In the lobby of a renowned South German hotel

some woman

are waiting in comfortable chairs

for potential clients. 

How old they are one cannot guess

any number between 30 and 60

would be correct. 

“Believe me, they are expensive,”

the taxi driver told me a minute ago.

I cannot imagine 

that the woman I am looking at right now

is for hire. 

She is wearing a dark suit

with a casual white blouse,

high heels,

her legs in black see-through tights,

her dress maybe a bit too short.

She crosses her legs

Slow and endlessly

one over the other,

bends face down

to take something sweet from a plate.

Just for a moment I see the curve of her breasts.

Once sitting upright again

she looks at me

smiles, 

with her little finger she sweeps

a mischievous lock

from her forehead, 

takes her mobile from her bag

and starts talking softly

with someone who is responsible

for the serious expression on 

her beautiful face. 

A man enters the lobby through the revolving door,

searches with his eyes,

walks around but to no avail,

gestures to the woman in the suit

if the seat next to her is free.

She nods, 

he sits down. 

The woman closes her mobile,

the man talks to her softly.

I cannot hear what they are saying. 

Are they negotiating?

Is he going to take her somewhere

Or will they stay in the hotel?

They laugh. 

Through the revolving door, a girl appears

with a rucksack around her shoulders. 

In her cheerful red coat she skips towards the woman.

“Mommy,” she says

and then utters something unintelligible.

The woman gets up,

nods towards the man

puts her coat on,

and exits the hotel hand in hand with her daughter. 

I cannot explain it

but something in me

is relieved.

Brotherly, on the square glass plate

lies a mandarin, a pear, a bunch of grapes,

an apple and three chocolate biscuits

between which a folded card was placed

and on which it says that Ernst-Friedrich and Sylvia von Kretschmann

warmly welcomes me in their leading small hotel Europäische Hof

with five stars in Heidelberg.

Since 1865.

The delicious still life on the glass table

disappears into my stomach.

Accompanied by a dry Riesling of Heppenheimer.

Tonight we are playing and singing 

in the truly beautiful ‘Kongresshaus’

in this now snow-covered renowned German city,

on the occasion of the second oldest ‘chanson-Fest’

of Germany, of which I have to honour to be the patron.

The white wine is starting to do its job.

Just as the pear is the last to disappear,

my grey cells are in a pre-sleep.

Makes me see life a bit more rosy.

A certain mildness covers the scary and happy 

memories

of late.

In the last taste lurks something of a fresh spring. 

Something I also saw

when I left home yesterday

along the road of  snow-covered willow trees.

The branches are undeniably getting thicker.

We will not be able to prevent it. 

The days are getting longer,

the nights shorter.

The bleakness is over.

The sun is coming

to warm our hearts. 

Ema is pregnant.

‘Good Evening,’

said the man on the news.

Earthquake,

connection with the world has been broken.

We get a glimpse

of a woman who shouts something into the night

nobody will now what.

The nation is in shock.

The next report,

a roadside bomb in Afghanistan,

a Dutch soldier on a bicycle

and then something

about credit card thieves and junks

a short report about banks

and that is it,

nothing more nothing less.

I lit a candle and

was silent for a moment

in empty darkness,

such a thing of wax

which brings light

into our hearts.

Went home

everything still continues

trouble, doubts, fears,

it is a search

for warmth and for tenderness.

The history is easy

to predict.

Tomorrow

it continues

as if we should know

what is too early 

or what is too late.

We drag ourselves forward

in the rain

or hide from a downpour.

And a new playful wind

that gives me much hope

flutters through the garden

many days, suns and moons

animals in the rain

clover, buttercups.

Call me

Email me,

Text me.

I miss you.

There were three of them,

two black men

and a Flemish theatre producer.

We met each other

On a sunny terrace of a guest house

In Pretoria, South Africa.

They wanted to talk to me and Edith Leerkes

about a small plan for Soweto,

the biggest township on the African continent.

They represent the non-profitable Tsele Creative Society,

a theatrical group which concerns themselves with the creation and production

of educational street theatre programmes

for, and often with children.

Impressions of the daily events

of the African tradition

such as rape, aids and robberies.

They would like to be able to perform during bad weather conditions,

a place with a roof,

a place with walls

a theatre,

and asked us for financial support.

We made an appointment to find out

where such a hall could be built.

They suggested an area in the heart of Soweto

White City Jabavu.

There were once the black uprising began.

We promised each other

that we will build the theatre and call it The Miracle.

It will be build in the existing,

well managed and protected Ipelegen Community Centre.

We have been busy with this project for three years

Trying to arrange and plan everything,

But it is not simple.

The biggest problem is not the building of the theatre.

The laying of bricks is actually a piece of cake.

The real work is to ensure that the Ipelegen Community Centre

gets a proper administration and management,

so that there is 100% ownership of

backup and support,

in order for the theatre to be properly managed

and become a success.

To provide a good Miracle management

(financial, administrative, programming, marketing,

logistic, maintenance and security),

means to find qualified and dedicated people

and creating  a realistic marketing plan

as well as making sure

that the rest of the Ipelegen Centre gets a facelift

so that the renovated theatre doesn’t become an eyesore.

It takes time.

Sometimes I want things to move faster than what is possible,

‘You can’t make bricks without straw, that’s not the way it works,’

Says Harmen Oostra, our man at the scene.

‘This is a different country with a past which still has an influence on the present

and where things need time

and it has a different pace than in the well organised Holland.

We hope to be able to perform before the World cup, if not during.

Mafika, one of the men who has been working from the beginning, will not be there.

He recently died at a young age, no one knows how.

He will live in our hearts forever.

The Dutch language, says the writer,

is, apart from Swahili, the only language in the world

that often uses the same word for

two totally different concepts.

The word ‘schoon’ means both

That it is clean and that it is beautiful.

When we, here in our small kingdom say ‘een schone vrouw’

then it means both a beautiful woman as well as a clean woman.

The word has a dual meaning.

Another word which has a double, even a triple meaning

is the word ‘knap’.

When we talk about ‘een knap gezicht (face)’ then we

say that someone is beautiful or handsome

but when we say ‘hij is knap’

we can also imply that he is intelligent or smart.

With the expression ‘knap voor mijn part’

we mean for someone to break, to tear or explode.

That is not meant in a friendly way.

‘Knap’ is also the sound an object makes when it falls and breaks.

Therefore, when I now write ‘I wish you a good 2010’

I imply a ‘schoon’ and ‘knap’,