Brokoday in Gunzi: Dance for the dead

"Would you like some rum with that bread?"--Borgi at 8 am

A brokoday is a Saramaccan funeral where the village remembers the person's life by staying up all night, drinking rum, playing music and dancing. This brokoday was for a young girl, a relative of one of the woman in Gunzi, who lived and died in French Guiana. Brokodays are celebrated on different occassions after the person dies
--days, weeks, and finally months after the person has died.
The last leg usually celebrated months after the person has died is called a limba uwii (cleaning hair) which is a traditional ceremony to remember the dead's spirit and drive any angry spirits out of the village. In this case, just weeks after the person had died (instead of months) we held the limba uwii. I believe this happened because the person died in French Guiana.

The preparations for the ceremony began about 3 weeks before the actual event. One afternoon I passed the village community center and noticed the guys hanging out skinning animal hides to put on their drum sets. A few days later, I got a preview of the Gunzi drumming band called Tei Wei Sponsor. They're good drummers but their lyrics on some of the songs are comical. In one song, the lead singer calls out, "I go to the store to buy butter, flour and salt!" And then everyone else in the band repeats that line. And of course, any good party needs food. So as forementioned in another blog I went along with most of the guys in the village for the fishing trip (ndeku). And a few other guys went out hunting and one of them shot a bush pig.


Saturday, December 18, 2010: Brokoday. I was awoken at 7 am by the knocking of the village bell, "gbeingbein". I arrived at the meeting house of a dead basia about 30 minutes and was courtesously on time. The morning began with prayer, the Captain sitting in the middle of the line of men, and Max, our spiritual leader for the week, sitting infront of them. The Captain said a few words asking for good fortune and then Max said a prayer to the Gods and poured libations of rum and soda out on the ground. A few minutes later, around 8 am, we were drinking the rum. 90% palum rum: Good morning, World! While we were drinking the rum, two guys walked out of the house holding a metal box. After opening the box, they began distributing bandja kotos, hand stitched traditional tops, that belonged to Basia Sumalu. Every man at the morning tuwe dan (throw away rum) prayer got a bandja koto, including myself. The women complemented how well the piece fit me. I liked it and thought it was strangely coincidental that Basiapai inherited the clothing of the Basia Sumalu.

In the afternoon, after the village had cleared the brush and weeds in the worshipping area, we sat down and did another tuwe dan, more rum! Finally, as night fell the bands and the food made their first appearances. Learning from my last brokoday, I sought out the food early and scored some rice and chicken from the women who cooked. Around 10 pm, the first band went on. Three bands played that night, including Gunzi's Tei Wei Sponsor who I recorded and played on the radio station the following night. The most comical part of the night occurred during one song, where the band repeatedly sang "lala cassava" which means grate cassava. And so, I got to witness my first "lala cassava" dance. This will probably only be appreciated by previous Peace Corps Suriname volunteers. I was laughing hysterically as 20 Saramaccans were doing their best dancing immitation of grating cassava. It's like their equivalent of the chicken dance. After getting in a little dancing with a few 50 year old ladies, I finally crashed at 4 am.

That morning I woke and helped the women crack some peanuts for the tuwe nyanyan (throw away food) ceremony later in the day. At a tuwe nyanyan a lot of food is prepared and mixed together--rice, peanut flavored rice, fish, meat and fish sauce. Two handfuls of food are thrown on the ground for the deceased's spirit. Then, the leader of the ceremony, Max, takes the food with two hands and places it in another person's hands if they forgot to bring dishes. So I got the food in my hands--rice, fish and pig mixed with a peanut sauce. And I ate the food right out of my hands like a little kid probably much to the amusement of my village. The ceremony concluded with 3 gun shots and the crowd dispersed.

Camp GLOW (Girls Leader of Our World) in Suriname

"I wasn't ready to leave camp yet!"--Orlanda, Gunzi's only participant


Me being tagged during capture the flag.


Camp GLOW is a young woman's empowerment camp that was started in Romaina to encourage young women to participate in politics, the work force and sports. Camp GLOW's have been put on throughout the World by various Peace Corps Volunteers. This was the first Camp GLOW ever in Suriname.

Day 1: After nearly a year of searching for funding and preparation, on December 10 we finally arrived at Isadou, a tourist camp on the Upper Suriname River, with about 20 Peace Corps Volunteers, several Peace Corps staff, and 6 Saramaccan cabin moms. The first day was an orientation for a cabin mom and the volunteers. Denise and Catherine went over the schedule and expectations and the highlight of the day was the yoga lesson, lead by Amber and Shannon, where 10 Peace Corps Volunteers and a few of the cabin moms had to lay on the ground and then lift their legs over their head. Ryan, our P.C. Volunteer photographer, captured the moment pretty well.


Day 2: A lot of nervous energy in the air as we woke up this morning. Will the girls show up on time? Will they actually show up!? The cabin mom who was supposed to represent Gunzi had already cancelled on me and I wasn't sure if the only kid coming from Gunzi would actually make it on the boat. When the boats showed up we breathed a sigh of relief, 48 out of 49 girls we expected had arrived. 29 of these girls were from the school I worked with for the World AIDS Day event, the rest came from 4 other villages. We signed the girls in and split them up into four teams, I was on the green team. The girls on the green team had a lot of personality. We started out as a group playing a name game I learned during a backpacking class. You go around the circle, you say your name and you pick a word, usually an animal, that starts with the same letter as your name.
For example, I became known as buffalo Basiapai throughout camp. The biggest personality on our team, a girl named Pam who played a character named Sweet Lover for our World AIDS Day skit, became known as Sweet Cookie-Sweet Lover. I also introduced myself to the entire camp as buffalo Basiapai from 104.1 fm in Gunzi and realized I had some fans in attendance after some applause.

After the ice-breakers, we ate lunch and did the first two lessons the girls had to attend: self-esteem and environment
. Chris Arronen from Idaho lead the self-esteem lesson. Amber from California and Jessica from Illinois led the environmental session which was about how to manage and reduce trash. After lessons Matt from Washington and I played slagball, a game Saramaccan woman play that is similar to baseball. After being applauded for my radio work earlier in the day, I was surprised when I got a lot more negative attention on the slagball field. I was jeered and heckled like I was a Dodger playing at Candlestick Park. Day 2 ended with an overly dramatic dance-step movie we played on a projector for the girls.

Day 3: Today I gave my lesson with Michelle from Washington. We gave a nutrition lesson and taught the girls how they can eat to prevent high blood pressure and diabetes, two prevalent diseases on the Upper Suriname River. Each lesson was given twice, first Michelle and I gave the lesson to the blue and yellow teams, then the orange and green teams, as to split up the girls and make them more manageable. The lesson started off with a competition between the two teams present to see who could arrange the food pyramid more quickly so I could grasp what they knew. Then, Michelle and I showed the girls the correct way to arrange the foods on the pyramid. Michelle then talked about vitamin deficiency and then myself and two representatives from the local medical posts talked about high blood pressure and diabetes. The lesson wrapped up by handing out 3 paper plates to each girl and having them construct 3 mock healthy meals. Almost all of the girls passed the lesson. Other lessons today were Exercise, HIV/AIDS and Sexual/Reproductive Health.

After lessons, I was again heckled during slagball. And today, I didn't even play. I had become the center of attention at the camp. Even the cabin moms were ribbing me pretty good, today. Clearly, I got a kick out of the whole thing.

Tonight, we had our HIV/AIDS night. The night started with the Tutu school kids I had worked with performing their skits. Then, a professional group from Masiakiiki, a 1 hour boat ride away, performed a skit but they were rained out half-way through and had to re-perform the skit the following morning. The night wrapped up with an informational HIV/AIDS movie. After the movie, the kids and I were running through the rain back to our cabins--I had to take care of a leak in one of the kids' cabins.

Day 4: The night before, we were supposed to finish with a guest speaker. She is a woman with HIV. I had met her for the first time the day before and had an amazing conversation with her the night before. Due to time constraints, we pushed back this woman's speach until this morning. Definitely the most unforgettable moment of camp. After the camp, I ran into the tourist camp owner telling this woman's story to a group of guys over beers in Tutu and some of the guys asked me if this lady's story was true. The tourist camp owner said he almost couldn't believe the story was true because the woman looked so healthy and strong and yet there she was standing infront of 50 young women telling them that she was living with HIV. During her speach, a few people cried, including the woman giving the speach. She talked about living with HIV but mostly talked about how one must carry themself so they don't contract HIV, she talked about faith, the importance of family, staying strong in times of adversity and told the girls to take what they learn in this camp and apply it to their everyday lives. Definitely the high point of the camp.

After this we had three lessons, Goal Setting, Leadership and Careers. Careers was also another high point for the camp. A prominent Saramaccan woman lead the session. She listed all the jobs men and women traditionally do in the culture, one by one she read off the jobs men do and asked if a woman could do that job, every girl emphatically yelled yes each time.

Later in the day, we played slagball again. I was only heckled once which was a drastic improvement over the last two days. Today, we played Peace Corps Volunteers versus all the girls who wanted to play. Even though we won, we had the scorekeeper tell the girls they had won. While they were celebrating we took two buckets filled with water balloons and pelted the girls with about 100 water balloons. Also a memorable moment of the camp.

