In 2000 - after Dekker found, in a poverty-stricken Indian village,
the granite cobblestones now paving Kura Hulanda's streets ("200
containers - now it's an export product so these people have a way
to sustain themselves!"), but before the Kura Hulanda project was
finished -
cancer struck again, this time melanoma. Padget and
other associates supervised the resort's opening. Confined to bed
and unable to work or even read, Dekker took up portrait painting.
The work is, naturally, professional quality, though Dekker
pooh-poohs his achievement. "Everyone knows how to paint."
Dekker's now back on his feet, and when asked whether he feels he's
definitively won his fight with melanoma, he shrugs impatiently.
"We'll see what happens. When they come back, I just get them cut
out again. That's how I deal with it."
Meanwhile, in addition to work on the U.S. Slavery Museum and the
eco-lodge, Dekker has a few other new projects.
Because Curaçao has the world's highest incidence of
diabetes-related kidney failure, he is building a
dialysis clinic.
Because education is a personal priority, he's planning to open a
culinary institute to train chefs for all those new hotels and
restaurants.
Because ecology is a concern, he's working with Conservation
International to develop the reef off the Netherlands Antilles.
Also in association with CI, he is collaborating with "my good
friend Ermias" - exiled Crown Prince Ermias Sahle-Selassie
Haile-Selassie - to establish, in
Ethiopia, a nature
park/conservation project that also promises economic
sustainability for the needy developing nation.
Oh, and he writes weekly newspaper columns, and is turning one of
his six book manuscripts into a screenplay.