Dad and brother are bussy helping the refrigerator-repairer when I’m ready for departure. He had malversated our refrigerator that we had given him in December to repair, and brought another dirty refrigerator, so mom had to clean it entirely, and after a few days he took the clean refrigerator, and brought another dirty refrigerator...again work for mom. The refrigerator works for a day or two, and then we have to call the refrigerator-repairer constantly, because he doesn’t show up when he says that he’ll be coming. Very annoying without a refrigerator for about 5 months. My parents could have rather bought a new refrigerator, SRD500 (Surinamese dollars) payed, but still no working refrigerator. Dad thought that he has more knowledge about refrigerators compared to a young man he had approached at first, because this old man of 65 has practised this trade for years. But the opposite was proved. Meanwhile my parents have bought a new freezer, but you can’t cool fresh fruit and vegetables in it, it won’t be good anymore for use if it’s frozen in. I’m going in moms room and mom is bussy making up. So I go to sit in the living room on the sofa and listen to their conversation, they are bussy talking about drills. Mom comes out of her room, and she’s furious at the refrigerator-repairer, because she has to put vegetables outside on the balcony at night so it stays fresh by the morning dew. Mom asks if she can’t get her money back, so she can buy a new one with some extra payment, because it’s very difficult without a refrigerator. “Then I’ll be in loss, because I have filled gas three times now,” he says. “But you had to fix the refrigerator before.” If he’s gone, mom is still angry, “He has given guarantee, so he has no choice but to make the refrigerator.”
I’m eating a banana, and then I’m going upstairs to write in my diary what I have already done for the day, because Aman has to change. But after a few minutes mom starts to call me, so I go downstairs.
I could have written further, she called me for no reason. Okay no problem, I’ll watch a little bit of whatever’s on television, as Aman gets ready. Brother is going to eat, and mom asks if I had my dinner already. “I’m not hungry,” I say, for that matters, I don’t eat tin packed baked beans, because I’ve heard that it’s not vegetarian. If it’s really so, I don’t know, if I don’t know what’s in it, I don’t eat it. Angie then says, “She doesn’t eat baked beans.”Watching BET awards, and dad also watches along Beyoncé’s singing, then it’s Queen Latifah turn, and I’m enjoying. Mom interrupts me again, “Aren’t you going?” It seems that dad is also going, so we wait for him in the car as he changes. It’s 12 o’clock when we take-off.
A lot of green to be seen, it gives me a relaxed feeling. Suriname is actually the most dense overgrown coutry in the world. We are going to an acquaintance of dad to pick paan leaves for the katha (ritual service according to Hinduism) at brother-in-law Sanjay’s home, who’s celebrating his 50th birthday.
There’s a tent standing and it’s beautifully decorated with balloons, in the middle there’s a bunch of balloons with 50 on them. The roof end of his house is beautifully decorated with Christmas-lights. Congratulate cousin Maya and brother-in-law Sanjay and greet everyone over there, a lot of people that are helping. Ask brother-in-law’s daughter Somya if I can leave my bag on the lounge suit, and she puts it in her room where no one can get in, even if there’s nothing valuable in it, only my mobiles.
I’m going to brother-in-law Chinu who’s bussy chopping pumpking, and I help him. Then up to the balcony with the children, and I ask them their names. They are my nephews that I’m meeting for the first time. They have let a lot of unblown balloons fall on the floor, and I clean it up. Then another cousin Anita and brother-in-law Jay come, whom I haven’t seen in 18 years, but I regocnize them instantly. They have two children, a daughter Puja of 13 and a son Dinesh of 19. Dinesh was a baby when I saw him the last time and I haven’t known Puja. Anita says to brother-in-law Jay that I was the bridesmaid on their wedding. Very exciting that I have met them, I really wanted to see the children of my cousin. I’m going to help brother-in-law Chinu afterwards with slicing cucumber, so it can be put on vinegar later on. Suddenly there comes a big black dog and I’m stiffed. Somya says that he doesn’t bite, and I feel relieved. Cousin Manav comes to the table to pick up vegetables to wash them. Hadn’t seen Manav in years and I say, “Now I’m noticing that it’s you.” I thought at first that he was some acquaintance of brother-in-law Sanjay.
I’m sitting on the balcony, and it starts to rain cats and dogs. Brother-in-law Chinu pushes with a big wooden spoon on the plastic tent that has swollen below, because of the fact that the water stayed there, and he lets it fall down. Manav puts the vegetables that’s already prepared inside and says, “This rain!”, and I say, “Big blessing!” Cousin Maya comes on the balcony and says, “The rain is pissing fire today.” Half of the garden is filled with water and it appears that the sewerage is clogged with sand, so brother-in-law Sanjay cleans it, and all the water streams away.