The day wrapped up with a slide show of all the photos that had been taken during the camp and I supplied a mix CD of the pop music I play at the radio--Waka Waka by Shakira, Yori-yori by Bracket, and Night Shift & One More Night by Busy Signal (look em' up on Youtube). Of course, as had been par for the camp, when my yoga pictures were shown in the slide show I got quite a few applause. What can I say, I'm a Saramaccan celebrity. I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. After the slide show we let the girls dance for about a half-hour. When the music turned off and we tried to get the girls to sleep they revolted. They stayed up, danced for a whilte and then decided to sing church songs for another 30 minutes. Damn teenagers. Actually, I found it a bit comical. Maybe all that empowerment stuff had already gotten into their heads.

Day 5: Last day of camp! I spent most of the day doing radio interviews with cabin moms, teachers, Peace Corps Volunteers, the tourist camp staff and the campers. I played the interviews on Radio Mujee, 104.1 fm, one of the love stations in big sexy Sipalwini (our station's motto). I did take a quick break to play capture the flag though, which our green team won after a 40 minute stalemate when Pam aka Suti Lobi stole the flag and brought it to our territory while the other team was distracted. It was pretty awesome.

The camp finally came to a close with the Tutu school girls leaving on their boat, singing to their new friends from other villages as they undocked and rode off. My first camp, ever, and a great one.

Ndeku: Drugging the creek

"Where's your bag of fish?"--Woman
"I put my fish in someone else's bag."--Me
"Ha, then you won't be eating any fish tonight."--Woman

Ndeku, a Saramaccan fishing method for catching lots of fish where the fish get drunk and the people have to do a lot of hard labor. I know what you're thinking, doesn't that actually defeat the purpose of fishing?

Upon my return to Gunzi after a two and a half hour up-river boat trip from Zemoise, still with my bags in hand and life jacket on, I walked past a group of men who had congregated behind my house. "What are you guys doing?" Since Gunzi's motorcycle gang was there and logs and sticks were a plenty in the vicinity I figured it was some kind of Hell Angel's meeting like used to go down back home on East Lewelling. "Ndeku!", my friend Kuka yelled. I had been waiting for over a year to go on a ndeku trip. Up to this point, I had only heard the amazing tales from a few very lucky Peace Corps Volunteers who had attended ndeku creek druggings. I ran to my house, threw down my baggage, grabbed my machette and rubber boots, then headed out into the jungle with a 50 pound bag of sticks and logs on top of my head. We walked out 3 miles into the jungle before we arrived at the big creek that runs under the great bridge.

I walked out with 3 other men and met up with 13 other people who had come to drug the creek. There were about 20 sacks worth of ndeku wood that people had carried for 3 miles from the village to the creek. After dropping our sacks or wheel barrows of logs and sticks on the ground, we took our machettes and began to cut down trees. We cut pieces of these trees into clubs to hit and mash up the ndeku. The purpose of this was to expose the white wood underneath the bark which has some kind of chemical that drugs the fish and forces them to the top of the water. We spent over 2 hours pounding ndeku, re-filling the sacks and wheel barrows with the pounded ndeku.

We began bringing the pounded ndeku to a few big rocks that the creek ran around.
Maku, who appeared to be our spiritual leader, begged the god of the forest for a good hunt of the fish and prayed that none of the kids got hurt. I think he was praying for me. After Maku's prayer, a few of the guys began to rinse and pound the ndeku even further to create a milky looking white substance that began running down the creek. Within a minute a sting ray had floated to the top of the water which gave everyone a scare and then another minute later a load of little fish floated to the top of the water and the kids who had come to the ndeku began scooping them up with their strainers into buckets. After observing for a few minutes and waiting until the men got down pounding the ndeku, I jumped into the creek with my machette. Finally! All those episodes of Man Vs. Wild that I watched before Peace Corps were going to pay off.

With machette in hand, I began heading down the creek with the men who were wielding machettes and bags to hold their hauls of fish. Up to this point my only fishing experience had been with a 13 year-old kid named Stephano and I dropped the one fish he handed me which meant my total fish haul for my year and change in Gunzi was -1. So the guys did not tell me to bring a bag because they didn't think I would catch any fish or they wanted to take my haul. I was relieved to immediately snag a tiny fish that wasn't alive and had floated to the top of the water. I raised my living-room, aquarium sized fish in triumph, my fish haul for over a year in Gunzi was now 0. We continued to head further up the creek and I found a few medium sized fish, two of which I was able to maim with my machette and throw into someone else's fish bag. I caught a lot of little ones with my hands, by the end of the day I could grab the fish routinely like a shortstop scooping up a ground ball. By the end of the day, I had caught over 20 total fish.

Of course, this event couldn't pass without a comical, token Peace Corps moment. After catching a few small and medium fish I was getting my confidence up. I was holding my machette and knee deep in creek water. I was standing next to a man named Mambele, probably the best hunter and farmer in the village. I had just thrown a fish in his bag and we were standing next to each other looking for fish when all the sudden something began shaking underneath and between my legs. Apparently, my reaction should have been to swing my machette down and kill whatever had floated to the surface under my legs. Instead, I let out an exclamation of surprise and almost jumped out of my rubber boots. Mambele turned around and I pointed at the water. He swung his machete at the water a few times and then pulled a 30 pound monster of a fish out of the water. Moments later, he caught an even bigger fish and would finish the day with 3 fish around 30 pounds.

I'd estimate that we waded, and at some points swam, a little over a mile down the creek. The group of men I was with, seven of us, caught over 500 total fish in about two and a half hours. And that lady was right, I still haven't eaten any of those fish, yet.

Fon Ndeku

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLipx0WB3WM

Kids Catching Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4G2hVADTWg

Me going for fish w/ machette

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElFPHgDzk90

The Big Kahuna!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7t2GW9lQQ

World AIDS Day 2010 in Tutubuka

"I wanna run, I want to hide, I wanna tear down the walls that hold me inside. I wanna reach out, and touch the flame." --U2, Where the Streets Have No Name


Translation(Saramaccan): How will you carry yourself?
World AIDS Day 2010

World AIDS Day in Tutubuka, again. 7 weeks, 32 new kids, 2 new teachers, 1 new Peace Corps Volunteer-Josh aka Tutubala, Catherine and I.

This year's lessons and World AIDS followed a format similar to the one the year before with a few modifications. We spent several weeks in the school, again, teaching the kids about what HIV and this year we talked more about HIV in Suriname--who's at risk, Suriname's prevalanece rate.
This year's class consisted of 29 girls and 3 boys which created some unique opportunities.

One of the new additions to this year's program, due to my vastly improved language skills, was the use of the radio to expand our potential audience. I already used the radio to promote and report on the boatman training that I hosted in early November. This year, I used the radio to advertise all 3 World AIDS Day hosted by Peace Corps Volunteers on the radio and I worked with a local health on a Saturday night show which we discussed HIV/AIDS information and other heatlh topics. But the biggest success was teaming with the host of the new Tuesday night show called "Time for Lovers", the Saramaccan equivalent of love-line. The show's host, my friend from Abenaston named A.S., reads letters, usually fictional, from distressed Saramaccans and he lets the audience call in and give advice. I arranged for one of the doctors at the medical clinic to write a few different scenarios-mostly having to do with testing for HIV, and had A.S. read them on Tuesday nights. The response was pretty good as the fictional letters were pretty juicy but addressed real-life scenarios observed on the river. The radio work wrapped up with me playing interviews from the World AIDS Day event and doing a T-shirt giveaway over the air for listeners who called in and could answer a question about HIV correctly.

After returning from the city on November 28 with the supplies for our event, Catherine and I spent all week working with the kids on the skits. On Friday, we ran through each skit twice and talked with the kids about Saturday's schedule. On Saturday, Catherine and Josh with the help of Mark and Ryan--two other new PCVs who came to help out, set up the community center with the school kids and the DJ we hired. I was an hour late because I basically had to drag the one kid I was responsible for bringing from Gunzi to Tutubuka. We ran through the skits two more times and then the DJ played music until some local women finished cooking lunch--rice, beans, chicken, cumbers with onions and vinegar, eggplant and it was friggin' delicious!

The event kicked off a little after four o'clock and the kids did a good job on the five-part play we had rehearsed. The two main characters names were Carla and Suti Lobi(Sweet Lover), Carla's boyfriend who was played by one of the 29 girls in the class since the 3 boys were too shy. The skits were addressed issues in today's Saramaccan culture--men leaving the village for work, taking another woman, catching HIV, transmitting it to their first woman and wrapped up with the two main characters testing, getting the results and what happened when they told their friends and family. Then, the kids added a little piece, I am not exactly sure what the hell it was about though. One of the lesser characters was now pregnant, everyone on stage was laughing, and it appeared someone was cussing out the male character, Suti Lobi. After the kids got done with the skits, they sang several songs they had rehearsed by themselves without any direction from teachers or the Peace Corps. This turned out surprisingly well and help conclude the kids' piece on a high note. The event finally wrapped up with some words from Catherine and one of the health workers from the medical clinic gave a speach.

My most favorite part of the day came after the skits and music had come to an end. No one was sure how this conclusion would play out, it was the idea of the health worker who had given the speach at the event. The health worker wanted to do a candle light vigil and we bought 200 candles in the city not knowing if this would actually happen. Everyone was directed to meet at a store on the other side of the village at 6:30 pm. As people arrived, we spent about 30 minutes passing out candles and lighting them. A walk was then led across the village of Tutubuka, population 1,500, and we arrived back at the community center with about 200 people where the kids began singing songs while holding their candles in the air. It was a truly beautiful sight, one I won't ever forget, and a great way to finish the day.

