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{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
[[Back?] [[possible tape edit]] ---interest, variety and her own strange kind of desert-island beauty. You know, in making these films, we always do a great deal of research and planning before we go over to shoot the actual film. And I have a little secret to tell you. When we were really going to film Holland [[little laugh]] but as we researched and studied The Netherlands, we found that the Kingdom of the Netherlands, outside of Holland, was just about the most fascinating area we had ever studied about. So that's when we decided to film IT, and not Holland, which you're seeing tonight. And, uh, as you know, you've been to one part of the Caribbean [[pron. cah-rih-BEE-en]] with Jeanne, and now to another part of the Caribbean [[pron. cah-RIH-bee-en]] with me. [[audience reaction]] Back to see the other three islands of the Dutch West Indies, and then on to the country of Suriname in South America.
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And I think you'll agree with us that Suriname is one of the strangest, most exotic, different countries you will have ever seen. I know it was for us. And now let's continue on with our Tropical Touch of the Dutch.
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[[13-sec pause, sound of equipment being moved?]]
[00:01:37] From the ABCs, we flew northeast 550 miles to the three Windward Islands of St. Maarten's, Saba, and St. Eustatius. The largest and most important island of the group is St. Maarten, which is the first one we are going to see.
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Upon landing, we were immediately aware of how green everything is here, in contrast to the arid land of the ABCs. One of the most interesting features of St. Maarten is that it's divided, with one portion being Dutch; the other, French. And the capital of the Dutch side is Philipsburg, built on a narrow sandbar facing the sea with a large salt pan at its back. There are only two streets that run parallel, with the imaginative names of Front Street and --- you guessed it --- Back Street. [[audience laughs]
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The greater part of the 1,600 population of the Dutch side lives here, and we were surprised and, I might add, very pleased, to find English the predominate language, with Dutch spoken very little.
The border between the two sides is marked by a monument, erected in 1948 to commemorate the 300 years of friendly relations between The Netherlands and France. And St. Maarten on the Netherlands side is spelled in the Dutch way, and in the French side, in French. And the capital of the French side is this town, called Marigot.
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Legend says that the border dispute of 1648 was settled by having the fastest walker of each island walk of each country walk around the island in opposite directions until they met. The territory covered by each then became the property of his country. The Frenchman won 21 square miles; the Dutchman, 16.
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Back on the Netherlands side, the pastoral beauty of the landscape looks as though it came right from the palette of an early Dutch Master. The greenery creeps right up to the many lovely beaches. And here, a sudden shower is often accompanied by sunshine, as it is here. For when this happens, the men happily say "the Devil is beating his wife."
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St. Maarten has a budding art colony, among whose members are Cynric Griffith, whom we found painting outside his studio. He's won several top prizes in the Caribbean art shows and it's quite remarkable as he's taught himself to paint, learning everything he knows from just books.

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An interesting study he did is of a little girl. When she's good, her parents hang her picture this way. But when she's bad ---
[[end of segment]]