Sunday bubbles

I have this friend. Lovely woman, awesome mom, good at what she does for work, huge heart and cute and funny on top of that. One thing about her, is that she does not see this herself. (I think she is beyond awesome, but more on that another time.) Furthermore, every time we are gabbing and I say something I think needs improvement in my relationship, her response is: but he is so great! Such a catch! He is better than others!

I know, babe, he is awesome, that is why I married him. Love him to pieces. That does not mean, that there are never times in which I think I want to kill him with my bare hands or think if I have to repeat this one more time….!!! Everyone's relationship standards might not be the same, some things that would bother you, would not even blip my radar and vice versa. And I will NEVER complain about something with others that I have not complained to the person in question about.

But the point I want to make is, that I think that I am great too, I am also a catch and that I do my utmost to be his safe space, biggest cheerleader and support him the best I can in all his endeavors. There is no doubt in my mind about it. We got into this relationship on equal footing, well matched and enthusiastically so. We made clear agreements:

1. We don’t fight about household chores, either we pull equal weight or we pay for someone to come in. Nothing sucks joy out a of a relationship like fighting about how often to change the sheets.

2. I do not wait for you in a communication vacuum. Having had a father in IT and all my boyfriends as well (I sense a trend), just finishing up! are famous last words and before we know it, it is 3 hours later. No word means I do what was planned: dinner, going out, whatever, without you, unless I hear from you. Hence the special ringtone that signified him calling from the car as he left the lot at the office, so I can start warming up food etc.

The third agreement was the most important: If we feel we are not adding to each other’s lives anymore, we walk away from this. We are awesome together, but honestly we were awesome before each other too. Of course we had good times and bad times! But I see it as this: even at a job, you have yearly reviews. Underline the good things, talk about what can be improved. If a second year does not show improvement, a PIP is put in place. If in year 3 no improvements are seen, we start talking about termination. Why is that same method so strange for the relationship that is the most important in your life? Why is not the same effort put into checking in and recalibrating together to set course? Life passes you by before you know it. You don’t want to look back and think: when was the last time we had some quiet quality time to talk about stuff? Real stuff, not only operational household things. Giggle and recap and plan and no phones and snacks and bubbles and good music and so on...

That is why the Sundays are important for us. In the last months I might have offended people in my rigidity regarding blocking this afternoon off. I don’t care. We are keeping so many things afloat, working odd and long hours all other days of the week. Because of these weekly check ins, nothing gets the chance to snowball or fester or create resentment. No conversation is put off and becomes a WE NEED TO TALK  end of my rope moment. This is Soeks time. DND. We are off bubbling. 

Why I do what I do and why nature should matter to you too

Permaculture has a mantra regarding water: “Slow it, spread it, sink it”. When it rains, catch as much as you can, buffer it as long as you can and allow it to slowly enter the soil. In the last year I have learned so much more about sustainable food production practices, about how new financing techniques, crypto and blockchain work, and during the Kolektivo festival even more of where we see ourselves in a year. I want to talk a little bit more about the why we are doing this. Let me slow the flow of information down a bit, spread it in digestible parts and let the information sink in.

When you ask people about nature, usually their minds go to the lovely beaches, national parks and snorkeling spots we have on the island. Or, like these days, people mention the unpredictability of the weather, the possible hurricane threats, how rainy seasons used to be more defined or how it did not used to be so hot when they were younger. The fact that nature is changing is seen as an inconvenience, as something detached from us as human beings, not something life altering.

Nature is changing, climate change is and will remain a sensitive topic. One reason why it is sensitive, is because so much of what is changing is outside of our control. More extreme temperatures, more extreme weather events, what can we as tiny humans do? Biodiversity is declining, forests are disappearing, sea levels are rising, what is it to me?

What we should realize is that we as humans are a part of nature, of an ecosystem. According to the National Geographic Society:

“An ecosystem is a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscape, work together to form a bubble of life. Ecosystems contain biotic or living, parts, as well as abiotic factors, or nonliving parts. Biotic factors include plants, animals, and other organisms.”