11/8/2010: Boatmen Condom Distribution Training in Atjoni

"I'm a business volunteer. I wasn't trained to use a female condom. And these directions are in Saramaccan, not English..."--an 'Oh Crap!' moment

A day over two years in the making. To the best of my knowledge this idea started as a small, informal project a year before I arrived in Gunzi with the previous volunteer. The idea was to train local boatmen, store owners and women in HIV/AIDS education and have them distribute condoms within their villages. I had heard about the project and thought it was a great idea and I wanted to go forward with it. When I arrived in Gunzi my starting point was an excel file left for me on the Tei Wei computers. The file was a contact list of 5 men and 1 woman. I would later find out that two other men had been trained, or at least said they had been trained as well.

During my first year of service, on trips to the city I would set aside a morning to walk the long mile from Stadz, my usual city lodging, to National AIDS Program (NAP) and back. NAP is the organization in the city who usually will give me as many free condoms as I want and can lug across town. I've brought as many as two thousand condoms from the city to the interior in one trip. That time the condoms were sent with another Peace Corps Volunteer in a neighboring village and I had to walk to his village, pick up 2,000 condoms and walk 30 minutes through the jungle and over 4 creeks before arriving back in my village with the condoms. A resume builder, clearly. Once the condoms were at my house in Gunzi I would distribute them to the several contacts I had inherited. Meanwhile, I was travelling the river, talking with boatmen who gave me rides, drinking beers with boatmen in Atjoni (our port town), trying to build interest to expand the the capacity of this project.

At first, Matt Nofziger, the Peace Corps Volunteer of Bendikwai, and myself wanted to hold the boatman training in May with a budget of 90 SRD. Didn't work out that way. I went back to the United States on holiday in June until mid-July and the next possible date was early September. At this point things were still fairly disorganized. We had the boatmen contacts, we had the organization in the city giving us the condoms but no sure-fire, sustainable way to continuously get the condoms to Atjoni--the same problem the last volunteer had. Actually, Peace Corps Volunteers are going to continue to transport the condoms from NAP to the river for the time being, but we're trying to set up a way for the project to be 100% Surinamese--transportation, storage and distribution. On August 10, my luck changed. In a conversation with one of my bosses who had come to visit in Gunzi, she gave me the contact for a local medical clinic worker who lived in a village that neighbored Atjoni. He wanted Peace Corps Volunteers to help him with HIV/AIDS lessons. Bingo! I had also been informed that Peace Corps Suriname would be receiving PEPFAR(President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) funds to give HIV/AIDS trainings in Suriname. Again, BINGO! And again, the project would be pushed back until we could get the funds for the project.

So starting in September, once every two to three weeks I started hopping boats going between Gunzi and Pokigron, the neighboring village of Atjoni where the medical clinic worker lives and works. The boat ride is only an hour but it's an all day event as the boat leaves Gunzi at 8:30 am and does not leave Atjoni until an unspecified time after 2 pm, commonly referred to locally as "dalek" (translation: later, it should eventually happen). So I'd spend an hour or two at the medical post planning and organizing the event. Then, I'd have the rest of my afternoon to loiter in Atjoni and drown in all its free Parbo beers while trying to recruit boatmen to the project. One afternoon, while passing out fliers to market the event I asked a group of 10 guys if they were boatmen. All but one of them ignored me, they told me they drove cars. So I handed one flyer over to the only guy who told me he was a boatman and told him I'd be distributing condoms in two weeks. Then, the other 9 guys changed their minds and suddenly wanted to be boatmen and they were all arguing over who had the biggest motor. I distributed 9 more flyers for the training.

Working with the medical post in Pokigron as well as the local medical post near Gunzi, we decided to make posters. One had already been made in Saramaccan to inform people how to prevent HIV. Now the medical post wanted me to make two more--one in Dutch, one in Saramaccan. We'd inform people where to throw away their used condoms--probably was inspired after the HIV/AIDS training I held with the store owner in Nw. Aurora which was a pilot for the boatman training(see blog below). This was a pretty hilarious photo shoot. We took two pictures where not to throw away condoms--river and the street. Then we took three pictures where you should dispose of condoms--toilet, dig a hole and my personal favorite, burn it. I took a couple of different shots for each situation and when we were burning the condom the medical worker was getting pretty nervous as the fire kept getting higher and closer to the condom he was holding. The majority of our budget went into making these three posters for mass distribution among Saramaccan villages along the Suriname River. The rest of the budget would be for paper copies of a women's condom manual and refreshments at the event.

Around mid-October everything was good to go or so it seemed. NAP would be supplying condoms. The PEPFAR funds would be in. And so the posters could be printed. Actually, NAP's shipment got held up and the amount of condoms they could give me was far less than they had anticipated. Luckily Matt and I had been building up a stash of condom boxes NAP had given us earlier and with the few condoms NAP could supply this trip into the city we had about 1,900 male condoms to give away. We had hoped to distribute at least 3,000 male condoms at the event. After finding out we wouldn't have the amount of condoms we wanted, Matt and I also found out the PEPFAR money had not arrived in Suriname yet. I had to call the office supply store and ask for an advance for our posters which cost over 1,000 USD which is the equivalent of 4 months worth of my salary. The rest of the project budget I'd pay out of my own pocket until the PEPFAR money comes in and I can be reimbursed. And just because, when I dropped off my posters at the office supply store I found out the Dutch poster had spelling errors--after they had all already been printed. #$(%*!!! But, just when all hope seemed lost, the kind woman (nay, saint would describe her better) at the office supply store fixed the mistakes and re-printed every copy of the poster. Luckily she had caught the mistakes before laminating. She threw us a bone, fixed the errors in the document, reprinted 250 color copies and laminated them.

So Matt and I arrived in Atjoni with the medical worker from Pokigron on Monday, November 8, 2010. We had posters, 1,900 male condoms, 500 female condoms and 300 copies of a female condom manual in Saramaccan ready to distribute for the training at 10:30 am. A few minutes before 10 am, I'm thinking to myself, 'where the heck are these boatmen!?' I had anticipated 15 guys to arrive at the training but so far I'm only seeing about 7. Luckily, they start rolling into Atjoni around 10:15 am and can let out a sigh of relief. We get them to congregate into a building where we're serving cold refreshments which probably helped recruit two or three more guys. The training started around 11 am and went pretty smooth. I introduced myself, Matt, the other 3 Peace Corps Volunteers in attendance as well as the medical worker. I talked about the HIV situation in Suriname: over 12,000 people have tested positive for HIV and the most recent statistics show that there are 800 new HIV transmissions in Suriname each year. This is why we're here. From there, the medical worker did most of the talking. He showed the boatmen and 3 women how to properly use a male condom, he put this on a long stick, and female condom. We had each boatman hold and demonstrate how to properly use a female condom--I really hope Ryan snapped a picture of this. The medical worker and I taught the boatmen what HIV is, how HIV is transmitted, how they should go about distributing condoms and where people should dispose of those condoms. We distributed condoms and posters and then wrapped up the training with some radio interviews with those in attendance. On Monday night, the same day as the training, I played the interviews at the radio station in Gunzi. The following night I made a 20 minute HIV program and burnt it onto a CD. The CD, in the Saramaccan language, has information about HIV in Suriname, basic transmission and prevention facts, and includes interviews with the boatmen and medical worker from Atjoni. So far the reviews of the show have been positive.

As the project status stands, for the first time in a year I am out of condoms to distribute. NAP's condom ship is almost here though, so condom supply should not be a problem in the future. But, an arrangement is still being worked out for the city to send a steady supply of condoms to Pokigron for distribution to the boatmen. As it stands now, I'm still transporting the condoms to the Upper Suriname River. Since I am gone in less than a year, it will be vital for the sustainability of the project to find a consistent means of transportation of condoms from the city to Pokigron. As this is something that the medical post needs to organize, all I can do is wait, hope and continue to transport the condoms for the time being.

At the end of the day, 24 men and 3 women who also attended were trained in HIV/AIDS education and will distribute condoms in their communities along the Suriname River for the time being. The posters that were made are already hanging in different villages along the river. This training was such a success that the medical clinic in Pokigron is hoping to work with Peace Corps in the future and hold a second training aimed at women.

I Live Here

"So how long have you stayed here?"--Dutch Tourist
"Actually, I live here."--Me

I have lost count of how many times I have been asked how long I have been and will be here. But every time I tell a Dutch or Belgian or the occassionally lost American tourist who happened to stumble upon Suriname that I live in Gunzi and will be here for two years I always receive the same look of shock and then suspicision which is followed by interrogation. "Two years, what do you do!?" No, I'm not CIA, man. Trying to explain the concept of Peace Corps is difficult though. By now, after my attempt at describing Peace Corps, the person I'm talking with is usually convinced I'm a missionary. Nope. "So you just... live there?" Yep. Read books, lock myself in my house and watch movies and put in the occassional day of work here and there. At least that was the first year of Peace Corps in review. I've been more busy since returning from the States. Since the beginning of September, I've painted a World Map with the kids in my village, I have been working on the PEPFAR committee for Suriname, given an HIV training and distributed condoms to boatmen, been helping with HIV lessons with the local school, and sporadically been giving computer lessons and working at the radio. And yeah, I live here.

