Chapter 4: BETTER DAYS

BETTER DAYS

As I woke up from this dream, it really bothered me that I wasn’t in Amsterdam or Suriname. The empty feeling, I had at that moment, told me I had to go home. Immediately. However, I ignored that feeling, went for a shower and prepared for the day. Almost done, the phone suddenly rang again, the office. I let It ring a couple seconds and nervously picked up. ‘hello.. Daniël Pitti speaking’. ‘Hi Daniel, this is SG speaking from the office. We tried calling you, but you didn’t pick up. We would like to welcome you as the first Surinamese flight attendant in the company. We are very happy to have u here. If you have any questions, please let us know’. I responded with a very relieved thank you. I hung up the phone, smiling and suddenly I experienced a proud feeling.

The feeling that you are being recognized is always great and I suddenly felt like an ‘ambassador’ of my country in the middle east. That feeling really motivated me to stay, bite through the rough period and learn as much as possible. This to eventually go back to Suriname and give (international) input where needed! This approach really helped me and you know, I was just not going to give up that easily this time. As a person I get bored very easily. If I really don’t like something or I am not happy, I just leave. To be honest, this is very spoiled behavior. I’ve never had this in a professional setting but often experienced it in romantic relationships. Whenever I’m dissatisfied, the person is way too into me or my needs are not being fulfilled in a way that suits me,I just leave. Really selfish and self-centered.  The funny but most concerning point about this is that I’ve heard it from different people I’ve had relationships with. I know… something to work on.. for sure.. right?

As the training days went by, I started to enjoy it more and more. Well.. I was getting used to it I guess and accepted the fact that I would be here for a while. I believe that acceptance is the key to being truly free. I met some really nice people as mentioned before. All from different backgrounds and different reasons why they came all the way to the middle east. There were people who had to support their family, people who needed a completely new start in life, some who needed to ‘escape’ their home and leave everyone behind to find their purpose in life. We even had a two-time Olympic swimmer in our training. Hearing all the reasons, really made me realize and appreciate what I have. I did ‘escape’ a certain feeling I had in Amsterdam, but I didn’t need the salary. Being here was just a dream and check off my bucket list. Thanks to myself but especially my amazing hard-working family.

All these reasons really stayed with me during the training. We often think that we are the only one dealing with difficulties in life, but I can tell that every individual on this earth is fighting their own battles. Knowing this, we still judge people by the choices they make but don’t know the options they had to choose between. This is so unfair. Halfway through the training, I started doing some fun things on Fridays (only free day till 11:00 pm) such as Strolling through the malls, markets, and bars. Exploring the city was very nice but awkward sometimes. Awkward, because some people kept staring at me and following me at times. I still experience it from time to time when going to the supermarket. Very funny but awkward at times, I guess I look different from the average population.

I must say days in the middle east were getting better. I accepted the situation, I kept being positive and tried to live my life as much as possible. At some point, I met a person during my Friday day out in the mall. Usually, I’m very shy and never make the first step to talk someone, but this time I did. After some time, I approached this very good-looking person, asked the name (DE) and we started talking about our purpose here in the middle east. I looked very deep in the eyes of DE and saw a potential person. Full of life, love to be around friends, party a lot, family minded and serious when needed. Just what I look for in a relationship. As the conversation was about to end, I asked the mobile number, we said our goodbyes and went home.

On my way home as I gazed out the window I experienced this amazing feeling and wondered if this could be my purpose here in the middle east. Upon my arrival at home, I started messaging DE, we had so much to tell each other and this is the best part of moving to a different country. You can be a completely new person and by this, I mean, no one knows you and you get a new/fair chance to let people get to know you. We even started to call each other and after a couple days, I asked DE on a date. On this Friday I called an Uber, picked up DE at the accommodation and we went for drinks. We started drinking, talking about interesting subjects and some friends of DE joined at a certain point. DE was really good-looking and interesting. I really could see myself having a relationship, even though we were not allowed in each other’s accommodation at that time. It was almost 11o’clock and I needed to go home in order to not break curfew. I called my uber and DE and I left the place together. We talked about the date, we’d both really enjoyed it and would like to repeat it as soon as possible. As I wanted to disembark my taxi, DE and I Kissed. I didn’t see that one coming as it’s not very common to just kiss on the streets in middle eastern countries. As days passed by, I really thought this was my purpose in the middle east, my new beginning, finding the right one and sharing my life with this DE. But exactly then, when I thought I’d found my purpose and maybe the love of my life, I made an awful and horrible mistake myself.