sabinaland

It’s hard to believe in a cause nowadays. Or maybe that’s just the way I see it. I think people have become skeptical to their power to change anything around them. And it’s totally understandable to feel overwhelmed by the weight and power of “the big guns” of the world, the all mighty corporations, the industries taking over what we eat and breath, the governments, the crisis, the global warming, the next crisis, and what have you.

But today one piece of news and one video made me look at things differently. The piece of news comes from Fairfood International (go ahead and give them a nice little ‘like’ on Facebook ), where I did an internship last year. After months of hard work, they’ve managed to get one of the biggest guns in the snacks industry, Diamond Foods, to start cleaning up its act regarding child labor issues in its supply chain. I’m proud to have been a small part of the campaign in its beginnings, and I feel encouraged to believe in the best by this success.

Second, I came about a powerful short movie in my evening wanderings on Facebook. It starts with an idea so simple and obvious, that it felt weird that I hadn’t thought about it or heard it before: Let’s use Facebook to connect and do good. In fact, let’s use all this technology suffocating our pockets and desks and lives to do what it’s suppose to do: connect the globe, get ideas across, and transform this powerful tool into a means for change. Is it possible for people to make a change? I don’t know, but the guys in the video have been doing a great job so far.

Watch it and find out who Joseph Kony is and why that is important for the whole world, including you.

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders of Robin Hood Hill (1996), Paradise Lost: Revelations (2000) and Paradise Lost: Purgatory (2011), wow, what a journey! A total of seven hours and three documentaries following the story of three teenagers arrested in 1993 for killing three eight-year old boys (a lot of 3s, come to think of it).

In May 1993, three boys are found naked, tied-up, mutilated and dead in the forest on the Robin Hood Hills. HBO is behind the movies that document the evolution of the murder case and the lives of the ones involved in it for over 17 years.

It’s not a fiction movie telling you what happened “17 years later”, with the actors wearing make-up faking wrinkles. It’s a real story, with real people. It’s a horrible drama for three families who’ve lost their children in a murder and for a whole community who wants to see the ones responsible pay for it. And there’s the drama of the families of the three arrested teenagers. And the three teenagers who evolve from clueless kids to balding men. But most of all, it’s an x-ray of how the Arkansas judicial system – from detectives, to judge, prosecutor, lawyers and jury, worked in a highly controversial case.

I found myself on a roller-coaster watching these three documentaries. I had no clue as to what happened. Did they get convicted? Would they be sentenced to life? Would they receive death penalty? Were they guilty or not? And then there were the people involved. Damien, the most prominent of what came to be known as the West Memphis 3, is a great character in himself. A weird teenager who wears black and listens to heavy metal and who is strangely obsessed with his long black hair. Or there’s the stepfather of one of the victims, a guy that has the strangest outbursts and who comes across as crazy on several occasions. Or the mothers who throw curses at the teenagers, or the grandfathers who believe in forgiveness, or the members of the press who report in various ways on scenes from the trial that you’ve just seen.

With Metallica’s Sanitarium perfectly and obsessively repeating in the soundtrack.

Forget about movies in which the defense lawyers passionately cross-examine witnesses, or in which prosecutors mercilessly point their finger to the defendant’s bench, or in which witnesses appear out of nowhere and make you say “Wait, what?”. This is the real deal. It’s everything of the above but better, because it’s real. And because it’s real it’s all the most tragic, and sad, and heartaching, and puzzling, and whatever can go through your mind in face of a situation that can only be anyone’s nightmare.

When I opened the first documentary it was 1 a.m. and I was out of things to watch. I saw that it lasted for 2 1/2 hours and I was a bit thrown back. “I’ll probably fall asleep in 10 minutes anyway”. Well, at 4 a.m. I was still wide awake, and in the morning when I woke up my first thought was to turn the computer on and see what else had happened.

It’s a story so complex and that makes you think on so many levels, that it is well-worth not only seven hours, but seven days. Hell, chapeau bas to the two HBO directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, and I’m sure many other people there, who stuck with the story for 17 years.

Driving a van through Amsterdam was a lot more enjoyable than expected. A lot of the enjoyment was owed to my wonderful copilot Katarina who managed to stay calm despite my constant asking “what do I do now?” and who proved to have excellent direction skills in between the canals. We even made it on the highway in a pick-up huge bed+dining table expedition to Haarlem.

I would have updated earlier, but our new house does not yet have an internet connection. It’s been three weeks without it and after my initial withdrawal symptoms, I must say that I got used to it and I find that without the online little devil at hand I have five times more time for whatever else I want to do; such as practicing my Dutch, going to the gym, reading, watching movies from beginning to end in one session, or even having my coffee peacefully while looking out the window, and not at Facebook. All very positive things. However, we seem to be getting close to getting the much-waited for connection, so I’ll be back to my old wasting time on the www quite soon. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage to keep some of my newly acquired offline habits.

Other than that, the canals have frozen and de-frozen, and what’s left is a huge pile of garbage on the water surface. The people skating on the icy canals sure left there mark there.

And this concludes my internet session for today. Too-da-loo!

Every time I promise to write more often, I end up writing even less often than before. I should know better and not make this kind of promises anymore.

But tonight I feel like writing because I’m a bit anxious and a bit out of place. I’m saying farewell to Bijltjespad, my first Amsterdam home. I was driving my bike on the alley in front of the building this afternoon and I saw the clock of the church light up and I remembered my first evenings in this place, moving the furniture around, making the room feel warm and cosy, taking walks in the neighborhood to discover shops and corners and sights and to create hooks for my new life. Wow, that was a long sentence. One year later, I feel this room and this corner of Amsterdam very close to my heart. And the winter winds are not as bad as last year. Or maybe it’s just me getting used to them.

After packing all my stuff in a huge pile of suitcases and bags that are now leaning against the closet, I realized that I had not taken a picture of my room the way it looked like with all my “contributions” in. But I’m sure that I can discover bits and pieces in other pictures.

Enough with the nostalgia over a room! Tomorrow I’m gonna do at least two brand new things. 1) Drive a car in Amsterdam & 2) Drive a van, both at the same time, obviously. As if the excitement of moving to a new place wasn’t enough. I’ll let you know how it went. Though I’m not making any promises.

PS For some international cooking inspiration, please visit Bijltjespad’s own food blog. It’s full with simple-to-make and tasty treats.

as she’s listening to winter winds, both in her window and in her headphones, and as she can barely see tomorrow from underneath the huge stack of articles with precious information for her exam, sabina is wondering: “so many little loves. are they building up to something, or is that all there is?”