During my first year I spent a lot of time gardening and until recently I had considered starting a little farm for myself in Gunzi to keep busy. My garden, a 40 yard wide by 10 yard long area, was cleared with the help of one of the villagers of Gunzi and quickly became a point of interest for passing tourist groups. Tourists were surprised and impressed by my hard work and successes growing vegetables. They asked me how I had learned to plant this or that. Usually luck. I had no idea what I was doing which is why I ended up with an unneccessary area of 400 yards for planting. I had picked up some useful knowledge though, I was starting to make compost and learned how to arrange sticks properly so the climbing vines of the Surinamese green bean, kosbanti, would climb my structure and then its harvest could be more easily picked. I also had learned planting methods of some of the local staple foods, mostly this just involved cutting a big stick and jamming into the ground. A few months later you'd have a spinach or cassava readily available. "So, you've got some food to eat but where do you live?"

When I befriend tourists in Gunzi they usually want to take a quick tour of the house. I say quick because it's two rooms which are actually the size of one room in an average American house. I have a video of my house on youtube, if you've seen it you know I have a porch infront of the house with a kitchen/library/living area in the front room and a bedroom in back. An outdoor toilet and washing area are behind my house next to the tank that I use to catch water. There's also a thatch roof on top that's getting eaten to bits by termites. That's it. People are usually mystified when walking through myself because they can't imagine themself living inside of this house for one day let alone two years. For me, it's never been a big deal. Infact, I like the quiet, quaint space that it is. The porch and thatch roof keep the quarters shaded and cool and there's enough room inside the front room to string a hammock and read a good book. Most importantly, less area in the house means less to clean. Not that would have actually cleaned a bigger space anyways.

The thing most visitors are surprised to find out about me is that I speak the local language, Saramaccans. No Dutch. And the advantage to that is I can say whatever the heck I want right infront of them and they have no idea what I am talking about.
One of the younger men in the village and I usually take advantage of that fact the most. "Hey Basiapai, I'll take this hanse (beautiful) one and you take that hanse one, we'll paddle them across the river. It'll be just like old times!" Usually my Saramaccan skills come in handy to spend the day being a translator for the tourists which usually nets me a cold refreshment at one of the local wenkes(stores).

This is where I live, Gunzi, a small Saramaccan village with a tourist camp where my path has crossed with many travellers from all over the World. After a day or maybe as long as a week together, I feel most people whose path I've crossed have a more positive outlook on the Peace Corps and understand how I live here, together with the Saramaccan people.


*With that said, I do a lot of the writing here on the blog and if anyone has any questions, requests for stories, videos or photos of a certain place of thing I have talked about, don't hesitate to post and ask.

--Basiapai

The World Map

"Why is that kid eating paint!?"--me

Day 1. The World Map project in Gunzi. Where do I begin? Fun, educational, challenging but rewarding, and at times chaotic. We started the map on a Wednesday when the children coincidentally did not have school. We were able to hold a sanding and priming session in the morning and met again in the afternoon. Trying to organize and control 10 kids in our community center I began to distribute supplies and before I knew it the kids were priming a second coat before sanding the board down again. Oh well, no sweat. We decided to meet tomorrow when school was over and the kids told me they would make the 1500 box grid that would act as our guiding lines for drawing the World Map on our 2.5 meter x 1.2 meter wooden board.

Day 2 started around four in the afternoon. Only one person showed up at 4 o'clock which made me nervous. This actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. My counterpart's son 'Ke', who is the 14 year old version of my obnoxious younger brother Steven, and I were able to work together and trace the outside of the grid. Now the hard part, 6 other younger kids had just shown up and volunteered to trace the inside of the grid. This didn't go well. I traced the first two boxes of the grid as a reference--7x7 blocks of the 1500 box grid. Ke and I showed the kids how to do the work so all the lines would arrive relatively straight. I decided to let 4 of the kids work on this at once to try and speed up the process. Big mistake! We ended up with 8 crooked grid boxes so I had to kick all the kids out of the community center, erase the work that had been done and I would make the 1500 box grid tomorrow on my own while the kids were at school. I was happy they tried, frustrated at myself for trying to rush the grid with such young kids.

Day 3 I woke up and began working on the grid at 9 am. With only a 12 inch/30 centimeter ruler, I finally finished around 2 pm with the help of Ke's brother, Bodi. Bodi and I immediately started drying the outline of the globe upon completion of the grid. Bodi then drew North America and Greenland, and a girl named Aranza drew Antartica. An efficient, productive day. But the biggest day would be tomorrow. I had arrainged for the parents to let their kids work on the map all day and my friend in Gunzi, Marlene, had offered to cook up sweet rolls and lunch I had provided for the kids and I while we worked on the map.

Day 4 the kids showed up at my house at 8:45 am ready work 15 minutes before we had scheduled. When we arrived at the community center a kid named Fabio, who claims he is going to marry my sister someday, began drawing South America. I helped him with a few corrections but he got it pretty good. Bodi and a 6th-grade girl named Orlanda began drawing everything in the eastern hemisphere. Unfortunately, before we had finished drawing all the countries in pencil, two of the kids grabbed the Sharpie's and began outlining the country boundaries in black. This would prove to be problematic since not all countries had been drawn to scale and we had not finished drawing the Middle East and the southern most countries of Asia.

Day 5 I took one look at the map and realized we had fixed and created several new problems in the Middle East. If you look closely at our map, Afghanistan and Pakistan do not share a border any more. Problem solved. I also noticed that the entire continent of Africa was not drawn to scale which really disappointed me. The kid who had drawn Africa had did a pretty good job on the rest of the map but just couldn't line up the grid for this part. So I left the outline of the Africa continent he had drawn. Then I painted white over the inside of the country borders he had drawn and then re-drew each African country by eye. Since I have no artistic talent I was just trying to squeeze each country into the continent the best I could. Came out decent. So after spending some time fixing a few of the major fixable errors and then drawing the sponsor logos around the outside of the globe, we began painting with what we had drawn. We mixed blue and white to make an ocean blue and and were going to paint the outside border around the globe white. Up until this point Ke, had been on pretty good behavior. Now, he started his obnoxious rebel teenager act. I let two of the kids paint the oceans and bodies of water with the blue I had mixed for them. Ke was supposed to paint the outside white. He decided to mix some blue into the white. I snapped at him for a second and he told me he did it because it looked better. OK, not a big deal, it's a mere shade off, I decided to let him do it his way. Then, all of the sudden, he grabs the blue paint can and starts putting a deep, dark blue where we've been painting the ocean. I noticed this when he happened to kick over a can of paint onto the board. At this point, I had no patience for his shennanigans anymore and I told him to go home. He left, for about 10 minutes. Then he came back and did an awesome job the rest of the day... I'm not looking forward to having teenage kids of my own some day. So we painted all the bodies of water ocean blue and all the borders white.



Day 6, we arrive in the morning and something is wrong. We painted all the bodies of water ocean blue. There are some dark blue streaks smeared across the Atlantic Ocean...BRYAN! Yes, the hogiest(baddest) little 3 year old kid in the village had snuck into the community center in the middle of the night, found some blue paint that had been left out, and climbed up a table to get to the brushes we had put away out of his reach. He put his signature on our ocean. Of course, when questioned, he blamed his little 1 year old buddy who can't speak yet. At least he's a smart kid. So we began painting again. We started by painting America yellow. Problem, the yellow isn't dark enough to paint over the grid lines. We realize we're going to have to paint the inside of each country white, UGH! We're all disappointed as were ready to start painting. So I go to my house and bring the white back. While I was helping the kids who were painting the inside of the countries white, the little 1 one year old kid who was the cop out for Bryan starts eating paint. Eating paint! WHOA! I have to run him over to a faucet in the village and start cleaning him up. I send him home. After letting the white paint dry the kids convinced me we should finish up painting all the countries that night. We worked until about 7 pm at night with very little light finishing the painting. This was also probably a mistake as several of the countries which had been drawn to scale were now paint blobs. But, when it was done the kids were pretty damn proud. At leas they were happy.

Day 7 I arrived in the morning on my own. The kids were done drawing and painting. Bryan again had broken into the community center and smeared some of the paint across Africa. I decided to fix up the map a bit. It took me about 30 minutes to mix the white and blue paints together until I arrived at the same shade of ocean blue we had made before. I touched up the ocean and re-painted a few of the countries to make it presentable. I also stood guard at the community center to make sure Bryan wouldn't put his meddlesome hands on the paint anymore. And believe me, he made at least 3 attempts that afternoon.

Day 8 was the wrap up day. The kids and I began with a meeting. We talked about what went well, what could've improved. We agreed we had all rushed a few things too quickly. We all also agreed that we need to find a better place to store the board when we're done painting so Bryan won't smear more paint. After we got done meeting I let all the kids write a few country names on the board. Ke, my problem teenager, took over most of the work and did a good job writing most of the names. Finally, we took a picture infront of the nearly completed World Map.

Day 9 I showed up and put varnish over the map. This isn't interesting enough to write about.

Day 10 I had agreed to give the kids an English lesson for the first time in 2 months and we would be discussing the World Map. One of the better lessons I have had. We talked about North America, where the 3 Peace Corps Volunteers in Gunzi live in America, where some of the kids' favorite ball players come from and I wrapped up with the kids with a discussion about where the different peoples of Suriname originated. In the end, even though the map didn't come out perfect I feel it served its purpose to help educate the children about geography.

October Baseball in Suriname

"Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish Whiskey. The other ten percent I'll probably waste."--Tug McGraw(after signing a new 75K contract)


Due to our voluntary financial predicament, Peace Corps Volunteers around the World tip our caps to you, Tug McGraw.

