Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the perfect place for me to decompress before my return to life in Denmark. The faces are familiar and seem not too far from Trinidad, yet it prepares me for Denmark. How could I have ended up in a country so far removed from where I come from? Holland, unlike Denmark, has had a very active colonial life, and one can see this just by walking down any Amsterdam street. There are faces that recall the East, Africa and Europe. I see old women dressed in saris, who wear yellow gold, the type of gold we treasure in Trinidad, calling it Guyanese gold. There are young sisters with killer weaves, rasta men donning red, gold and green, elderly women in dresses as bright as hisbiscus. In short, one sees all the possibility. I've always loved Amsterdam. The Dutch have an unparalleled command of the English language and although I don't speak Dutch, you can see the similarities between Dutch colonial history and say, any other colony in the so-called new world. Take Suriname ...