ABSTRACT

The children are becoming more and more Sinhalese. Maurik now climbs into the palm-tree besides our house within a few seconds and Tijmen often becomes annoyed because our pronunciation of Sinhala still sounds so Dutch. He also feels that I look queer, the least I could do would be to wear my hair in a bun. (He calls it ‘a little bump’, as he forgot the Dutch word.) When I think about it, I feel that the boys have a better life here than in the Netherlands, life is more calm and – literally as well as figuratively – warmer. Never before did I find mothering so easy as here: it is spread over the whole village. I don’t feel ‘a bad mother’ by having a job, I can go wherever and whenever I want to and I don’t have to worry as there is always someone to look after them.