America's pastime, not an easy ticket to come by in Suriname.
Strange start times, strange channel and not a lot of interest on the part of the Surinamese. Luckily, there is a bar located within walking distance of the Peace Corps Office and we've been chummy with the owner for a couple of years now. Infact it's almost a personal Peace Corps Suriname bar. If you've ever been to Chico, this bar is to Peace Corps Suriname what The Bear is to Chico State, it's not officially on our campus but it is. Last year, this was the only bar in town willing to play the opening Monday Night Football games for us, Patriots-Bills and Raiders-Chargers if memory serves me correctly. So, we got the owner's number and now we give him a call anytime we want to watch a game and I can't think of a time he hasn't opened up for us. Awesome! He's okay with strange sport kickoff/first pitch times, has the strange channels no one else has, TBS, and he can tolerate football although it appears he isn't too fond of baseball.

Since arriving in Suriname, I had one chance to watch a baseball game. Last year, the owner of this bar opened up but when we arrived we found out the game was rained out. I think we ended up eating some delicious barbequed chicken he cooked up for us and watched Family Guy and the other Sunday night cartoons on FOX. During this 2010 season, I had seen a grand total of 0 regular season games while in Suriname, although I caught a few games when I was back in the States on vacation. Most of my baseball updates this season came from two sources. First, reading my uncle's facebook status updates. I figured out the Giants had been on a winning streak and were moving up in the division when his facebook status changed to 'adopting a kid named Buster'. So either Buster Posey had a really good year or there's some new trend in America that I don't know about. My other source of updates came from over-the-phone play-by-play from my dad, "2-0 Giants in the 7th. 2 on, 2 out. 3-2 count to Tejada, here comes the pitch...struck him out! Grab some pine meat!" Kruk and Kuip meet Jimmy and Bobby. And so 6 outs after Tejada struck out, the Giants would win the division. My next trip into the city coincided with the opening of the Giants-Braves series.

Game 1, Thursday October 7, first pitch: 10:30 pm Suriname Time. But of course, we got to the bar earlier. Around 8 pm, I called the owner and informed him we wanted to come in, he said he'd open up for us at 9 pm and so we arrived accordingly. The night started off with my friend buying me a 1 liter Parbo Beer (referred to as a 'djugo' in Suriname) because the Padres finished second to the Giants. I toasted the 2010 NL West Champs, took a sip of the sweet, ice cold brew and noted that it tasted a lot like victory. My friend probably wanted to punch me. My 4 Peace Corps friends and I had a few drinks, shot the breeze with the owner of the establishment and watched the Yanks finish off the Twins. How far out of the loop are we? We had no idea Lance Berkman was a Yank. When did this happen!?

10:30 pm: Game time! Lincecum comes out dealing! Second batter and I'm already starting the left-field bleacher-bum chant: "What's the matter with Heyward!? He's a bum!" One of my New England based counterparts doesn't appreciate my cheer and begins her own anti-Yankee cheer; it was second rate compared to the banter that originated from the left field bleachers of Pac Bell Park--or whatever it is called now. In the middle of the first inning we're trying to explain to the owner the concept of baseball, he doesn't get it. He tries to explain cricket, we don't get that. Around the 2nd inning two more female Peace Corps Volunteers arrive and convince us to play card games and King's Cup. King's Cup, like baseball, also a first in Suriname. Also, a bad idea. I'm keeping an eye on the game the whole time but the owner sees I'm pre-occuppied and changes the channel to some FOX show. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! There's no score and Tim Lincecum is dealin'. But

I know he doesn't like baseball and I'm pre-occupied so I decide not to make a deal of it since it's early in the game. Little did I know I'd miss the only run of the game. By the time I had asked the owner to turn back the channel it was the 6th inning and already 1-0 Giants. And so the score would stand with Lincecum taking the victory and striking out 14. Got in a good couple fist pumps and a victory exclamation much to the dismay of the Padre faithful present at the time. I finally walked out the door sometime after 2 am Suriname time thinking clearly: better figure out where I can find a bed my next trip in the city so I can watch the Giants in the World Series. Go Giants!(This piece was written before the G's-Phillies series started)

(Now, This piece was written 10/24) I went to bed last night knowing the Giants had a 3-2 lead in the top of the 9th against the Phillies in game 6 of the NLCS. I wanted to stay up but it was already past midnight and the birthday party in Bendikwai the evening before had left me too exhausted to continue on late into the night. So I woke up this morning a bit anxious as I had not received any text updates from any friends or family updating me on how the game ended yesterday. So I spent the early morning hours biting my nails wondering, pondering, imagining how tourtous those last 3 outs must have come with Brian Wilson on the hill in the bottom of the 9th with what as far as I knew would be a 1 run lead in the bottom of the 9th. Not sure at what time I should wait to call home, my anxiety was relieved when a few minutes before noon I walked into my house after washing my clothes in the river and found my phone ringing... "Giants!" was all I heard on the other end, "Alright!"
I replied. My dad then gave me the whole play by play recap of game 6 and how the Giants managed to hold on.

This was perhaps the most unique way I have ever followed sports. In Gunzi, the electricity turns off at midnight or 8 pm on the West Coast. So for Games 1 and 4
I traded phone calls with my dad for inning to inning updates. Both games I stayed up well after the electricity turned off. So I had to light a candle and stay up with my phone kept close by waiting for a call from America with updates on the Giants. Glad I stayed up for those two games. Game 3 an afternoon game on the West Coast and I got a call in the early evening here in Suriname from my dad with an update on the game, that was pretty simple to coordinate. Games 5 and 6 occurred while I was in Bendikwai and immediately after I returned to Gunzi from Bendikwai for my friend's birthday party. Too exhausted to stay up these nights I had to go to bed each night and wake up both mornings not knowing if the Giants had won or lost and whether or not we had made the World Series. (Torture!)
Luckily I was able to see one of the games of the series, sort of, here in Gunzi in my hut! For Game 2, I was able to connect to the internet and was able to watch a live feed of the game from the middle of the jungle. And when I say watch the game, I mean my connection speed allowed me to see about 4 pitches every inning.
Fortunately the audio was loading faster and I got an every-other batter account as opposed to a play-by-play from McCarver and Buck. This was supplemented with the occassional Live Game Day update on Yahoo. And that my friends, is how you have to follow Giants baseball in the jungle. Go Giants!

Patching the roof

"They don't know that they don't know yet."--James Rhodes, New Hampshire/Vermont but still with us in spirit and on facebook


Roof repair ridiculousness! When I moved into my house I had a termite nest on my ceiling beam the size of 3 American Footballs. My roof, an A-frame made with trees freshly cut from the jungle and covered with a palm-like leaf the locals call palalu and all tied together with some kind of jungle vine, has been a haven for termites since I moved in. The termites have been nesting in my thatch roof for the past year and have recently chewed far enough through the thatch to create some leaks in the house. The first two leaks are next to my door above the shelf that holds my medicines and wicked cool imitation Dulce Gabana sunglass--actually acquired from a care package and not bought in Suriname. Suriname is notorious for their cheap knock offs of extravagantly expensive name brands. The other leak is above my kitchen stove. Needing some roof repairs, I gave Peace Corps a ring and got the OK to hire someone in the village to do some roof repair.

I approached Max, the villager who had tied the house for the previous volunteer. From what I saw he had done a good job tying the roof and the fault with the leaks was due to the location of my house next to an abandoned house infested with termites and a cashew tree which is also a breeding ground for termites. Max had been unable to work recently after a tree branch fell and went through his foot. He could not walk for about two months. Recently in passing he mentioned he wanted to find some work in order to make money to go to the city. So we sat down, negotiated the terms of payment and how the work would be carried out. I would help with some of the labor. Cue the introductory quote.

So day 1 Max and I walk out into the jungle. From my house, we walked 3/4's of a mile and we found a spot with an abudance of the tree leaves we needed for my roof. We cut down a tree with these huge palalu leaves--about 10 feet long leaves that look like a palm leaf. Max manages to nearly kill me on only 10 different occassions. He does this by cutting down trees that are falling next to where I'm stacking the leaves we have already cut. After cutting all the leavesm we finish stacking them and decide to come back for the pile two days later. Despite my lack of knowledge on thatch roof repair I have this hunch that we've cut too many leaves--Max told me I was wrong.

Day 2 of the work, on our way out to the jungle Max's slipper breaks and I have to run back to his house to retrieve another pair. The latch on his door is broken and I can't keep the door shut. A passing villager says he'll take care of it. So I walk quickly back out on the jungle path and after bringing Max his new pair of sandals we walk out to where we cut the leaves. Whew! They're still all there. Unfortunately, I'll be the one carrying the leaves 3/4's of a mile through the jungle and back to my house in the village. This sucked! So Max took the pile and seperated them into four stacks. He took the stem of the palm leaf and cut it very thin; he used this is as a rope to keep a stack tied together. So he gave me the first stack and I started carrying it. I got about 10 yards away when he yelled, "put it on your head! It'll be easier." So I carried the first stack of leaves, 60 pounds, 3/4's of a mile from the jungle to my house--on my head! Pretty damn tired already. Definitely thinking about that James Rhodes quote again. I go back for stack 2. Balancing this stack on my head again, I bring it to the trail head a little under a 1/4 of a mile from my house. I'm completely frustrated and starting to get pissed off. This work is even worse because we are in the dry season and everyday the weather is oppressively hot. I think the work will be less back breaking if I borrow the wheel barrow from the Captain. So I brought the 3rd stack through the jungle with the wheel barrow. This didn't go well either--path is to difficult to navigate with a wheel barrow. So I bring the 3rd stack and the wheel barrow to the trail head and leave them there. I begrudingly go back for the fourth stack, hoping that Max is bringing it into the village. He's not. Again, I bring another stack back to the trail head on my head.