Source: National Geographic Society

That is us right there, under the ‘biotic factors’ umbrella. And what an ecosystem does, it offers us ecosystem services. Like clean air to breathe, fresh water to drink or even salty water to desalinate and drink, plants and animals to eat. Forests and oceans absorb CO2, offer us recreational options and offer medicines.

When our ecosystem degenerates, our way of life will come under pressure. Arable land will become scarce: with rising sea levels, populations will move to available land and with more extreme weather events crops become less certain. Food production is already under pressure: droughts and floods, diseases, political unrest, you can feel it in your pocket in the grocery store. With intensive agriculture, the quality of the soil declines. The crops that are produced have a lower caloric value, are less filling and nutritious.

When you go to a restaurant and get good service, you give a good tip. Why don’t we value the services that nature is giving us in a similar way? Why are we not putting more effort in making sure, that these life sustaining services are still around for generations to come?

Because that is the key. We don’t just want to sustain the life we are living, and hope that the next generation can do the same. We want to improve the way we are living and ensure that the next generations have the tools and handles to solve environmental decay. We are aiming for a regenerative way of live, restoring the system to improve the outcome.

That is why Kolektivo is backing ecological assets. We started with regenerative food systems, will continue with coral reefs and then move on to mangroves. These are crucial parts of our food chain, coastal protection and a source of potential medical and engineering material we can only start to comprehend.

And for that we need to put our money where our mouths are. You know, the ones you like to eat with. Regenerative food systems, as many other changemaking efforts, are struggling with lack of funding, a lot of skepticism and inadequate resources. We are working on the resources and are proving that it can be done, plot by plot.

When we add value to the building blocks of what we need to survive as a species, not only emotional value, and really start investing in it, you will see that the quality will increase. And then it will become more valuable intrinsically. It will start to become interesting to make and protect more of these building blocks. With regenerative food production becoming profitable, our island will become more self-sufficient. Our food more nutritious and accessible. More jobs will be created, more knowledge will spill over to other endeavors in the vicinity.

Because we don’t just want to survive, we want to thrive. We only have one Earth. Let us be the generation that uses new ideas and technology to tackle this inherited issue and tip the scales towards a regenerative future. Let us slow down the downward spiral, spread the knowledge and let good practices sink in and be our standard way of living.

 

Escape (The piña colada song) - Rupert Holmes

I have a very, very eclectic taste in music.* And a good music pitch memory. When I start singing in my head, it almost always is in the pitch of the original song. I test that often, by looking up a song that has been playing inside my head, to check if I am ‘right’. Escape is one of my go to in-head songs for as long as I can remember. When I am waiting on something and I need to kill time, I always sing this song and count it as 4 minutes. Just minding my own business, (getting caught in the rain), killing time (and the taste of champagne), enjoying the wait (in the duuuunes of a cape)…

*a few days ago, the first time going out in a looooooong time, with some Dutch rap beats playing and me loosening up my hips, a dear friend here on vacation for the first time, a bit both over and underwhelmed by the Wet & Wild spectacle in front of us said: What I think is funny is, when I got to your guestroom, there was a box there with lp’s, and in front was the Dark side of the moon…. (with Poke in the background: je bent niet van hier, he...) Yup, that is my musical upbringing in a  nutshell.

At this same place, Wet & Wild, in 2007, I met this guy. Tall and skinny, smart and funny, just the way I like ‘em. Timing wise not the best moment, but such is life. He was my neighbour and took me out for a drink and I thought why the hell not. Not too long after, we kissed for the first time and the rest is history.

October 2007

He had been single for a bit, I had been unhappy for a bit, so to find each other and be happy should have been a good thing, one would think. And many thought so. We complimented each other, had fun together and were on the same page about most things. We made 3 agreements when we started dating officially: 1. I would never wait with food, you either communicate or you eat alone (too many IT folk in my life, 'just running this last backup' are famous last words) 2. We will not fight about chores, we both work hard, we either pull our weight of pay for someone to do it. 3. If the relationship does not enrich our lives, we move on, no hard feelings. We’d rather end as friends, than start hating and resenting each other.