The rain has stopped, and I and my nieces are tying Palulu flowers with curling ribbon on all the metal postpipes of the tent. Ask Somya if there’s anything else to do, “I don’t think so.”
Some time later, Maya calls me to bake bara’s. So I think by myself, “God, I have something to do, doing nothing is boring.” I’m fetching away bara’s out of the hot oil, and yes now my stomach is starting to grunt. But the women are talking loud, so that grunt was luckily not to be heard. Sometimes my stomach just grunts, probably because I drink too much of water at once. My cousin Sudesh who mostly stays with us on the Sundays and who’s rounding off his medical study heard it once and said, “You’re hungry.” “Nope, it grunts sometimes just like that,” and he started laughing, so nothing wrong with that grunt and with my health. Next to the pan they’re bussy baking roti’s. Mom with some old ladies are bussy rolling out roti’s. When they’re done, one of the old ladies ask me to bring her bag, and I see two bags, but none of them of hers, then I see her bag on the other side of the table, and take it along to her, to and fro walking. I’m going to sit in front, and the old lady of the bag is sitting there, so I sit next to her. The old lady sees the black dog, and she’s also afraid. The other women that were helping also come in front, and they’re yelling, “Your dog got loose!” “He doesn’t bit,” I say, but they’re then calm when brother-in-law says that he doesn’t bite. I take some ice that lies in an ice-box behind me, and I fill some water in it to drink.
My cousin Anita looks at me and beckons at me to sit next to her, so we begin talking about my study and the study of the children. Her daughter is very generous and we get on together very well. I’m coddled by Puja. Puja says that she had recognized me instantly from her parents weddingpictures. I find it funny, because I have met Puja today for the first time. Some time later, I’m sitting next to Dinesh, and it appears that we get on together very well also. Brother-in-law Chinu begins talking about vegetarianism, and I also talk along and mention that I’m a vegetarian. “ For how long now?,” he asks “Since I was 11 years young, that’s more then 16 years.” And they all look surprised at me. “Egg is vegetarian,” says brother-in-law. “Don’t eat eggs either, I do drink milk.” Brother-in –law asks again with what I’m substituting meat and fish. “Tahu, soy morcels and such things,” I say then. Puja looks at me and says, “Mom you see, she doesn’t eat meat, but she’s still healthy,” and Anita says next, “But you can’t live without meat.” We nicely chat further and make some jokes. Puja is playing with my magnet band that dad also had brought from China, and that I have on as a bangle today, and she’s making silly models with it, sirbandi on my head, rings, necklaces, she likes playing with it, and I’m talking with Dinesh meanwhile. He tells me that he also recognized me instantly from his parents wedding pictures, and I say to Puja that Dinesh was a baby when I saw him the last time, and I had played with him on my lap. I ask if they have the bridesmaid pictures of me at home where I had a suit on that looked like a sari. I still remember those pictures, I looked like a small Indian bride. Maybe I can copy or scan the pictures when we meet again some other day. It appears that Dinesh sleeps a lot, so I give him a tip how he can get up early.
You can train yourself in getting up early. Put your alarm over 5 minutes and lay down on your bed as if you’re really sleeping. If you are sleeping with the lights off, curtains, windows and doors closed, put the lights off and close everything. Eyes closed and relax. If the alarm goes off u should get up instantly, stretch yourself out, and no thinking of lying a little bit or something like that, and do what you normally would do after waking up. Maybe if you drink your thee, walk to the kitchen and come back in your bedroom. Start the day with something positive, and with something you like doing, maybe your hobby or something like that. This will encourage you in wanting to wake up early, and to enjoy the new day. Repeat this 3-5 times. Tomorrow morning you’re awake when the alarm goes off. I got this tip from Steve Pavlina’s blog, www.stevepavlina.com.
In the past I had a big problem in getting up early, and had tried out a lot. I thought that you had to have the gift of waking up early or maybe that I had some illness. This technique has helped me to get up 5 o’clock or earlier within half an hour for months, every day, and even in the weekends. In the beginning I felt somewhat sleepy, but I started liking it, waking up at first at home, and started feeling more energized. After a month I repeated the technique another time, so I would be sure that I would stay in my routine. I’m out of my routine now since I had joined workshops of aerobics and dance. They were heavy for me, four days in a week intensive physical training was something I hadn’t done before in my life. So I started waking up late, and if the alarm goes off I’m thinking of lying a little longer. I think that I have to repeat this technique a few times after one another. I wake up the next day after I’ve tried the technique, but after that it goes wrong. I know for sure that I’ll get back in my energetic routine.