All the stacks are at least in the village now--1 at my house, 3 at the trail head. So I need to get the last 3 stracks from the trail head to my house and I feel pretty confident someone will lend a hand. I guess I was overconfident at the time. Passing one house with one of the stack on my head I asked for some help, the man of the house told me he doesn't work on Sunday. In retaliation I've decided to close down my Flat Screen TV Repair business. So I go back to the trailhead and retreive the third stack of leaves and bring it to my house. Even more tired, no idea where the hell or what the hell Max is doing at this point. I go back to the trailhead and put the last stack of leaves on my head and carry it to my house. Done. THANK GOD! I go back to the trail head one last time to retrieve the wheel barrow I lent from the Captain. On my way back I pass Max's house who I see has cut a stack of leaves for his own house. Max now has the nerve to start yelling at me because I didn't close his door properly, "I own 5 guns and they're inside this house!" My response, "Haika!" (Basically, listen here buddy). The other villager had told me he'd take care of it and he didn't. Everything seems to be OK now and we agree to patch the roof tomorrow.

Day 3: mindi wosu(patching the house/roof). To be very blunt, this went awful. It started with Max asking me what I thought we should do. "Ummmmm, I've never done this before and you were hired to do this." He also asks me where the leaks are again, like the 10th time I've shown him.
So Max is working on the inside of the house, standing on my shelves so he can reach his hands up through the leaves already tied on my roof. I'm standing outside with a 12 foot stick and attaching leaves to the end of the stick to guide into Max's hands--this is one of those ridiculous moments where I wish I had a photo. I'm guiding the leaves to where I see his hands but his hands are not catching the leaves. He starts yelling at me, "You don't understand the work you American child!" OK. There are still three leaks in my roof so I've got to keep my cool and my mouth shut. A kid from next door comes over and shows me a few points for guiding the leaves into Max's hands better. This goes a little better, not much. Even with my improved technique, Max is just not very tall and can't get his hands high enough. After about 30 minutes of doing this, Max starts complaining that his neck hurts and he doesn't like doing this kind of work. At this point I'm getting really annoyed. We thatch the roof for another hour. We are putting the newly cut leaves from the jungle in between the leaves already tied into the roof. We believe we've fixed the first two leaks by the door. Now, we're working on the leak above the kitchen area when Max tells me he doesn't want to do any more work... Ok, bud, I spent the previous day carrying four loads of 60 pound leaves on my head 3/4's of a mile through the jungle, I'm baking in the heat today passing you these leaves and haven't complained once. If you've ever seen a Rodriguez get mad at a bad call during a sports game then insert that image here because that was my reaction when Max told me he was stopping. I had not patience left. I was not going to accept this guy not finishing the work he had agreed to do. We had a brief exchange. I made it clear he needed to finish the work and he agreed so long as he never would do this work again. He was not happy that he had made a whole new roof for the last volunteer and it was already leaking. So Max went back to work with no more complaints and I handed him more leaves and he positioned them in the roof. By the way, we only used 1 and 1/2 stacks of the four stacks of leaves I brought from the jungle. After we finished putting leaves in the roof, Max tied them around the beams going up to the ceiling. Kaba, finished.

So after 3 days of back breaking work, bringing leaves from jungle on my head and getting into a heated exchange with a guy who I had hereto had no problems with I at least had a sturdy roof above my head to show for all my troubles. Right? Nope. Now, there are four leaks in my house--there were three before we started.

Sometimes, this is just the reality of Peace Corps--back-breaking labor in the heat, working with frustrating people, unpredictability and not completely understanding local cultural habits. Even after a year, when you think you've seen and know it all, you don't know that you don't know yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyTl3MgAdaM

N. Aurora HIV Training

"Na fekete ABC"--Tutufolo's Poster: Abstain, Be Faithful, Condoms for HIV prevention

Over the course of my first year I have been distributing condoms to local boatman who live along the Upper Suriname River. This system was initiated by the previous volunteer in Gunzi, Kadjoepai (Cashew-pai, named for a previous village of the Gunzi residents before the flooding of the lake). Once one reaches Atjoni, the port of entry for the Upper Suriname River, you must find a boat to take you to the villages that lie south of Atjoni along the Suriname River--no cars. Every morning, boatmen drive their boats down the river (North) to Atjoni and then return to their villages up the river (South). The aim of this project is to distribute boxes of condoms to the boatmen when they arrive in Atjoni. They will then bring them to their villages and distribute the condoms to their villagers. Due to the sexual habits in the interior our HIV trainings mostly focus on the C(ondom).

During my first year of service I have distributed condoms to six boatman in my area and have wanted to expand and formalize this project since I arrived in Suriname. Recently, I have begun to expand this project and I gave my first training at a winkel (local store) in one of Gunzi's neighboring villages, Tjaikonde (Translation: The sad village). Peace Corps Volunteers accompanying me on this training were Catherine aka Tjaigowtu(Tjaikonde's Gold) and the recently arrived Tutubala(Brother-in-law of Tutu), on rare occassions I call him Josh. The three of us arrived at the winkel of a man named Bamos, a big burly boatman in his 20's whose younger, more trim brother Asonu helps run the winkel in Tjaikonde. We gave both Bamos and Asonu a pre-test on HIV transmission to find out what they knew. Asonu aced it and Bamos was pretty close. After the pre-test, we ran through a quick and relevant HIV lesson. We reviewed and taught basic HIV transmission such as whether or not HIV can be transmitted through a mosquito--this is a common misconception here because of the present mosquito born illnesses like dengue and malaria. We then reviewed how to put on a male and female condom and talked about how and where to properly dispose of the used condoms. We wrapped up with a post-test and this time both guys aced it. Success! So, we gave them two boxes (144 condoms/box) of male condoms and 50 female condoms to distribute. In order to begin collecting some semblance of formal data, we asked them to keep track of how many people came in and asked for condoms. Also, we needed them to contact us Peace Corps Volunteers when the condoms ran out so we know in the future how many boxes of condoms we will need to continually supply one winkel per week. At the moment, the winkel is distributing about one box (144 male condoms) per week.

The future of this project looks potentially bright but will fall on the shoulders of the continual motivation of the boatman, the coordination with the local medical post in the Atjoni area who will begin to distribute condoms to the boatmen and the organizations in the city who will have to help transport the condoms into the interior. I don't know if it will work but everyone ta mbei moiti (is making the effort), as we say in Saramacan. With the help of Suriname's Medical Mission, the name of the local medical posts, we are putting together informative HIV posters and beginning to set-up a formal training day and system to distribute the condoms to the boatmen. If all goes to plan, in early November I will help train at least 15 boatmen on the Upper Suriname River to distribute condoms in their villages.

Blackout (9/26)

"Vrrrrrr....umphhhhhh...."(Sound of a dying generator)

Monday, September 26, 2010. First night of no power in Gunzi. I have been in other villages on several occassions without electricity but always with another Peace Corps Volunteer. This time, I was on my own.

It all started around 6:30 pm when the generator would not start and my counterpart passed my house to inform me we would be without electricity for the night. Some people from down the river would be coming tomorrow to hopefully repair the generator. So as the dusk turned into the early evening I lit a candle and made myself a Peace Corps meal fit for a nice candlelight dinner--peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

After finishing my dinner, I decided to call someone with a lot of experience in the dark (twss), my dear friend Craig Finch who lives 2-5 hours up the river from me depending on the boatman, size of the motor and deepness of the river water. I spent about 45 minutes talking to Craig--mostly gossip and I took a few jabs at the sad state of his San Diego sports organizations. After hanging up the phone, I texted him within 10 minutes with some random thoughts to which he responded, "All you do is sit there and think bout random things when there is no faya(electricity)". So true. I spent the next 30 minutes or so conjuring up some crazy, non-sensical ideas--still, none have topped the time I went camping in States and decided to apply for Peace Corps though.

At about 8:30 pm I decided to go and hang out with my neighbor, the Captain, who was all alone because his woman was out of the village. He was slouching in a fishing chair with his feet up on a little stool that we call a bangi while listening to the radio. I hadn't had a long conversation with the Captain in a while, recently we have just been borrowing things from each other and I have been helping him with his phone--that's Peace Corps's 4th goal: local cell phone repairman. Anyways, we had a lot to discuss. We talked about how the cleaning the village went and some of the other projects and work that needed to be done in the village. We also talked about his chicken coup which is 10 feet behind my house and smells real bad but I might get some meat out of that soon. We also talked about things that had happened in his life; he told me a story about trouble he had with a woman when he was younger and how the brother-in-law burnt down the Captain's house and everything inside it--his gun and bed. Apparently, even Saramacans have troublesome in-laws.

I left the Captain's house around 9:30 pm to go walk through the village and see what everyone else was doing with their Sunday night without electricity. Not surprisingly, almost everyone was sleeping. One woman was still up about and washing. One guy and his wife were running a small generator and watching some films on his flat screen TV. Yes, flat screen TV in the jungle, you read that correctly. The rest of the village was quiet and so I went back to my house and fell asleep a little bit before 10 pm.

Limbo Konde (Cleaning the village)

"If you don't work today, you have to buy us a beer!"--Tjenge

During my trip to the city in late August/early September for my Peace Corps group's Mid-Service Conference, the 15th Peace Corps group in Suriname with whom I arrived, I received a call from one of my villagers who now resides in the city for school. He informed me the Gunzi villagers who now live in the city for work or school were going to hold a meeting about how we could improve the village. It sounded kind of important, so I decided I'd make an appearance.