And that is the way we approached most things, with rationality and common sense and to be honest, kindness. I asked for a prenup, as I had student debt and he didn’t. People might think that is calculating, and it absolutely is. I did not want my debt to become his burden. And knowing we both wanted to own our companies one day, it was a good way to secure assets.

We wanted more for ourselves, so uprooted our pretty awesome life to take a leap to the other side of the pond, to challenge ourselves. We worked hard, those first few years…We slept on the ground in our first home. We were happy with our 3 cats and our mini electric oven while building on our future. Making new friends, new memories, gaining new knowledge. We had some low lows, and struggled with finance and energy. But slowly we started reaping rewards. Getting comfy in our home, reaching goals.

Around 10 years in, I remember the moment vividly, I was standing in our garden, looking down from a stage, on this world we had build and felt strongly, that this was not enriching my life. All the good times in the last year, were mostly superficial, lonely even. We had lost the touch, the fun, the goals we had together. And I made it known.

Nothing changed.

And then everything changed. 

The moment that we had decided that we would put agreement number 3 in place, the universe intervened. Polly wanted a cracker and was the one thing that held us physically together until that was taken care of. We took care of Polly and then took care of ourselves. Each in their own way, in their own chosen place in the world. That was the best thing we could have done for ourselves. Even now I think, even if we would not have found the way back to each other, this healing time was needed no matter what. It made us stronger individually and it made us almost indestructible together.

But we did. We found our way around the world together. He found his place in the world and we made 3 new agreements. 1. I wanted to be able to have a kick-ass job, even if it wasn’t in that place. We would make it work. 2. A house where we could receive guests at any given moment. 3. I wanted to be able to leave the island at least once a month, even if it was to go deep see fishing. But at least every 4 months, I wanted to go to my place to hug my people.

And with the way our lives together have been, there is no way to tell where we will be in a year. Because we have never been afraid to go after what we want, even if people get their panties in bunch. Because we don’t just colour outside the lines, we colour even when there are no lines. Because you can take the girl out of her coloured environment, but you can and never will take the colour out of her. I am just lucky to have found a person who has been sublimely colourblind and colour loving at the same time.

As you can see, in our decisions and movements, we considered our own wants and needs. We did not need to deliberate with others outside of this marriage. We are grown ass people, with a grown ass relationship and will carry any grown ass consequences of our actions. Because that is how we have always done it. And that is how we will continue doing it. Soeks for life.

 

 

 

 

Nada pa niun hende - Gentz

Pfff, again, where to start…

As I am typing this, I am sitting at the bar of the Surinamese takeout place in the inner court of the bed and breakfast place I am staying at on Bonaire. I am here to represent Stichting Uniek Curacao and my own Yu di Tera’s project Hòfinan di Ser’i Otrobanda at a Mangrove Maniacs Mangrove restoration workshop. An unexpected trip and would not have wanted to miss it for the world. That things don’t go as planned has been affirmed about most everything about this trip. I am in BON, that is about the only thing that is certain. And I had a wonderful experience!

I lived on this island in a very interesting time of my life. My mom had just been diagnosed with a chronic illness and I wanted to be closer. My almost 4 year relationship had just ended quite badly, I was out for the winter with my airline and I was a bit searching about the next step. And then the ad looking for experienced Antillean flight attendants came by. Bonaire was close enough to home, or so I thought, so why not! I can say with certainty I did not appreciate this island when I was living here, I was always busy to get the next flight out after my shift to go to CUR. 

