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