For those of you not familiar with the situation, my village, Gunzi, situated south of the lake
on the Upper Suriname River has a permanent residency of about 50 people. Due to lack of opportunities in my area many people live more permanently for work or school in the city, Paramaribo, or this largely populated Saramacan trans-migration village (after the lake drowned a lot of the original villages along the river) called Brownsweg which is situated half-way along the road from the city to the interior. While in the city I met up with this fellow Tjenge, whose mother lives in Gunzi but he goes to school in the city. He has become a pretty good friend of mine; he's about my age, 27, and when he comes to Gunzi he likes to do radio work with me. So he and I meet up downtown and take a bus out to the south edge of town below the white bridge. Our bus stops infront of one of little stores which the locals call winkels, so naturally we buy a beer and catch up on all the happenings in each other's lives. I tell him about my trip back to the States and he talks about his school year and some girl from another river he's dating in the city. We're there at the winkel for about 20 minutes, waiting on his uncle to come. I had assumed his uncle was going to walk up and drink a beer with us but to my great surprise his uncle pulls up with a car that has the same paint scheme as the car in Grease. Also, his uncle looks exactly like the soccer player Thierry Henry which kind of cracks me up. So it's me, Tjenge, and Uncle Thierry Henry in the Grease Lightning rolling through the south end of town up to our destination.


Again for those of you not familiar with the situation, one of my counterparts in Gunzi was recently elected to Parliament in Suriname and I had not seen him in months. So this would be the first time I had seen him since May and the first time I would visit his house so I was pretty excited to see his crib in the city. Upon arrival, I realized this wasn't just one house for my counterpart, the place where we pulled up to was more of a compound, a whole lot of houses, about five houses, where about two boat loads or roughly 40 residents of Gunzi were living in the city. When I entered the compound it was like a time trip. I ran into a young Gunzi woman who I had not seen in months since she moved to the city and gave birth to her child, I ran into a few of the kids who recently graduated from the middle school and moved to the city, I saw my counterpart and his family, and I ran into a host of other characters who I had seen off and on again in Gunzi. This was there place in the city--not too shabby. The houses had electricity and I sat around with the kids and young men and watched Real Madrid on the TV. When the meeting finally started my counterpart in Parliament and the Gunzi Captain who was on a trip to the city began talking about fixing some of the broken structures in the village and about a big trip where twenty or more people would take a bus to the river and find boats to Gunzi to "clean up" the village. Gunzi is a pretty clean village because they organize their trash so I had no idea what they were talking about...

On the afternoon of September 10, about 25 people from city, Brownsweg and some other villages came to Gunzi and filled up the usually empty houses that haunt this village. The next day we held a ceremony for a woman named Maria who had died a few years back. We made a big hand-made mixture of food--rice, fish, cooking oil and soy sauce and one of the villagers passed out it. He put two big handfuls in my handfuls and I attacked the meal without fork or spoon like a little kid. I was pretty messy afterwards. Following this ceremony the village held a meeting about how we were going to go about cleaning up the village. I was instructed to come back to the meeting point shortly with a machette and a rake. When I arrived back with an unsharpened machette and a rake in hand, I set out with the twenty Saramacan men and adolescent boys who wielded machettes, rakes and chainsaws to go cut and clean a path that runs from the river to the worshipping houses in the village.

A few of the young guys took the chainsaws and cut down a few of the trees at the front of the path. Myself, the kids and some of the older gentlemen cut weeds with a machette and raked and threw away leaves into the jungle--note to parents in the USA: if you want your kids to do yard work buy them a machette because I will still refuse to mow the lawn when I come back to America. So after a few hours of cutting, raking, throwing away and then burning piles of trash and leaves we all met back at the meeting point, a big open structure with a top that is the village community center. The most important part of the day had commenced: lunch! Rice, split peas and chicken! Delicious! All for a half days' work, a pretty sweet deal. After the meal, we took a quick hour break and then went out and finished the work--raking and spraying the area with weed killer.

Over the course of the week, the men and I worked every morning and occassionally in the late afternoons, if we had the desire, cutting down different areas of the village and spraying them. And the men who didn't work had to buy beers for us. The hardest day was definitely when we cut down an area that was filled with trees and thick brush and was the size of at least 3 football fields. All of this work was done with machettes in hand. There were lots of blistered hands, cuts from plants with thorns and 1 cut on a leg after someone over swung his machette--do I really need to tell you this person was me. After the week of work, I could see 200 yards behind my house. Before the work, I could see 10 yards behind my house where the huge weeds and sunflowers grew. This apparently is just the beginning of the work though. Next we are talking about re-building a big worshipping structure that has been deteriorating due to termite infestation. And there is also hope to finally rebuild the village lampeesi. A lampeesi is a staircase where boats pull up and let people walk up to the village and women also bring their clothes and dishes for washing here. The best part about all of this is that people are working together and doing all this on their own. I just show up with a machette and get a lunch out of it!

Mi bi feni Gwamba(I found meat)!

"I found gwamba(meat)!"--Me
"No, I found gwamba."--Saramacan Caselli
"No, you killed it, I found it."--Me
"Oooooo, true."--Saramacan Caselli

Just a few days ago I was tending to my garden which is slowly but surely drying up and falling victim to the dry season which has recently begun here in September, which the Saramacans call wajamaka liba(iguana month). While at my garden, I learned why the month of September is named for the iguana. Walking around and aatering some of my plants, I noticed several foreign holes which were being burrowed into my ground by some kind of creature. While I was tending to a local vegetable called kosbanti, a Surinamese string bean, I noticed there was something long and green sticking out of one of the holes. Upon further inspection, I realized it was the tail of a pretty sizable iguana!

Now, this story would not be told properly without the proper background. When arriving in Saramaca and walking around the villages I noticed that everyone would greet me, ask me what I ate and inquire if I had any gwamba(meat). Gwamba is any kind of meat but generally refers to the three available meats in the interior: fish, chicken and any kind of bush meat. One woman in particular, a very traditional Saramaca woman of 90 years old whose Saramacan name means Rice, began ascending the path up the hill to my house every morning to see if I had found her any gwamba or if I had woken up with a woman. When she finds out neither has passed she then begins to tap her walking stick on the ground as if to take some kind of notes on me and then lets out a "wellllll baaaa(well brother)", and then proceeds to jokingly bust my chops for a few minutes before sauntering off on her morning loop around the village. One morning, I rose before she did and went out into the jungle with my counterpart and a tourist we were taking on a nature walk. Upon our arrival from the jungle and into the village we passed this 90 year old woman's house and she commented that she couldn't believe what the times had come to when three young people could go into the jungle with weapons and not come out with any meat. She then began to fantasize about what we actually did in the jungle and I was a little creeped out by her fantastic imagination. On one other occassion she was pretty disappointed to find out that I had a machette in hand when I came across a massive iguana at my doorstep and did not kill it. My reputation as a hunter in the village was pretty much at an all-time low, even my fish caught count over the year is -1 since I have not caught any and dropped one in the river that one of the kids had given me to hold.

But, as the Saramacans say, my foot knocked a good thing. Stumbling across this iguana, I thought I was ill-equiped since I left my machette at a neighboring tourist camp across the river. Since all I had was a half bucket of water I ran back into the village where a meeting had just ended with the village captain and some of his assistants, the basias. I told a few of the guys what I had found and then they started working towards my garden, without machettes! So three of these guys showed up, my counterpart and two guys in the village who came for the vacation: Benz and Caselli. So we approach the hole and my counterpart is instructing Caselli how to go about getting the iguana out of the hole. Caselli follows the instructions about as well as I would have, in other words he didn't follow the instructions. So Caselli grabs the thing by the tail with one hand and my counterpart yells at him to twirl it around and make a loop like a laso with the iguana's tail so it won't try to swing itself around and knock him. He does and the iguana remains still. So the guys call me over and they give me an anatomy lesson for the iguana, "squeeze the belly, that's where the eggs are". So I squeeze the belly and it's pretty squishy. Then, they took the iguana and placed him on the ground and began knocking him with a stick until it was dead... no machette, crazy guys!

So I am walking through the village with the guys and we're showing off the iguana. We pass the 90 year old woman's house, who coincidentally is not at home to see me pass by with my trophy, go figure. All the meanwhile, myself and Caselli are arguing over whose iguana it is. I say I found it, he says he found it, then I say I found it but he killed it and he laughs and then agrees. And so next morning's breakfast in the village: iguana and iguana eggs. So at last: mi bi feni gwamba fii, mujee(I found meat for you, woman)!

Year 2 begins...

"Keep me in your heart for a while" --Warren Zevon

Well, I have not really felt like keeping up the blog recently but I would like to change that. Good things are happening in Peace Corps Suriname, now I have consistent internet access in my village and hopefully I will be able to inform people about my work and life at least once a week as opposed to once a month or once every two months which I found to be rather bothersome and unenjoyable because so much of the day to day nuances were lost to the stories of big adventures or summaries of the month that had passed. Please continue to comment if you are reading the blog that will give me some much needed encouragement to maintain the blog.

Since I have not blogged in a while, I will bring the uninformed up to speed on what has transpired in my life over the past couple of months. In May, Suriname had its elections and one of my counterparts was elected to parliament. It was an exciting time to be on the river and see the boats loaded with drummers and politicians pass the village. Also in May, the new Peace Corps Suriname group arrived which was exciting, 24 new volunteers. Unfortunately, that meant that the Peace Corps Suriname 14 group, the group which arrived before my group, would be departing in July. I miss those guys more than they probably know.

