Living with my sister, Tineke, who was a year older than me, was an adventure. An adventure in the broadest sense of the word. One thing was certain, you were never bored with her. To give you a bit of an idea, I would like to share one of our evening hours from our early childhood.
Tineke and I on the beach in Puerto Rico
When we were about 10 years old we all went on holiday to Venezuela, mum, dad, my brother Jeff, my sister Tineke and I. We stayed in a hotel on the first floor. Specially requested because my mother did not like lifts and walking up a flight of stairs was certainly doable.
One of our exciting daily trips was getting ice cold water downstairs in the lobby. My father had taught Tineke and I to ask: 'Agua frio por favor.' Cold water please. That way the ladies also learned Spanish during the holidays. What more could you want.
There we went, supposedly two big ladies, out of the room, down the stairs on our way to the lobby. So proud and tough with one of those shiny steel ice water jugs in her hand, Tineke did a perfect job. Proud that we were!
But you understand, that your mother does not like hitchhiking does not mean for children that you do not like hitchhiking. I do not know if Suriname already had hitchhiking at that time, but we district children, from the village of Wageningen, found them really, REALLY exciting and actually did not let an opportunity pass by to get into a hitchhiker. You understand that despite the fact that we were staying on the first floor, the temptation to take the hitchhiker was still great. Taking the hitchhiker was just fun.
On the way back Tineke said, let's take the elevator. I, always a bit of a worldly person, said hmmm yes maybe not. Mom and dad said...
But you know as the youngest there are brothers and sisters who teach you that you don't necessarily have to listen to mommy and daddy. Oh girl come on, just come on, it's fun, just quickly. "Mommy and daddy aren't even going to know", you know that one?
Ok, sister persuaded, so we get into the elevator and press 1 for the 1st floor. That's where the journey is after all. At the moment the elevator starts moving Tineke says: look, that man pressed this button, let's do that too!
I looked back with my worldly look, no man, but before I could finish the elevator suddenly stopped. Whoa! Whoa! Panic in the elevator. What was suddenly going on here?
Now we suddenly remembered that my mother was afraid of elevators because of the idea of ever getting stuck in one. So there we were, stuck in the elevator! Two little Dutch-speaking Surinamese, in a Venezuelan elevator and with a vocabulary of “Agua Frio por favor.”
Tineke started screaming and crying: We're stuck, we're never going to see mommy and daddy again! At first I wanted to cry along, but somehow I started to fall back to earth a little, because this seemed serious. And in my perception it didn't make sense at all. What do you mean, never see mommy and daddy again? I didn't really understand what was going on. What do you do as a nine-year-old girl, stuck in an elevator with your 10-year-old sister? Since my Spanish wasn't up to par yet I started shouting Help! Help! just in Dutch.
Although the world seemed to stand still for a century, I believe we had not been stuck for a minute when the elevator suddenly started going up again. Well, you understand, when we finally reached the first floor after so much commotion, we ran super hyper into our hotel room. Ready to tell our adventure! There we were immediately faced with a new surprise. We remained almost stiff as a stick in the doorway.
What we came to find in our normally so cozy hotel room was a crying mother, a father who was completely soaking wet, wearing long pants and a little brother who looked back and forth from us to mom and dad. What had happened now?
Somehow Jeff our brother knew that we had gone into the elevator. He had heard us calling. So he ran upstairs with the message, 'mommy daddy, Tineke and Mireille are stuck in the elevator!'
My mother interpreted that as those children being dead. My father who was in the shower came out and just on autopilot put on long pants to go and save what could be saved.
I can still see the whole scene. Years later we are still laughing about this story. This story illustrates my sister, Tineke.
Sweet, cute, so endearing that she could easily take you on an adventure. An adventure that initially sounds quite plausible, suddenly became unpredictable and exciting with here and there the necessary and unnecessary drama, a tear and a laugh. But in the end she almost always left you with a souvenir that you could still laugh about years later.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has shown their support. Know that the family is grateful for your contribution, in whatever form, during her illness, before and after.
On behalf of the family, my special thanks go to Heidy, aunt Irene, Chequita, Judith, Judith and Patty.
Also read: Tineke Liong, my sister, is no longer with us .
