time my answers to these questions are ‘no’. How about you?

The Laundromat

He had a convertible. The rooftop was off, we were driving full speed. Or at least, it felt like that, since my hair was clutching on to my scalp and my hands tightly holding on to the side of the car. “The wind goes up where we belong” so loud that it was still audible above all the noise and wind. We had been on an outing with the youth group from our church. He had been leading it for a few years and we all thought he was just the best. He looked at me, I felt great and strangely attracted. He was 37 years old, married with 3 kids. I was only 13.

I watched a program about sexual abuse in churches. The fact that it happens at all is awful enough, but the way most churches and their communities deal with it is even worse. Stay blissfully oblivious seems to be the rule. Most cases are never reported to the police, but dealt with internally. Pastors and pastoral workers get reprimanded. Of course they promise to never do it again, but after that are simply allowed to continue their work in an other church, or even in the same.

As a victim said: “There’s a nice way of dealing with sin. You step into a sort of laundromat that washes it all off, bleaches away all memories and you step out a completely new person, with a clean slate and a fresh start.” Unfortunately no such magic trick exists for people who are hurt and damaged. And I guess because of that, the way churches respond to the stories and needs of these people is often completely inadequate. And besides not getting the help that is necessary, victims face alienation, false accusations or are just simply ignored.

So how is this possible? I think for long the church has been fighting the wrong fight. The fight of keeping up the appearances of being holier and better behaving than regular, pagan people. When you only focus on change and purification, every time the true nature of a spiritual ‘leader’ comes to the surface, your system of belief fails dramatically. It causes doubt amongst believers and ridicule from outsiders. Of course as a church you would never want that to happen, especially because you are claiming that what you preach is the absolute truth. In this fight you can only be a good soldier if you ignore the way life actually is, the way people really are and what they really feel. Carefully shielding away from bullets of lust and desperation, hurt and anger. Putting all your efforts in staying as unified as a sausage, or to stay within the metaphor, one holy army.

And that is so sad. A while ago I found out that a few girls from my youth had been abused by our great leader. The elders of our church (of which one was a parent!), talked to him about it, forgave him and that was it. No help for the girls, no protection for the other children either. No counsel for his wife and definitely no legal actions taken against him. A nice easy solution you would say. And the church lived on happily ever after….

Well, you can imagine that this wasn’t the case for these girls. They have struggled for years with the consequences of the abuse and the lack of protection from their parents and community. And even though our leader got away with it fine, in the end he paid the highest price. A few years later his wife and kids left him. He committed suicide.

Fortunately the program also showed some christians who did speak up for the victims, who stood beside them and gave them support. I think that is what Jesus would have done. And just like one of them, He might have been kicked out of church as well.

A Batch of Playdough

Every once in a while I make my own playdough. I’ve got a great recipe that guarantees hours of fun, play, stress therapy and scraping colourful leftovers from your walls and floors. All the playdough that I’ve made have had quite eventful lives, but the last batch certainly takes the cake!

I had made an extra large portion because Julian wanted to make a little animation movie with it and I wanted to use it in my English class for a vocabulary activity. It’s sort of a combination of Sherades, Pictionary and Rapidough. You get a word, draw it, act it out or clay it and the other part of the class has to guess it. I’m a new teacher in this school and let’s just say that I’m not always that well prepared when it comes to what to expect behavior wise. I mean, would you ever expect an 18-year-old to be naughty? I’m used to having very obedient students. The ones in Angola almost kissed the floor I walked on, would never, ever be rude and diligently kept on working when I once fell asleep during class.

So back to the lesson, I explained the game and we started. As soon as it was somebody’s turn to clay, I walked over to his table, gave it to him and let him do his word. “Oh, this clay just feels great!”, he said. Always having thought this student might have concentration problem, I offered him to keep a bit so that he could use it as a stress ball kind of thing. Very dumb! By the time it was the third person’s turn to clay, there was hardly any left and my students were starting to prove themselves to be quite talented sculptors. Specialized in fertility gods and goddesses….

So I asked the playdough back. Thinking I had collected it all, something hit me in the back. And again. The students started throwing the playdough at each other, yelling, laughing, well, you sort of get the idea… So I took it back again and put it in front of the class on my desk. We quit the game and as a bit of a revenge I let them do a really hard, boring exercise.

One guy had to go to the bathroom. “That’s fine, but if you’re gone for longer then 5 minutes you’re not allowed in anymore”, I said. You see, sometimes they stay away so long and come back smelling like a joint. He was back in a wink of the eye, I complimented him on it and continued the lesson. Well, guess what: He had taken the batch of playdough back to his seat and the whole throwing, catching, yelling game started over again! Never have I been more relieved to be done with a class!