 

But being here 15+ years later, and driving around in another little blue car, I realize how much of this island got under my skin. I thought I had exaggerated the clear water in Playa, but nope, it is exactly as clear as I remember. My old running routes are still there, the supermarkets have gotten a bit better, but it is still a 4 supermarkets trip if you need something specific. The roads are still wheel eating (2 flat tires within an hour yesterday), but at least now there is Road Services. The mural at Trans World Radio is prettier now. The stars are still as impressive as before around the bend after WEB. And the soundtrack is still in my head. Funny thing is, even before I knew this trip was going to happen, I was at my parents, as they were clearing out for a bazar and came across a whole collection of cd’s that apparently survived all earlier clear outs in the last 15 years. Among those was the BonairExel soundtrack cd, that my then boyfriend made for our PJ-XLL and PJ-XLM ATR’s intricate music system that you could not skip through. So you always heard the first song at least 12 times every shift.

Besides that forced musical connection, Bonaire has a engraved track playing in my head. With different songs for different roads. My first Maroon 5 songs I heard here (Harder to breathe). Bigger than my body by John Mayer was playing a lot before we got our certification to fly and were grounded for a few months. Dove by Moony and Milky with Just the way you are came on every hour. And Playa will always have Santana playing, only to be disturbed by a little bit of Rumba band when walking across Karels. I fell in love here, the hardest and unhealthiest I ever did and it is good to be here now and be able to just think happy thoughts and have good memories.

Between me being here now and the last time is at least 10 years, if not more. And in those years many, many things have changed. I fell back in love with my healthy self and had to let go of that Bonaire love story and in doing that met my husband. I left the area and went back to school. I have owned my own companies.

I have set new goals and let some dreams go. I have travelled the world. I have lost friends and made new ones.

I came back to the area and am now deepening my knowledge and continuing my education both in and out of school. I have an equal relationship I am proud of, that fits both our busy, sporty, entrepreneurial lives and personalities. To start with we had the same ideas about the big stuff in life and could talk about everything else. In the years I have known this man, I have seen him develop and grow, all the while caring and providing for our household and furry roommates. I have had someone tell me not too long ago, that my husband is a lucky man. My answer: I am the lucky one. He is my better half. He out-kinds me, out-patience-s me and out-hugs me for sure. From my side I aim to take better care of him than he does himself, push him outside his comfort-zone, broaden his horizons and will be there for him unconditionally. We make each other better people, and together we are a force to be reckoned with. Not all agree, but that is another story for another time. But in the tradition of vague-posting, the title of this blog says enough. (ABO TA DIMI!)

The seed for this blog was planted a few weeks back while I was hugging my peeps in the Netherlands in September. That is always a complex time. I am home, but still not home and it takes a lot of emotional stretching to get in that plane back to the deep south. Because I know that the hangover will kick in. And the countdown has to restart to repeat the same process in a few months.

But I digress. I was talking about the good things. The time in Holland was particularly emotional, I don’t know why. Maybe some pandemic exhaustion? I only felt like being home and nesting with my Kweks. And nesting we did. The Hornbach had a good time with my hard-earned florins. But I converted the household to a inside plant household and planted bulbs for the new year.

When I think back, we did a lot. We painted, hung pictures, and built closets. We talked and drank wine. And watched a lot of eye roll inducing series while making jig saw puzzles. But my fondest memory is jumping in the car in our sweats, to rush to the IKEA to buy stuff to finish project makeover before the kids got back home. Speeding down the highway with load Antillean music, singing along at the top of our lungs. Uncombed hair, don’t care.

While I was away, we had our 14^th anniversary, of which 12 married. So we hugged across the ocean with bubbles and balloons and made up for it after.

As I am continuing this blog, it is now a few hours and a flight back home later. I am sitting on the couch, already with some cat hair on me, with sore cheek edges from smiling so hard the last few days. Bonaire was awesome. Professionally and emotionally speaking. I met lovely and incredibly smart and dedicated people and laid foundations for beautiful things to come. I was at peace with not being part of Carmabi (another love story with an ending) and was proud to be there as Yu di Tera. Growth shows itself in many different ways, and sometimes you just need to take a step, or flight back to see it.