In June, I went back to the grand ole' United States of America
. Back home. Day 4 in America, I was at the ballyard in San Francisco and John got in a fight with the Giants' mascot, Lou Seal. John, you're an idiot but an inspiration to every bleacher bum opposed to a sports organization mascot... I also had my money on the seal, sorry dude. I took a few trips while in the States, I went to Lake Tahoe for the 4th of July weekend and also made a day trip to Sonoma. And of course, I took what was supposed to originally be an over-night trip to Chico and turned it into a 4 day extravaganza. All the while I was filming these trips with a video camera so I could bring the finished product back to the village.

Once I got back to Suriname, I made it back for the World Cup Final, Spain Vs. Holland--me, Chris Rodriguez vs. those strange Dutch tourists, errrrrr, I mean our friendly paying clientele at the tourist camp. Myself and two Peace Corps friends of mine watched the game at a public gathering where we were 3 of 10 people rooting for Spain at a place that held at least 400 people.

Arriving back in the interior, I went to a going away party for one of the volunteers who lived in a neighboring village. Finally making it back to my village, Gunzi, I delivered post cards and a letter to children who had written my family in America. My village also congregated at night and watched the video I made of America.
They were blown away when I walked through the Chico State library and showed them how many books were in a library. They were also amazed at the skyscrapers in San Francisco. And finally, I may have finally found a woman for my dear friend Jimmy Hok who appeared in my video; the woman in the village is like 60, only has one kid and runs her own business. She also cooks a mean rice, fish and okra dinner. I'd say a solid find for Jimmy.


August was a pretty wild month. Things were going fabulous--I stopped doing the dreaded English lessons and began giving computer lessons to the kids which are much more productive. My friend in the village, Stefano, graduated from school at the top of his class. People were enthusiastic that I had returned from America and were more receptive to working with me. And us Peace Corps Volunteers have even begun to receive funding to do bigger, more high impact projects! And best of all, two women in the village had begun feeding me every night. Everything seemed to be going right, then BAM!

Got a call out of the blue from home and was informed my grandmother had died. The news really broke my heart and has had me in a funk the past few weeks. This news was really hard to swallow alone, again. My grandfather also passed away about a year ago while I was in Peace Corps. But I feel fortunate because the last time I saw my grandparents they were together and I had some interesting discussions with them about their younger years that I otherwise may have put off having if I had not been leaving the States to join the Peace Corps.
So, although it was a tough loss I am going to hang in there and stay tough like they learned how to do.

Stomach Problems...again

"We need to put you on a boat, right now!"--villager
"It's like 8 pm."--me
"But we need to take you to the doctor."--villager

Yep, stomach issues, again. I managed to go twenty days in the interior with no problems, then decide to stay one extra day out at site before coming into the city and...WHAM! Some of the worst stomach problems I've had since being in Suriname. The problems also caused a huge panic wave in the village, as evident by my opening quote.

I had already vomitted twice. On my way to buy two pieces of bread, I was three-quarters of the way across the village--about 150 meters, my village is small. I finally found a kid to run the rest of the way to the bread lady's house and fetch me some bread. Remembering it now, it took him quite a whiles to bring the bread back, I kind of wonder if he got lost in that lost 50 meters. Either way, once I finally got the bread I was walking back to my house. I had almost made it to my house. Unfortunately, I did not. I had to stop and bent over at a tree to puke the last of my guts out. Also unfortunately, the captain of the village witnessed this. He immediately panicked and went around trying to find someone who owned a boat so they'd take me to the nearest doctor. This resulted in a boatman showing up at my house around 8 pm. He thought I needed to go to the doctor, I told him I did not. I finally had convinced him I was better by showing him I had been able to wolf down half a piece of bread. In the end, I was just really touched by how much the village cared about my well-being. It was reassuring.

Tonight, Wednesday, May 5, we will get to meet the new Peace Corps group coming into the country. I am really excited. That also means I am at about the half way point in my service.

Foiled!

"In three months I've gone from network television to Twitter to
performing live in theaters, and now I'm headed to basic cable," (Conan) O'Brien
said. "My plan is working perfectly."

....My post Peace Corps plans have been foiled!

46 Days in the interior

"Hey, can we watch that crazy film again, tonight?"--Village Kid
"You mean Seinfeld?"--Me
"Yeah that one! With Kramer."--Village Kid

I recently returned from a 46 night excursion in the interior. There were several highlights from this journey. One of the ladies in my village gave birth to a baby boy who is named Danejen. One day I made cinnamon rolls; they were delicious. I used what is known as a Dutch Oven to bake the rolls--you put the dough in a baking pan and put this pan inside of a big pot with a cover. I've finally got a hold on the breadmaking skills after 6 months or so of trying. The last volunteer in Gunzi called in to the radio station. And an anaconda also made an appearance at my house. Also, I took my first excursion out to the lake for St. Patrick's Day which was a blast--I even found a Guiness in Atjoni which was a total score. In other news, I have not had a hair cut in a while and I've been rocking green Tee's a lot lately aka rocking the Shaggy from Scooby Doo look.

In village sports news, I was put into an official village game for the entire second half! I nearly scored a goal too, I had two shots on goal but both were saved. We ended up winning the game 5-0.

And finally, I did some work! I did four days of translating to help some ladies who came with UNICEF on an Innovations project study. Basically, we interviewed a lot of different people in some of the villages and found out how people learn and how people use technology and how we can improve the link between those two--example, putting internet into the villages. That's a quick run down of what has happend the past month and a half, I'll try and get some more updates later in the week when I've got more time.

Rollin' up the river

"I'll cry when Sleemai leaves for America."--younger woman
"I won't be sad when Sleemai leaves, because she'll take me back to America!"--older woman

I recently ventured out from the confines of Gunzi to see what lies up the river in the deep southern reaches of the Suriname River. I departed Saturday, January 16. I had expected to leave Gunzi in the early afternoon but the boatman I was waiting on had other plans--I got the infamous "dalek" treatment which meant we'd leave when he felt like it. So I was picked up at Gunzi near five o'clock and hopped the boat with fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and my dear buddy Taangapai--"The Strong Son". Going down river, we had two unexpected stops. Our first was at Bendikwai, where we met up with our Peace Corps friend Bendikwaipai. Yep, his village seriously calls him that, it's hilarious. After hanging around until our boatman was ready to leave we headed further up river and he took care of some short business in a village called Pikislee. Taangapai and I remained on the boat as there is no Peace Corps Volunteer in Pikislee. After about a 15 minute wait we were finally ready to depart. The young lad who was the 1st mate under the captain of our motorized canoe was sure we'd arrive in Zemoise at 8 pm. He was wrong. At 8 pm, in the pitch dark without a flashlight, we were firing up the rapids near Masia creek. To make matters worse, it had also started raining. I was pretty sure we were not going to make it to Zemoise but by 9 pm we had arrived. Upon arrival, we found a dead rat in Taangapai's house. We threw it outside in the bush, cooked up some velveeta cheese shells and called it a night.

The next two days were an introduction to village life in Zemoise. We met up wtih Captimai, the other volunteer in Zemoise. I attended the two volunteers' English class in Zemoise and then Taangapai taught me how to make mango wine which has turned into a potential project possibility for the tourist camp in Gunzi. We spent the better part of the second night listening and dancing to The Killers. This amused the village children. The next day was pretty low key and I was waiting around until the late afternoon to hop on another boat and go further south--up the river, to the furthest Peace Corps site along the Suriname River, Gaanslee.

Gaanslee was an interesting trip. First, there is no electricity in this village which I had only experienced once before. This basically means that everyone wants to hang out at night as opposed to sit in their house and watch movies every night which is what happens in Gunzi. Also, the volunteer in Gaanslee had a big rat infestation due to the way her house had been built. I hate rats. I spent two nights and one day in Gaanslee. During the day I spent there, we did a quick tour of the village and I got to see some great wood carving work some of the guys in the village had done. We walked further south along the river, through two more small villages until we reached the point where the river splits into the big and small river. This is an important part of Sarramaccan culture. On an island at the end of the rapid where the big river begins is where the Sarramaccans first broke the reeds to consecrate the land for themselves. Here, we took a boat across the river to a village called Djumue and then walked through Bendikonde, where there is a radio station, to the Graanman Konde, Asindohopo. Of course, we visited the Graanman's house, the Sarramaccan equivalent of a govenor's mansion I suppose, but unfortunately he was not there. We also toured the Graanman street and hung around the area for a whiles. At one point, while I was sitting on a log above a small creek taking a picture of a very large and cool looking tree, three local kids told me there were kaiman below my feet. I quickly ran away.


After the Gaanslee trip I decided to slowly but surely head back down the river, back home to Gunzi. First I made a return to Zemoise for the day where I hung out with Taangapai once more. We made some more wine, walked to a village called Pempe, played some soccer with the villagers in Zemoise and watched Team America--an abnormally productive day on our part. I decided to leave a day early and headed for Futunakaba, a big church village. Here, I met up with Bendikwaipai and Futunumai. The highlight of our day was playing cards and listening to the new Green Day CD. Unfortunately, there were more rats in Futunakaba and sleeping was minimal once again--darn rats! Finally, after 6 nights and at least 10 villages later, and probably 15 rats seen, I caught a boat back to Gunzi. Of course my stay was short as that afternoon the villages came to my house and told me to pack up my football shoes as I'd be playing in a scrimmage game later that night.

*Pictures of this trip are on the facebook, check them out!