Following a Facebook column by writer Chris Polanen about homesickness, I spontaneously penned this. It received so many positive reactions that I decided to post it on my own site.
At the very beginning, when I came to the Netherlands, I planned to return to Suriname as soon as my studies were completed. Somewhere, along the way, things turned out differently than planned.
Graduation day with Janine, my bestie from that time.
Studying in the Netherlands was undoubtedly great. More than bits and bytes and the Fibonacci sequence that gave me headaches, but were a mandatory part of my Computer Science studies at the UVA, I got to know people. That's how I learned more about Surinamese, Dutch, and even European culture.
I didn't just go to Caribbean, the Surinamese disco, but also to Escape and Dansen bij Jansen. Besides fantastic musicals like Sarafina, Miss Saigon, and Cats, I also visited the Stopera where I saw an Opera for the first time, and the Balie where I saw perhaps the best play ever by the then DNA, 'De Schutting'. Glenn Duurvoort's fantastic role in August Wilson's play, which has now been adapted into the film Fences, was both a revelation and an enrichment.
By working at the Ako and as a cleaner at a bank, I was able to save and travel to Spain, France, Greece, Belgium, and Portugal.
Portugal.
To really make the most of my student days, I did an internship in Portugal. There, I eventually lived with two very nice German guys, Thilo and Florian, at Calcadinha de Figuera in the center of Lisbon, because as a black girl, it wasn't easy for me to find a room.
If it wasn't clear yet, I enjoyed my student days and my time in the Netherlands immensely, but actually staying there was never my goal.
After my studies were completed and I had been rejected a few times for jobs in Suriname and Curaçao, the decision was made to stay in the Netherlands for the time being.
When the opportunity arose to come to the US, I seized it with both hands. I had been to New York before and immediately found it a fantastic city, but I never could have foreseen that Brooklyn would become my home away from home.
Is it perfect here? No, but I really feel at home here. Of course, I miss friends and family in Suriname and the Netherlands. Sometimes, to be honest, I even feel uprooted. I don't know if I could still settle in the Netherlands, but Suriname remains my home.
The smell, the wind, the trees, the people. I always want to kiss the ground when I get off the plane. There are certainly things that bother me, the abuses, the injustice, so many social issues, but these also exist to varying degrees both here in the US and in the Netherlands. Nowhere will ever be perfect.
Sometimes I wonder how it would have turned out if I had gone back and if I could have done more than the "No bread, no school action." A grim period that both traumatized and shaped me. Who knows, who can say.
For now, I have no regrets. I'm doing my thing. Also, and perhaps especially abroad, it's not always easy, but with all the ups and downs, I still feel that I'm growing and can grow.
From a world of "You have to make do with what you have" to "Impossible doesn't exist," still makes me a broeia, but I am both and I'm still really doing my own thing. And that is priceless. Soso Lobi. ❤️❤️❤️