He is a Brabander with a red-white checkered heart, eats his fries with a blob of Joppies sauce and flute all the songs by Guus Meeuwis effortlessly. Yet Martijn van Bijsterveld from Breda has lost his heart at the Maori culture: a people who live on the other side of the world and is intimately intertwined with spiritual traditions. His tattoos therefore have a special meaning. “I would never just have anything random on my arm.”
Martijn let his tattoo-sleeve put by Whatutiri Hiko Hiko, a maorichief (ed. A leader in the Maori culture of New Zealand) after he had been seriously ill for two and a half years.
The men met for the first time in Tilburg. And now Martijn has already had three times with the chief located under the ink needle. During those tattoo sessions a click was created, their conversations deepened and when Whatutiri went back to New Zealand it was not forgotten from the heart. “We have become good friends,” says Martijn.
Martijn is struggling with hereditary osteoarthritis, joint wear. “When I was 43, my left hip was so worn out that they removed it and started a prosthesis. But everything that could go wrong went wrong. A month after the operation I got my leg pain.”
Hospital visits and all kinds of investigations followed, but the doctors did not find out what was going on. “The pain remained and at one point I couldn’t walk at all,” says Martijn. It was so intense that I got Tremoren (ed. Serious vibrations). ”
“I begged him to cut open.”
“I was crying with the specialist, where I begged him to cut open.” Please look in my leg, because there must be something, “I cried.” He was in a wheelchair for almost two years, with comprehensive pain. “It was hell,” says the Bredanaar emotionally. “I swallowed the toughest painkillers, who made me drowsy and absent. I felt desperate.”
And so he threatened to become a loser in his own story: someone who could no longer get out of the door, but spent the days in bed and on the couch. For a year and a half, Martijn was at home in a hospital bed. He barely did sleep, climbing stairs did not go. “At a certain point it was no longer necessary for me,” he says softly.
Eventually he came into contact with an orthopedist. “A skilled man,” says Martijn. “He started digging further to the cause and did a puncture. Then it turned out that I had 98 percent inflammatory value in my hip.”
Not his leg, but the operated hip turned out to be the culprit. A bacterium had nestled in his hip and was unperturbed. The prosthesis was surgically removed and Martijn was forced to live without a hip for a few months. The doctors collapsed cement in the empty place to keep the muscles at length, otherwise his leg would become much shorter. He also swallowed antibiotics for months to get the bacterium out of his body.
“The tears ran down my cheeks when I took the first steps.”
Now, after three operations on his hip, he can walk again. “The tears ran down my cheeks when I took the first steps. I was so happy that I could trust my own body again, without pain.”
Back to the tattoo. The drawings on his body have a special meaning. “The chief Did not just work. He first wanted to know who I am, who my family is, how I put together, what I am proud of, what my good qualities are and also my less good. And he then translated that on my arm. Without design, but just out of free hand. “
The patterns and designs in the Maori tattoos are rich in symbolism and tell a story about the wearer. “Some characters face pride, sadness and pain, others for energy and protection. Even the life path of my two children is incorporated in it. It is very spiritual and stands for who I am. The sleeve Translate all struggles I had to endure and remind me not to give up. I proudly wear it. “