December 05, 2005
De Sint
Tonight in the Netherlands it is 'pakjesavond', the evening of Sint Niklaus' birthday. In celebration he journeys to the Netherlands from Spain accompanied by his Morrocan slave 'black Pete' and a big book full of the names of all the children in the Netherlands. Children who have been good will get a present and children who have been bad will be bundled into 'black Pete's' bag and dragged off to Spain.
Now if you can't see the pitfalls in THAT story....... Maybe it's a side-effect of my formal Dutch citizenship or maybe it just shows how long I've been living here but this year is the first where the sight of blacked-up Netherlanders roaming the streets of Amsterdam hasn't made me literally cringe.
Still it remains a cultural minefield, especially in a society where schools are divided into 'black' and 'white' and the non-white-Dutch are generally type-cast as the criminals and source-of-all-our-problems. Jacob's response at the age of one at his first pakjes avond on seeing a zwarte Piet was to burst into tears, turn tail and crawl out of there as fast as he could. Maybe it was the most rational response after all?
This year, being two, with a bit of preparation through the watching of the Sinterklaas Journal and the donning of a Piet beret and having a healthy respect for pepernoten he proved able to overcome his fears and enjoy the gezelligheid at his creche when three Zwarte Pieten turned up with peppernoten and presents for the children. There was singing, dancing, running and in the end slightly-hysterical-screaming enjoyed by all!
As if this wasn't enough De Sint also came to visit in Ijsselstein. This was a very impressive Sint with a big white beard and a HUGE book and five Zwarte Pieten. Jacob wasn't going anywhere near him although he did thaw towards the smallest of the Zwarte Piets when he spied the bag of peppernoten she was carrying! (you can see some pictures in the entry below)
Now THATS over all we have to deal with is a couple of birthdays, a wedding anniversary, Christmas and a quick hemisphere swap before the New Year.
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