At Ultima's, 'the one stop shop':
"Do you have lentils?"--James
"They're right upstairs, sir!"--Attendant
~Walk upstairs with James~
"These aren't lentils, these are linens!"--James
There is a crises in Suriname, there are NO lentils in the entire country! I am positive because a friend and I have searched tirelessly through every corner store, market, department store, wenke, woyo, etc. in this country! No lentils! When I asked a clerk at one of the stores about the lentils, he shrugged his shoulders and told me he did not think lentils were being shipped into the country anymore. Womi!(translation: Oh man!)
Basically, the Peace Corps lentil craze was started by a former volunteer who recently finished her service and was an expert on nutrition. She highly recommended adding lentils to our diets to have a maintain adequate amounts of protein and fiber and because they are relatively quick to cook.
So, this story actual begins during my last venture into the city which had lasted 2 weeks. After about 10 days of searching we had yielded 0 bags of lentils between myself, James, from the great state of New Hampshire, and Matt, an O.G. of California but now a Washington resident. On a field trip to one of the tourist beaches, we stopped to pick up some food for lunch at a huge market and finally found lentils, probably the last 3 bags in the country and split them up between ourselves. Finally, we had found them! Unfortunately, Matt and James left their lentils on the bus we took to the beach and that bus did not come back to pick us up. So, I was the lone rider who was able to bring a bag of lentils to site.
Unfortunately, I eat lentils quite a bit. Now, I am out of lentils and back in the city, but they are nowhere to be found. So far my search has been fruitless and as I have said, I am told by one of the market owners that lentils are not being shipped to Suriname for the time being. I am very disappointed. I am hoping to find some before the day is done and I head back to the interior tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed for me and maybe throw some in a care package for me, heh! :D
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Fun with the machette
"You need to sharpen that machette"--Villager
"You need to sharpen that machette more"--Another villager 2 days later
"You should get another machette!"--Another villager one week later
There are a lot of important things Volunteers do in Peace Corps. Probably none more so than wielding a sharp machette. Why is a machette so important? Because it's pretty much the all-purpose tool in the jungle. You can cut sugar cane with a machette, hunt fish, skin fish, cut coconuts, cut termite tunnels, scratch yourself when no one's looking--but you'd best be careful, cut grass and trees and bushes and chase bats and rats around your house. The coolest thing you can do with a machette is cut a cinderblock in half. I learned this art from one of the Peace Corps staff. We took a cinderblock, lightly tapped the machette on all four sides in the middle of the block and then took one big swing down. This yields two cinderblocks and a feeling of awesomeness.
The hardest part of machette-ing is definitely cutting grounds. Total pain in the ass. Infact, in the three or four hours of labor I spent cutting my grounds--where I'll plant my garden, in the 95 degree heat with humidity, I felt that I earned my Peace Corps salary in that time period for the next two years. And I looked utterly ridiculous cutting my grounds in my rubber boots and Pete Newell Challenge baseball cap, next to some village with sandals and no hat who I towered over by a good 6 inches and probably had at least 20 pounds over. And yet, this little guy, who is probably pushing 50, made me look look like a schmuck. Clearing the grounds, I noticed that while it took me 20 hacks with the machette to cut down a tree, it was taking him no more than 4, that was humbling and embarrassing. Anyways, this lad has been helping me refine my machette yielding ways and I picked up several new techniques for swinging the machette while cutting grounds.
The techniques of the machette vary on the work but at grounds one mostly uses the one-handed overhead thurst to clear out all the eye level vines and then the side chop to clear out the innummerable bush that gets in one's way of walking. Once you've cleared a path to walk through one must clear out all the weeds on the ground so that the weeds will dry out and the ground can be burned a couple of weeks later. This involves the underhand swipe at the grass roots. I have almost lost a few toes attempting this action; it's not my favorite. The most tedious swipe that gives the back a good workout is the angled downt thurst for cutting tree trunks. It is hard work to cut down a tree with a machette but it is really fun to watch them fall over, especially if you knock over like 5 trees in a row. It's like watching really big dominoes fall over and that's pretty entertaining. Finally, there is the double handed overhead flailing with the machette that is usually reserved for when dehydration and heat exhaustion start settling in. My first trip at grounds, this was after about 30 minutes, my next trip, I lasted about 1 hour and 30 minutes before I started flailing the machette around like a mad man.
