chang chang chaaaang

The chang business is an allusion to some classy Supremes song I just kind of conjured up out of nowhere, Just reminded me of Halloween this past year in Amsterdam when Megan, my best-good-friend of first semester dressed up like a pregnant Britney Spears ("I've got the golden ticket, mmm hmmm) and I fro-ed out my hair and tried to get my sass on as a skinny white- girl Diana Ross. Needless to say, no one knew who I was but me and my compatriots, (ok, well maybe just me) but hey, it was worth it :*).
Anyways, fast-forwarding nine months, Britney birthed her chilluns' and I am still perched upon this below sea level land, making a life for myself here and enjoying it most days fairly well. Tonight I went to my second African dance class where I inadvertently ran into one of my favorite professors. On our first day of class last semester she did handstands with me in hallway :*). Her name is Letje, she is this vibrantly present woman, I want to be like her when I grown up... but anyways, that was so nice and unexpected. The dancing was just so liberating, like being a child, just flinging your body around and inhabiting the beat of the drums, it was so invigorating, and hard work- I really don't think I have ever sweat so much in my life, haha, it looked and felt like I had just taken a dip in a canal or something.... by the way, I do have a confession... a few weeks ago when it was oh so hot out, after I had been splaying out in the shiny sun at the Amsterdamse Plage (which, actually, is really just a pile of sand by the side of the Ij channel where a lot of carnies serve bad music and fruit shakes out on colorful bean bags with naked babies and the slowest ferris where you have ever seen) I was on my bike on my way back home, when I just couldn't stand it anymore. I swear I had no jurisdiction over my limbs, I suddenly pulled off by this sleepy, very residential canal, whipped off my shoes and jumped in...



...And, I must say, it was quite liberating. :*) Perhaps this is my summer of liberation, ha. But not to worry, it's been a few weeks and I have yet to develop any strange rashes or loss of tonails, God forbid. I think I was subconsciously inspired by my friend Olga (my Russian sister, bet you didn't know I had one of those) who, on her last night plunged into the canal outside her dorm in the centrum from a bridge for her very own satisfaction alone. There were no witnesses, but I can testify to the orange Queen's Day tunic that was quite wet on her floor the next morning. I said goodbye to Olga in the end of June, amidst many a Russian and Eastern European in her master's graduation class at the University of Amsterdam. I met Olga through our Colombian cassanova counterpart, Raul, one night when we met up at a squat to listen to a noisy Jewish wannabe Rabbi try to reclaim klezmer drinking tunes on his shiny accordian to this lost generation (read: me, you, your cat). It was a good beginning, and difficult to say goodbye yet again, but well, I'm used to it now, and know that I have a gezellig spot somewhere in Siberia waiting for me when the winds blow me in that direction.

I have been taken into this family of two brave parents and three creative and quite distinct children- Sandra the sassy, the strong willed, the generous giver of bruise-worthy hugs who is 4 years old, Joshua, the sold-out football player (soccer to all you Americans out there) who lately keeps asking me very serious questions about Michael Jackson, he is 7 years old, and Frank Omar, the dependable night-owl, reciditive louse offender, music maker, National Geographic junkie and apple pie addict of 9 years.

The other day I woke up a little frazzled (I think my dream involved a peter pan theater production, dark water, new roommates, something shiny and a mysterious brother) and took the kids to school (this mean mounting Sandra on the back saddle of my bike and peddling to school with the boys beside). As we arrived at school with all the classy Dutch parents with beautiful blonde babies in hand, I had this slight revelation that just made me laugh out loud. I was that mom, that mom that is a bit dishelved, out of sorts. You know, the one you always see in faded sweatpants with a mangled ponytail crumpled on top her head, with some dried cereal mysteriously stuck to her shoulder. Everybody knows one. Ha, yeah, it was me (minus that mom part, no I did not birth any children while in Amsterdam, I was just standing in for one). But in short, I am really blessed by them, and by this chance to get that rare insider/outsider vantage point on what this family stuff means.
So I am leaving soonish...I don't really think I actually thought it would happen (maybe I still don't?) Why is it that when the end starts creeping up you begin to meet the most interesting people? This past month I have had the humble pleasure of dialogue and music and strumming and tea and listening and qirca making and questioning and midnight talking with some really wonderful people. But when I'm not trying making friends, I am trying to make the most of these little Nederland momentjes and get my work done too (what??! work??!!) I must say that researching can sometimes be quite lonely. For those of you out of the loop, this illusive research business is all about sex trafficking in Eastern and Western Europe, just to clue you in. But sometimes I have to remind myself when it's all too too too much to take a walk like Soumya and me had to sometimes last summer in NYC at Amnesty, or sing real loud on my bike like all the confident, crinkly homeless men that stand outside the Salvation Army office by the canal on Oudezijdsvoorburgwal (say that threes times real fast) in the red light cajoling and bantering with street prostitutes with their hip packs while not so sneakily trying to "offer" hard candy to passersby. I think I really will miss them though...funny as that sounds. But I am balancing it out with the field work stuffs (which sometimes also means Alice and I being momentarily mistaken for a prostitutes...hmmm) but I love this part because it is so real- and I love getting to know the women in little ways who are women just like me, just like your sister, your mom, even your grandma. Imagine that.

Every once in a while I feel a little bit apprehensive about going back home, honestly, because I know I have changed and grown from NYC to Amsterdam and back, and I'm not sure how that will contrast with the things and the people and the ideas and the betsyness back in Missouri, but we shall see. I am not sure that I even know how much I’ve grown myself, and probably won’t till I find myself back in those familiar spaces. A year anywhere is meant to grow a person though, I believe, I've just been so separated and independent from all those things I know that sometimes I wonder if I will feel crowded by them when I return. I am not worried, just curious and thinking. Discounting the two week stint of home between NYC and Amsterdam, it has been almost 15 months since I’ve really been back….

I am always learning about faith and life it's been quite an interesting challenge in this past year for me out in the world and testing myself and my boundaries. I decided, after a last-straw conversation with a wise old Dutch sage name Anton who I met at the Quaker Meeting I frequent, that I need a few more chances…so last minute I decided to run away to the Dutch L’Abri... http://www.labri.org/ it's a little hard to explain, but there are several of them around the world, the first was started 50 years ago in Switzerland, but from what I gather they are a kind of community to live and work and concentrate/question/think/prod questions about faith and life and such, something I need for myself right now. So that's where I am off to tomorrow….and looking forward to it.

Well, proost! I’m off to attempt some strums on my guitar

-betsy, beasty, betz, betsy boo, Hikaru, tree-frog,
mesmerilda, pookje, boumya, boo boo, princess no-butt ,
heathen shepherd, betsiline,manatee #9 (I think….)