Leaving homes

This is my 91-year-old grandmother sitting in her former living room on the first floor of a double upper house. Her name is Olga Lobo (1928). This is the story of her having to move, but also a story of her life and her belongings.

My grandmother is a born and raised Surinamese. Years before Suriname became independent (1975), she left her homeland to move to its colonizer, the Netherlands. Having just divorced her first husband, she wanted a new life; for herself, but also for the four sons she brought with her. She has been a Surinamese in the Netherlands for over fifty years now.

This video captures my grandmother at her 90th birthday party. A bigi yari as they would say in Suriname. In front of her guests, over two hundred in total, she took the center stage and showed her audience what she loves most: shaking her fine brown frame like there is no tomorrow. The last time we saw her dancing in front of a big crowd was at the funeral of her second husband, right in front of his coffin. Making lemonade out of lemons is what she does best.

Weeks after her birthday, she suffered two strokes. Her world was turned upside down. From a busy and active life in which she went to the market three times a week, cooked big meals for her loved ones, took care of her older sister, she all of a sudden had to take a big step back. She decided it was time to move out of her house which was filled to the brim with memories and packed with a life full of things.

I started to help her separate the wheat from the chaff. But memories and things often stick together. As such, it can become hard to part with the simplest of things. This is the story of Olga Lobo having to move, but it is also a story about her life, her belongings, and the memories that lie within. At the same time, this is the story of humans parting and sticking with things, and how we need others to help us separate memory from material object.