By Bianca Peters, co-producer of the WOW! nature film
Some moments you feel in your gut before they happen. Tuesday, July 7, was one of those moments. All day, I walked around with a strange sense of anticipation. That evening, the WOW! series would be shown on Dutch television for the very first time: Six stories about the nature of our Caribbean islands, finally entering people’s homes in the Netherlands.
The only thing was that I was in Colombia – thousands of kilometres away. I was standing in the middle of a huge crowd watching a Colombian football match. All around me was one enormous mass of people, filled with tension, shouting, singing and emotion – people who didn’t know each other but in that moment had found each other through one shared love – football.
And while I was standing there, people in the Netherlands were watching the first WOW! documentary. It felt so surreal! My phone kept buzzing message after message. I could see the screen lighting up again and again, but I almost didn’t dare look. What would people think of the documentaries? Would they be moved? Would they understand what we had been working on all this time and were trying to convey?
Eventually, I looked and it exceeded everything I had dared to dream of. The messages kept pouring in. People were moved, amazed, proud. People wrote that they had never realised what the nature on our islands looked like or just how extraordinary it was. One reaction in particular stayed with me: Someone wrote that we had brought back a sense of pride in the islands, while also creating a sense of wonder in the Netherlands about just how extraordinary nature in the Caribbean really is.
And, suddenly, I thought about the comparison with football, because what an extraordinary time we have just experienced: Two countries within our Kingdom – Curaçao and the Netherlands – competing in the World Cup. How often do you get to experience a moment like that together?
On Curaçao – but also on Aruba, Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten and in the Netherlands – what a celebration it was whenever Curaçao played! Everywhere people felt connected to the island, and we will never forget Curaçao’s very first-ever World Cup goal. I can still feel it as I write this: The tension, the release, the pride and, of course, the tears that simply rolled down my cheeks – and I certainly wasn’t the only one – because it wasn’t just a goal. It was a moment when everyone suddenly realised: “Look at what we are experiencing together.”
Look at this incredible achievement by the smallest country ever to compete in the World Cup. Across the islands, we all felt that immense pride in Curaçao. And at the same time, you could see admiration growing in the Netherlands. People who perhaps had never been to Curaçao, or who didn’t even realise it was part of the Kingdom, suddenly discovered the island, its people and the story behind it.
That is also what happened with the WOW! series. Across the islands, a renewed sense of pride emerged in what is literally right on our doorstep – our reefs, forests, beaches and wildlife – species found nowhere else on earth; nature that we sometimes take so much for granted that we forget just how exceptional it really is. And in the Netherlands, a sense of wonder began to grow.
The passion for football and for nature is the same. The love is the same. And perhaps, even more importantly, so is their ability to connect us. Football brings people together because they love it so incredibly much. Nature can do the same. I think I realised that most strongly while standing there in Colombia, surrounded by thousands of people watching football, while at that very same moment, people in the Netherlands were watching our nature on television.
Two worlds that, at first glance, seemed to have nothing to do with each other but in reality were both about the same thing: About being deeply moved by something; about passion; about love; about wonder; and about that wonderful feeling when, for a moment, we can all say together: “Look! This is ours. This is something we can be proud of together.”
And that is one of the things we want to achieve with WOW! – that we don’t just start looking at our nature differently, but that we begin to love it as passionately as we love football. Because if a goal by Curaçao can bring tears to our eyes, who knows what might happen when we truly realise what incredible nature we have right here, together? Then football and nature become something we can cheer for together!
And if you’re wondering where the turtle from the title of this column went… watch the documentaries! Every Tuesday at 9:20 PM Dutch time / 3:20 PM Caribbean time on NPO2, or watch them back on NPO Start: npo.nl/start/serie/natuur-in-de-cariben/afleveringen
