My father can tell stories like no other. As children, my sister Tineke and I hung on his lips when he told “Anans' Tori”. I can still see us sitting on his lap. We listened breathlessly to those stories of Ba Tigri and Ba Nansi until it was really time to go to bed
Even now I can listen to him talk for hours about his youth, his time in the Netherlands, how he seduced my mother (ai boi), his time in the Netherlands, or his time at the SML, Stichting Machinale Landbouw. Jeff, my brother and I have often had a good laugh about those anecdotes of my father and his mates.
He has always been crazy about football and still is. He can proudly tell how he beat the champion of Bronsplein 2-1 with Jong Atlas in front of a jubilantly packed square, that he scored the very first goal in the new Moengo stadium and that Real Sranan was founded on his initiative on 1 June 1960, at his home at Stadshouderskade 28, in Amsterdam.
There is a common thread running through all these funny stories: hard work, discipline and lots of love.
As the youngest of 13 he certainly did not have it bad, but for me it is still hard to imagine that my father grew up in a house in Paramaribo city without a toilet or bathroom. When my father was growing up you had to bathe with a bucket of water and the toilet was also outside in the yard.
What we as children took for granted was not at all self-evident to him. Even when he told me about his time in Holland with bathhouses and no heating, I looked at him like, how did you survive that?
What I admire so much is that I never, really never heard him complain. When I went to the Netherlands to study, he paid for my entire study, despite the fact that times were tough in Suriname. The Surinamese guilder had already been decoupled from the American dollar, but the devaluation had really started then.
When I saw the question on Facebook: “What is the biggest lesson you learned from your father?” I had to think for a moment because yes, what didn't I learn from him.
What I know for sure is that I still prosper because of the discipline that was taught to me and the love that was given to me by him and my mother: Hertha .
My father who turned 80 last year is still a source of inspiration. He has now started to put his life on paper. You can get an idea by the slide show video I made for his bigi jari, but I would like to let him tell his own story. From this week on you can read his life story entitled “Mi Libi.” Here is the link to part 1: Mi libi – the yard and our house
For now I wish my father and all fathers around the world a happy, loving and joyful Father's Day.