I’m a fan of Steve Pavlina, except for when it comes to his polyamory articles. He doesn’t see anything wrong in having intimate sexual relationships with more partners at the same time if your husband/wife approves with it. A normal thinking woman doesn’t sent his man to some other woman to have an intimate relationship, his wife does that, actually she encouraged him in doing so. There must be a screw loose when I’ll do something like that. But good, everyone thinks differently, in my eyes it’s wrong. You can’t say that something is good or bad fors ure, that’s something you consider it to be. For example, you believe that there’s a God, but you can’t proof that for sure, it’s what you belief in.
You don’t ask God for too much—you ask for too little. Recognize that your world is your own creation.—Marianne Williamson (http://www.oprah.com/)
After I had read a polyamory article, I stopped reading more of his polyamory articles, because everything you see, hear, feel or smell has influence on you.
Steve said in his articles that he felt that he would betray his wife, well if he feels that it’s wrong, his intuition gives a signal that it shouldn’t be like that. Except for his polyamory articles, I find his other articles very inspiring. That negative thoughts come inside you is normal, but I’m against making those negative thoughts reality.
Apart from the fact that flowers color and brighten up your day, they also cleanse the negativity of your thoughts. If you give a flower to someone it brings a happy feeling to you as well to the receiver. You notice that flowers normally have a positive influence on you, only we don’t stand still what they bring about in us. If negative thoughts come in my mind, I think of a pool of roses in which I am, and my favorite flowers take the negativity of my thoughts away of that moment. Try thinking about your favorite flowers or conciously look at a bunch of flowers if negative thoughts come up in your mind. Take the beauty of the flower(s) in yourself. You can also go in your flower garden or to a fascinating flower-park to calm your overpowered negative thoughts.
Give my mobile number to Dinesh, and ask him to give me a missed call, so I’ll have his number. My bag is inside, so I can’t see if I got the missed call. Meanwhile the pandit (holy person that performs rituals according to Hinduism) is bussy with the katha. Angie and Ravi who had been picked up from home are also present now. The bamboo staffs with flags are put in the ground. We have to stand up after some time, and sing along and pray, we get a yellow dot on our forehead, for the gentlemen it’s a yellow line between the eyebrows, and it’s time for aarti, donate money in a tharia (copper/metal plate) with a burning diya in it, and some respect for the fire in the diya.
We get some panchamirit (milk that’s first offered to God) to drink and delicious prasad (sweets that’s first offered to God) to eat, and than can choose from lemonade/cola/juice to drink.
Puja en Dinesh together with their parents are going home, and they say that they’ll be back later on. I’m saying to Puja that I’m very happy that I got a chance to meet her. “We have to go to two other party’s, so I’ll probably be gone when you’re back.”
We can now serve our food ourselves; there’s aubergine with potatoe, garter with potatoe, pumpkin, daal, karhi, two different chutney’s, rice and roti. Take a little bit of everything, and walk to the table to sit with my brother and cousin Chandra and her husband, that just arrived. Delicious food! Then we get ghugri, lapiz, bojo, and gulab jamun served. There’s also kroket, samosa, and bara, but I have to help with serving, so didn’t taste them. But good, had too much. There’s singing and dancing and smearing with birtday-cake on the one whose birthday it is, and we also get a piece of the birthday-cake.
We’re in point of leaving, and I’m going quickly to the bathroom. My cousin Maya is standing in front of the back door, so I politely ask her if the bathroom is at the entrance, even if I know that it’s there. She says, “You should rather go to the hired bathroom, this one is a little bit...” I get it that she rather doesn’t have people outside her house in her bathroom. I’ve never been in a hired bathroom before, and I have heard weird stories about it, the women also were talking about it when I was bussy baking bara’s. Duh, I can wait a little bit, I’m home soon. Maya asks to help with serving, but I say that we’re leaving. Mom asks if I’ve already been to the bathroom, and I whisper, because brother-in-law is sitting opposite to me, “Leave it, we’re home soon, she said that the bathroom is a little bit...” “You shouldn’t have asked her,” says Angie, who just had been to the bathroom. But I didn’t find it polite to go inside, because she was standing in front of the door of her house. Cousin Manav talks somewhat with us before we leave.