 

 

 

Ta mi hendenan – Jeon x Rincon Boysz

And here I am, sitting alone on the couch, in my Hende di Kòrsou shirt, watching the Flag ceremony https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Cura%C3%A7ao on my phone, bawling my eyes out as I sing along….

I always get very emotional on this day, the 2^nd of July. It is the day we celebrate our flag. My mom was always (and still is!) very big on flag day celebrations, I have very vivid memories of waking early and finding our way to the city, decked out in yellow and blue and find a spot to see it all. All the parades of the scouting and police and marching bands, culminating in raising of the huge flag and singing the anthem, ending with Biba Kòrsou! BIBA!

Maybe that is why it hit me extra hard this last week, when someone made an unkind at best, very disparaging at worst, most probably offhand comment about national pride. Sizing up the situation, there was nothing to gain by engaging. So I didn’t. They have their own demons to conquer about this island. As I still do. I don't always want to be here. So happy to have been able to fly out for a bit last month! But that does not change how I feel about my island. 

But I am engaging now, in this manner.

I love to tell my story and I get to tell it often. My curriculum vitae starts with saying that I was born and raised in that part of the Dutch Kingdom where the sun always shines. Being born here gives me privileges that others fight for, risk their lives for and some even die in pursuit of. I was once asked by a ‘friend’ once, if I was marrying my husband of now 12 years so quickly, because I needed a Dutch passport. After blinking away my confusion, I replied: well, what would I do with two of those?

With the typical Curaçoan melting pot genetical jackpot, I have hair that is sometimes frizzed, sometimes straight, sometimes curly and malleable in all styles. My skin is the colour I allow it to tan, with a range from pasty to toasty, with some pink around the edges. I can speak several languages fluently. Growing up on a island where others pay to vacation has advantages in itself, but also allows you to see outside the boundaries of the island with all the nationalities flying in. With family, friends and educational opportunities outside of the island, you grow up knowing there is more to the world than what you see on these 440 plus square kilometres. So I went and explored the world. As much of it as I could. There is still a lot to see, but I have been places. And everywhere I told about this tiny speck on the map I am from. And compared what I saw with what I knew. And the bottom line is, this island is an incredibly special place.

Besides the physical. I mean the beaches and rugged nature is what people come here for. But besides that, I have always found this island a fertile place for achieving great things. Because of limited resources and limited candidates, I have been able to carve a nice path in challenging jobs at interesting companies from a young age, even without a higher degree. Maybe it has to do with more that just growing up here, but I am surrounded with people just like me, so I honestly don’t know better than going for what you want and making and building things from scratch.

As I was singing along with the phone monitor, while hearing the actual singing echoing off the ramp of the Julianabrug here in Otrobanda, I felt all the feels. The words really matter to me. You can find the translation here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himno_di_K%C3%B2rsou

Nos pueblo tin su lucha, ma semper nos tin fe
di logra den tur tempu viktoria ku trabou!

Ban duna di nos parti p'e isla prosperá.
Laga nos uni forsa p'asina triumfá.

 

We as a people always pull through, no matter who is in charge or what colour is in power. I try to stay away from politics. As the inhabitants we have to work at it and hustle, to make this island a place we want to live. All of us, from the ones that are here for generations to the ones who arrived by dinghy last week in search for a better future. We are what makes up this island. We can complain about bureaucracy and red tape, people that don’t keep their word, but what are you doing to make it better. What are you contributing to the betterment of your street, neighbourhood, island? I was impressed when I came back 2 years ago with all the initiatives of my generation and younger people that are building up this island. Even in the crisis. You can see how people are thinking outside the box to create solutions for problems that should not exist. I named my company Yu di Tera, which literally means Child of the Earth, but as a saying means locally born and raised. 

 And yeah, the prose is full of pomp and circumstance, it is a national anthem. But it is my national anthem, and my flag. This is my island and my people. And I am proud to be a Yu di Kòrsou.

Biba Kòrsou! BIBAAAAA!