"There they go!"--Me
"You got the whole Peace Corps Suriname experience in two days: dinner at Madonna's, a broken down van, a night boat ride and a wild brokoday (funeral). There's really nothing else to show you."--On my friend's trip to Suriname
While in Trinidad for the Carnival, my friends and I became acquianted with Julien, from French Guyana, who after hanging out with us in Trinidad was interested in visiting our villages in the interior of Suriname. The quote sums up his four night trip to visit my friends and me in Suriname. The week before, I had two other people who Craig and I met at the Trinidad airport come to Gunzi to visit me. It was an interesting learning experience to see how people reacted to the way I have been living for two years.
Julien and I left the city to go visit Craig and Casey in Zemoise on Thursday morning. The travel went smooth and was uneventful which is somewhat abnormal considering we were on a van and boat for a combined 7 to 8 hours.
After arriving in Zemoise to meet Craig aka Taangapai (Strong boy), we cooked up a few homemade pizzas
for Julien and drank some of the Martinique rum he brought from lil' France. The following night's dinner was more of the usual, rice and beans.
Friday was an eventful day. Craig, Julien and I hiked with one of the local guys through the jungle out to a creek with some rapids to do some swimming. On the way back we helped a woman pound some rice. We also played some soccer in the rain with the kids later on that day. At night, we attended one of the local funerals called a brokoday. Being more south, the beliefs are more traditional which made for a more eventful Brokoday. There was a lot of dancing and the young women in the village were excited to see three single men show up--one young lady even spoke French. I stirred up the crowd with some fancy dance moves that made my dance partners call "woolo!" Those Sarmaccan women liked it! We finally made it back from the Brokoday around 2 in the morning.
The next day we woke up bright and early for a quality 3 hour boat ride, all through the rain. That was no fun. When we made it to Atjoni, I had the good fortune that a local van driver was waiting for me as promised. When we took off we were ahead of two Peace Corps friends who went with another driver. On the road we came across a tourist van that had become stuck in the mud and we watched and laughed as the tourists got out and attempted to push the bus (photo). Unfortunately, instant karma struck and my friends' van tried to go around the stuck bus and also got stuck in the mud. This meant I had to help push the stuck van with my friends. Afterwards, I was covered in red mud after the back left tire spewed mud all over me as the van tried to climb out of the mud.
Later that day we made it to another village along the road where another of my Peace Corps friends lives. We hung out on a flooded beach and then played a game called slagbol (baseball/cricket mix) with the local kids. The following day, after spending 3 nights in a hammock, we finally packed up and went to the city to catch a glimpse of a Javanese festival in the city before Julien left for French Guyana. All in all a successful trip. It was also nice to have a friend come out and visit Suriname and get a different perspective on how we live here. It was real interesting afterwards to hear some of the things Julien recalled like pounding rice with the women. Something I regularly now was so foreign to him. It was a good reminded to enjoy the small things that happen on a day to day basis before I leave Suriname for the States.
As of now, I leave my village on August 22, about a month or so after most of the Peace Corps Volunteers in my group leave the country. I should be back in the States on August 29--I need a week to complete some paperwork, medical appointments and visit some friends in the city before I come back home.