Dad starts talking in the car about Rani, because she chose to go with her friends instead of my brother-in-law’s birthday party. “Those Creole and Javanese friend of her! Alway for their own benefit.”
Why do religions degenerate? Rainwater is pure, but when it has streamed over the roofs, and has flown through the lanes, it looses it’s pure clearness.—Ramakrishna
“We had searched for a boy for her, but these two (me and Angie) had comments about him, long nose, long teeth.” Uhm, we didn’t say that at all, but we let dad talk his rubbish, so he’ll soon stops with it.
Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is an adequate perception of the world—Hans Morgolius
Well, Rani showed us his picture and she looked at us as if she wanted to say, “Duh, which nerd has dad chosen for me?” We both began laughing of the look she gave us, and our parents gave us the blame that we had comments about him, as we didn’t say anything at all. Mom said, “He looks like Shah Rukh Khan (popular Indian actor),” and we started laughing more. He looked sweet, but not like someone who would make a good match with our sister, complete opposites. Rani kept quiet, and let them say what they wanted just to avoid their unnecessary confrontation. They can be very annoying sometimes.
This is something that had taken place some time ago, and Angie says, “Why are you bringing something that happened long ago on the surface? What has happened, has happened.” And dad saying, “You’re not looking at your benefits. If Rani got married in Holland, she would have more possibilities. You could have continued with your study there.” Now I’m angry, “If I want to complete my study, I can save up myself, don’t need others for it.”
Having reached home, I’m taking a nap for half an hour. Read John Assaraf’s best-selling author’s (The Secret) core beliefs, about which I had read about in one of Steve Pavlina’s articles about an interview with John and had written it down.
God guides me
I am very intelligent and I use my mind daily to grow and accomplish
I am very focused, balanced and disciplined
I have the ability and do motivate, educate and inspire others
I am a very loving and caring person
I am very generous
I have the extraordinary ability to accomplish everything I want
My life is a masterpiece
We are shaped bye ach other. We adjust not the reality of the world, but the reality of other thinkers—Joseph Chilton Pearce
Can party undiminished further now. Angie calls me, and me saying, “I’m coming!” Quickly search my jewelry that I’ll be wearing, a white with silver earring and necklace set; can’t find my silver coloured bracelet, I should wear my silver coloured bangles then, and my silver ring. I’ve also found a bindya (sticker for between the eyebrows) that matches, but I’ll rather not combine bindya and western clothing. A quick shower with my “Always” showergel. My foundation, powder over it, blue eyeliner, my redred lipgloss, my brown-black coloured mascara, and a little bit of red blush. Ready within half an hour. We’ll first go to neighbours birthday, dad and son are celebrating their 50th and 20th birthday. Eat a bara and drink some lemonade. I’m seeing Ashni, daughter of neighbour and also my friend as well after 5 months, her daughter has grown up, very cute, and I take some pictures of mom and daughter. Then we’re taking off for another party. We drive a turn, because we can’t find the street, because we have already passed it.
My neighbour Suzy is also unexpectedly present on the party, so I sit next to her. I say to Suzy, “Nice maroh (place where the weddingrituals take place in accordance with Hinduism) isn’t it? “When I’ll get married I want one like this one,” says Suzy. “Suze, I’m taking a picture of the maroh, and then you can say to the person who’s going to do the decoration that you want exactly one like this one.” The pictures aren’t coming good, it looks as if the camera has been moved. So I say to Ravi to take a picture, not good. I think I’ve pushed a wrong button which resulted in changing of the adjustments of the camera. There are a lot of good-looking ladies and gentlemen on the wedding-party, who are shining in their Indian wear. Suzy is with a friend, and the friend has a nipper, and she tells that he was hungry, he at four gulab jamuns. Suddenly the band stops, “Testing, sorry for the inconvenience.” Suzy’s friend who had lived in Holland for years says, “In Holland it’s so that if the music starts playing there aren’t any interruptions in between, and here it’s, Testing, testing.” Suzy and her friend are going home, and I’m sitting next to mom and dad. The bride and groom are sitting on their beautifully decorated seat, and I’m trying to take a picture, but the picture turns out bad, so I say to dad that the adjustments of his camera probably got changed. Dad looks where the error is, but can’t find it, so I put it away. Mom congratulates the bride and bridegroom. We take leave, and Ravi and I quickly congratulate the bride. It’s two o’clock when we’re home. Quick change, and all make-up off before I’ll fall asleep.
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