Anyway, I changed my strategy and in the other classes the game just worked out fine. One of the students has a 3-year-old and she told me that she was going to The States with the kid and dreading the flight. Being an expert on flying with little ones, I suggested her to take the batch of playdough. Sure that that would keep him busy for a while.

Two weeks later she was back. The boy had indeed played for hours and as always, playdough had been a lifesaver on a transcontinental flight. But then, at JFK, she was stopped by the customs, taken into a little office and interrogated about the pink stuff! They asked her to eat it, tell everything about the contents, where she had gotten it from, etc. etc. An hour later, just in time to catch her next flight, she was allowed to go, but of course leave the possible dangerous explosive/drug behind.

I like to fantasize about what happened to the playdough next. Perhaps the custom officer took it home and gave it to his kids. Or perhaps they are using it for stress release therapy themselves! Whoever has got it now, they will never know that it was made in my kitchen in Ridderkerk, used for a home made animation movie, thrown with, shaped into very improper forms, thrown with a bit more and played with by a little Dutch kid on the plane. What an exciting idea!

Nasty little buggers

Last week I noticed that some trees in our neighbourhood had turned into spooky whitish trees. Tonight I went out to investigate it a bit more. This is what I saw:

At first, it looks quite innocent, but after a few days:

And then the tree just dies!

This is what they look like:

The nasty little buggers!

Nostrils

My dad and I. We have exactly the same hands and feet. I love sitting next to him, both of us with our feet up and check it once again. The same curves and shape of nails and the same length of toes and fingers. I’ve watched him do so many things with his hands. Painting the house, building an attic, counting bacteria in a sample of cheese, fixing my bike, sanding lenses for his telescope, doing the dishes and sweep chimneys. He is one of the most all round persons I know. And I love him to bits!

As a child, I could always see when he was frustrated or getting angry. His nostrils would sort of widen. It seemed that I was the only one noticing it and I remember thinking: “Stop what you’re doing or saying, can’t you see he’s getting angry!” But I was often able to cheer him up a bit, just with having a nice conversation. And nowadays, talking to him makes me happy as well and when it’s just him and me, we can go on for hours.

My parents have always been able to live out their dreams and ideas. Looking back, these could change quite often, resulting in the fact that they have emigrated back and forth to Australia 2 times, moved around in Holland 4 times and emigrated to France and back as well. The secret of their success is that my mother is very inventive and hard working and my father very flexible and hard working. If they wanted to do something they would find their way.

Just a few examples: To finance my sister’s year abroad, my mother managed to get triple child allowance (which is a lot when you have 4), we ate home made bread for a year and everybody had some extra jobs. One year when we all decided that we wanted to come along on our parents camping trip to Italy, we managed to squeeze the six of us in a Lada station wagon. One had to lie on the luggage in the back, and the other three were on the backseat. We put some suitcases on the roof and if we drove faster than 80 kilometers an hour, the car would start swinging because of all the weight!

This upbringing has given me a lot of confidence in life itself. Knowing that there’s lots of exciting things out there to be seen and done. And trusting in your capabilities to just do the things that you like or want to do. My sisters have the same, they are all wonderful, gifted people, who have traveled a lot, seen a lot, studied a lot and laughed a lot. We have so much to be thankful for!

In 2000, my parents were asked to work as volunteers in a home for missionaries in France. The director of the home offered them a financial construction that would guarantee a 15 percent pay of the investment. This scheme was especially designed for missionaries to build up a pension etc. My parents sold their house and business, invested the money and moved to France. They had been living of the 15 percent for about 5 years, when all of a sudden the payments stopped. It turned out that they had invested all their money in a piramid scheme, together with lots of other missionaries. This scam was set up by former YWAM workers, who have been able to flush away millions of dollars in about 7 years time.

My parents lost all their money. Now they’re living on a minimum budget, both working to save a bit for when they are really old…:). In the mean time, they have set up an organization to get their money, and that of other missionaries back. They are fighting for justice and truth, which turns out to be quite a mission impossible in that part of the missionary world! Nowadays my dad finds it hard to see what worth his life has really had. Not so much because of the financial loss. More because he has lost trust. In other people and even more important, himself.

Something must have happened to his nostrils, or my ability to read it. Because I cannot see the anger and frustration very clearly anymore. But I do know that he is struggling. I just hope and pray that he will be able to look at his children and grandchildren and see what a wonderful job he has done. Raising them, loving them and always showing that there is a big world out there, waiting to enjoy and discover!

Tom Egbers

I have never had an idol or have been an outspoken fan of somebody. I did faint the day I went to a Michael Jackson concert, but that was after falling of the stairs that morning. I ended up being there with my eyes closed and my head between my knees. The noise was just unbearable for a person with a slight concussion!

