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.