What's a Carib to do?

Being born and raised in the Caribbean has given me a certain foundation for the person that I am now: psychologically, culturally, socially and so on. The interesting thing is that in the Caribbean you have access to many influences from all over the world. In my case in the 80's & 90's we had strong influences from both the USA and Venezuela. Of course there have been other countries and cultures, but these two I consider the dominant ones. In my case having a European mother did provide me with a third pillar of foreign influence next to the US and Venezuela. Even by being an Island part of the Dutch Kingdom, other than the education system, there was not much Dutch influence. We can see the results now, where most youngsters prefer English as a second language and hardly dominate Dutch. During the FIFA World cup it is very obvious. Less than 40% of the Inhabitants root for the Dutch National team.
To get back on topic. Currently I am living in The Netherlands, Europe, and there is a lot happening. The Crimea, Venezuela protests, Financial institutions that lost our trust, ecological problems, racism in politics etc. etc. Very negative. There are positive things as well, but unfortunately the media tends to focus a lot on the negative news (its a cliché, but I perceive it as such). As I get older (and wiser hahaha) I tend to reach back more and more to my Caribbean roots and look for comfort and solace to cope with daily life. Especially now that I have a family to take care of. (What values do I give my daughter?) Increasingly, I feel that also in the Caribbean we are becoming to westernized and adopt the bad practices of the old "mother countries" and larger "super powers". This is weakening the very thing I want to fall back on.

Local Marketplace in San Cristobal de Las Casas
during my Chiapas visit

working in tourism I always find it funny to see how certain people are proud of the fact that they tend to choose "original" destinations. Not yet tainted by western developement. Mostly these are (to western standards) underdeveloped countries where the people still live like they used to for the past say 100 years, and everything is cheap. Do they think these people chose this life? Not all of them, there are regions where they have, but these are then often called dangerous. Because they are considered rebels or dangerous outlaws. I remember visiting the province of Chiapas in Mexico. One of the most beautiful places on earth (in my opinion), but hardly any tourists. Even though they offer a whole lot. I got the feeling that the locals, especially from Mayan decent, did choose their current lifestyle. but when doing research they are considered dangerous by mainstream media. Just because they (mostly simple farmers) stood up against the big boys and re-claimed their lifestyle (chiapas conflict). So where are all these tourists looking for the "original experiential vacation". People don't be fooled by the media. And not even by this blog if you will. Find out for yourself. All I can say is that this blogpost comes from the heart, and it is up to you to do with it what you want.
What does this have to do with the Caribbean? Well, there are Islands trying their very best to maintain alifestyle that differs from the developed west, and others go the other way. I will be very open and honest here. I work in tourism and live off the developments in the Caribbean that one can argue are good or bad. So if I were to say I am this rebel propagating a return to original values, development of the region and a break with the west, would be hipocritical. Nevertheless, I am growing concerned with how things are developing and it is though making the right choices. For example, I have invested in a condo somewhere in the Caribbean. However, some questions keep haunting me. Was the land where the project is built on purchased in an honest way? The Builders (mostly from a much poorer Island), are they being treated fair? Will I take part of living in a bubble and turn my head from the much needed help on the other side of the fence? Therefore my daily question is: what am I doing to provide a positive contribution?
There are many other things on various Islands that I don't agree with or that anger/sadden me. But also a lot of beautiful and really good things. Maybe I worry too much, but unlike I posted earlier (Do not succumb to stress), I am unable to let worries of the present situation and therefore the future go.

Therefore the title for this blogpost, What's a Carib to do?

Trying to keep the overview (on life)

Traditional Caribbean upbringing....should we return to this?

Next month I will become a dad and over the last couple of months I have been pondering on how to raise our child. Therefore the inspiration for this blog.

My Wife is from the Dominican Republic and I am from Aruba, so both of us have a Caribbean background and upbringing. However, we have been living for some years now in Europe and have adapted a bit to this lifestyle and culture. The children in Europe are brought up quite free and modern, and I am not sure I agree with it all the time. So lets revisit our own childhood and reminisce about the values we have been taught by our parents and family. I will limit this to the age of 5 to 10 years old because I think that that is the most important period where your parents had the most influence on you as a growing little person. For me this period ranged from the mid 1981 to 1986.

For us children of that period the most important people teaching us values and providing guidance and behavior corrections were: Father, Mother, Grandparents, Aunts, uncles, older cousins (older than 18, which in the Caribbean is normal, because our grandparents had up to 10 children so your the age difference between your parents and  your oldest uncle/aunt could be up to 10 years).
Outside of the family sphere, teachers also had a big influence and enjoyed a great deal of respect by both you and your parents.

One of the most important things we were taught was that you always respect your elders. This included never talking back. I remember the phrase: when the big coins speak, the small change shuts up (typical Aruban saying: ora placa grandi papia, placa chikito ta keda keto)
And when we did want to say or ask something we had to address them with either their family title followed by their name. For example: Aunti Judith, may I.... And when it was not family you used Sir or Miss/Mrs. followed by their name. These rules were also applied in school when communicating with teachers.
Also elder family members of your friends were spoken to in this way (when you were in their yard, playing, ripping out their plants and drinking water directly from their garden hose or water tap sticking out of the ground at the back of their house).
And if memory serves me well.....even the village drunks and hobo's were treated with a certain respect...(whenever you got caught by them after yelling crazy things at them while hiding in the bushes).

Having covered the basics on how to speak to people when allowed to speak to them, we get to the language you are allowed to use. In these days I agree that it is difficult for parents to monitor and try to get their children not to use profanity. It is all around us and seems to have become standard lingo. But back in the day.....I remember our school teachers washing our mouths with soap (for real). and at home the ol' belt, rubber flip-flop or flat of a hand came into the equation. Sometimes it as enough to just show us these props and we would know what to do....shut up and apologize (and run away outside and play....far away).

There are many other things that you might have experienced or miss in this short blog about these values we were given by our peers. There is however, one, which I have struggled with as a child and still struggle a bit with as an adult. And I am not sure how I will tackle this with the upbringing of my own child. This was the fact that we were not allowed (or expected) to question anything. For me this was a problem in elementary school, where early on I started questioning certain things we were taught or told. At this point I understand that for a child around 5 years old this is normal behavior. This is when we start making sense out of the world around us and ask questions to try and make sense out of it all. And as mentioned before, it was not expected that we went on and on in those days. We would have to accept and make do with the one answer we were provided with. Because of course, we could not reply with an additional question, because....one does not talk back to grown-ups.
On the other hand, when sometimes I see toddlers or children talk to grown-ups nowadays and being replied to as if they were equal conversational partners. One can argue that the boundary between childhood curiosity and a child being ill mannered, is fading. Where do you draw the line? At this point I think that I will engage my child in a "grown-up" way, but making clear that when daddy says its enough.....it is enough (no need to props to evoke fear).

If you have any stories or things based on this topic to share, please do so. I think it can be very useful for us to learn from each other and celebrate wisdom we posses handed over to us from our elders.