Since Rodney’s time in foster care, the question of who his real parents are has not left him. He eventually manages to find his mother, but because she has the disorder schizophrenia, she can’t help her son with his search. Caroline succeeds: the DNA trail leads her to Suriname where she visits Rodney’s father.
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Rodney’s father Lesley lives in Paramaribo. He has heard of Rodney’s existence through his family, but his response is far from enthusiastic. Despite a DNA test, he won’t accept that Rodney is his son. Fortunately, his brothers and sisters are eager to meet their cousin. They tell Caroline that when their brother returned from the Netherlands 40 years ago, he was no longer the same person. There he turned to drugs and lived on the streets in Suriname for a long time. His brother Arnold eventually caught him.
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Caroline informs Rodney about his father’s attitude on arrival in Suriname and that refusal hits him hard. “I did not expect that he would be at the airport with open arms, but this is the other extreme. It is especially very painful.” Rodney finally decides to try with Arnold, his father’s brother and his own son. They visit his father without a camera, but the microphones are on.
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Everyone is tense about how Lesley will react and that is not entirely unjustified, as it turns out. Rodney’s father says he doesn’t want anything to do with him. “It is not my son. How can you say that this is my son? I came from the Netherlands forty years ago and I have never heard a lady say that she is pregnant with me”, he shouts to his brother Arnold.
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Rodney and Arnold return devastated. His aunt is very disappointed with how it all went and lets him know that he is always welcome with them. Fortunately for Rodney, a happy welcoming committee awaits him not much later. Glenda, another sister of his father, and her children and grandchildren are eager to meet him. Rodney cannot hold back his tears and falls into his family’s arms.
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Rodney turns out to have spent no less than two weeks with his family. And what no one expected anymore has finally happened: his father Lesley contacted him and accepted Rodney after all. Rodney is very happy that he was still able to talk to his father and that his son also got to know his grandfather.
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