But I do have a weak spot for a few people. Most of the time not because of their looks, but more because of what they have said or done. One of them is Tom Egbers, a sports commentator in The Netherlands. I once  heard an interview of his wife and she told the story of how they had met. She is also a reporter and they had to go to a sports event together. They took a taxi and talked all the way. Just before they got there Tom asked her if she wanted to marry him! She said yes and they have been happy together ever after. I just loved the romance and spontaneity of it. Every time I saw him on television, I would think about it.

So you can imagine that I was quite excited to talk to him face-to-face in Skopje last September when the Dutch played against Macedonia. Aaron had the honour to walk up with the players on the field and sing the national anthems. I was standing on the side together with all the journalists when Tom came over and we started to talk. Of course, I didn’t tell him how much I liked the way he had proposed to his wife, but we did have a nice, short conversation about Macedonian football talents, his work and the life of an expat wife.

The stadium was being renovated and it was a bit of a spooky building. At a certain point he said that he had to go and needed to hurry, because he still had to pee before the game started and had not found a toilet in the entire complex. I had just finished my bottle of water and said: “In countries like these, you have to be inventive. You can use my water bottle if you want.” He laughed and walked off, saying: “That is so disgusting!”

I saw him on tv again tonight and this time I thought how funny it is to have actually spoken to him in real. I wonder, had we both been single, would he have asked me to marry him after our first encounter? I guess not!

God

When God went on holiday in Bruce Amighty, I’m sure He must have gone to the Dominican Republic. Today I was thinking about the taboo that is quite prevalent in The Netherlands of not talking about your faith. You can say whatever you like to whomever you like, but just never try to convince somebody else about what you believe. I find that even amongst the christians in the church that we’re attending now, people are quite shy or withdrawn when it comes to talking what their faith means to them on a personal basis.

But how different in The Dominican Republic! He’s everywhere, in the language, on billboards, and in conversations. “If the Lord’s willing” in between every line when talking about the future, “May God bless them”, when you walk on the streets with your kids. A hardware store that’s called: “I can do anything through Christ, who gives me strength.” Very encouraging when you are fixing your kitchen, or drilling a hole, I’d say!

We had a nurse who helped us with our twins when they were just born. I once called her to cancel an appointment and got her answering machine. This is what it said: “Jesus is the truth, Jesus is the light, Jesus is the way: Please leave your message in Jesus’ name.” Just not knowing what to say I decided to call her back later…

I know that to some it all may sound quite ridiculous, but I like the openheartedness that comes from it. I felt blessed when people spoke to me in such a way. On one of the hardest days of my life I bought some cookies from a very poor lady in the streets. I simply cried when she smiled at me and said: “Just stay with God, everything will be fine.”

Perhaps I should go back to Santo Domingo and see if I can find God somewhere. Maybe He’s having a chat with somebody on a nice sandy beach, or drinking a (virgin) pina colada on the city square. Because some days, I certainly miss Him here.

Something’s happening at the zoo

Today is supposed to be the last of day of two weeks of great spring weather. So we decided to take the kids to the zoo. I know some people have objections to keeping animals in confinement, but I think they are such wonderful places, this one included. Without having to spend a fortune or risk your life going on safari, exploring the jungle and scuba diving every ocean, you get to taste a bit of the beauty and weirdness of nature and wildlife itself.

This zoo made the news a few years ago because a gorilla, named Bokito, jumped 4 meters over the security canal, ran into the rest area and playground and grabbed a lady. He dragged her through the restaurant and as you can imagine, caused quite a commotion. It turned out that the lady had gone to see the gorilla every day and had sort of created a bond with him. She didn’t meet Bokito’s expectations of how a female should behave (totally understandable, men are so hard to read anyway, let alone the gorilla type!), so he went after her and wounded her pretty seriously. Since then, they’ve broadened the canal and constructed a 10 meter high wall so that there’s no way that this could ever happen again.

We went to see the gorillas and waved at Bokito. There was a mother holding her one-week-old baby and stroking and kissing it and my mother’s heart just melted. In the mean time, she was picking her nose and eating it as well. The behavior must certainly be part of the 99 percent genes that I for sure have in common with her!

The zoo opened 150 years ago and it interesting to see how the landscaping and functionality has developed. From watching the animals behind bars to walking through their habitats. Not just being able to observe them but also being educated about their natural environment. And probably most important, protecting the animals instead of having them taken from their home country.

The good thing is that these positive developments are taking place in developing countries as well. Not to say that you don’t get to see the most pitiful sights. Sad and frustrated lions and jaguars in cages 3 by 4. Monkeys that people can just throw all their trash at and tease. Birds that can’t fly or walk around at all.

But in the zoos in Santo Domingo and Skopje you could sense a growing awareness of the importance of the well being of the animals. By the time we left both places, lots of construction was going on to create natural environments that were spacious and safe. For the animals, but also for the visitors. They still have a long way to go…

Just to show you the difference: The hippo in Skopje, picture taken from less than a meter’s distance,

And the hippo in Blijdorp!

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