The most interesting experience I have had with the machette has been hunting the rats that come into my house and terrorize my rice cakes. I have tried setting traps but they stole the bait and did not spring the trap. So, I have had to rely on my trusty machette to drive those sneaky, smart rats from my house. The rats, usually late night visitors, were mightily surprised to see me walking around with only my underwear and a handlamp at 4 am. After chasing them through the house and village and taking a couple swings at them with the machette their appearances have been much less frequent.
And that's pretty much the beauty of the machette. I suppose if there is any way to make it more fun I could get a second one and do some dual-wielding-jedi-action-machette-ing (you can check that word in the dictionary, it should be there). It would definitely make for a great Youtube tutorial. Until next time mi mati (my friends)!
"You need to sharpen that machette more"--Another villager 2 days later
"You should get another machette!"--Another villager one week later
There are a lot of important things Volunteers do in Peace Corps. Probably none more so than wielding a sharp machette. Why is a machette so important? Because it's pretty much the all-purpose tool in the jungle. You can cut sugar cane with a machette, hunt fish, skin fish, cut coconuts, cut termite tunnels, scratch yourself when no one's looking--but you'd best be careful, cut grass and trees and bushes and chase bats and rats around your house. The coolest thing you can do with a machette is cut a cinderblock in half. I learned this art from one of the Peace Corps staff. We took a cinderblock, lightly tapped the machette on all four sides in the middle of the block and then took one big swing down. This yields two cinderblocks and a feeling of awesomeness.
The hardest part of machette-ing is definitely cutting grounds. Total pain in the ass. Infact, in the three or four hours of labor I spent cutting my grounds--where I'll plant my garden, in the 95 degree heat with humidity, I felt that I earned my Peace Corps salary in that time period for the next two years. And I looked utterly ridiculous cutting my grounds in my rubber boots and Pete Newell Challenge baseball cap, next to some village with sandals and no hat who I towered over by a good 6 inches and probably had at least 20 pounds over. And yet, this little guy, who is probably pushing 50, made me look look like a schmuck. Clearing the grounds, I noticed that while it took me 20 hacks with the machette to cut down a tree, it was taking him no more than 4, that was humbling and embarrassing. Anyways, this lad has been helping me refine my machette yielding ways and I picked up several new techniques for swinging the machette while cutting grounds.
The techniques of the machette vary on the work but at grounds one mostly uses the one-handed overhead thurst to clear out all the eye level vines and then the side chop to clear out the innummerable bush that gets in one's way of walking. Once you've cleared a path to walk through one must clear out all the weeds on the ground so that the weeds will dry out and the ground can be burned a couple of weeks later. This involves the underhand swipe at the grass roots. I have almost lost a few toes attempting this action; it's not my favorite. The most tedious swipe that gives the back a good workout is the angled downt thurst for cutting tree trunks. It is hard work to cut down a tree with a machette but it is really fun to watch them fall over, especially if you knock over like 5 trees in a row. It's like watching really big dominoes fall over and that's pretty entertaining. Finally, there is the double handed overhead flailing with the machette that is usually reserved for when dehydration and heat exhaustion start settling in. My first trip at grounds, this was after about 30 minutes, my next trip, I lasted about 1 hour and 30 minutes before I started flailing the machette around like a mad man.
The most interesting experience I have had with the machette has been hunting the rats that come into my house and terrorize my rice cakes. I have tried setting traps but they stole the bait and did not spring the trap. So, I have had to rely on my trusty machette to drive those sneaky, smart rats from my house. The rats, usually late night visitors, were mightily surprised to see me walking around with only my underwear and a handlamp at 4 am. After chasing them through the house and village and taking a couple swings at them with the machette their appearances have been much less frequent.
And that's pretty much the beauty of the machette. I suppose if there is any way to make it more fun I could get a second one and do some dual-wielding-jedi-action-machette-ing (you can check that word in the dictionary, it should be there). It would definitely make for a great Youtube tutorial. Until next time mi mati (my friends)!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Basiapai and the termite nest
"Spray! Spray! Spray!"--The Captain
On my last visit to Gunzi, my site, the villagers had tentatively given me the name Basiapai (Bah-see-a-pie), which translates to something like the boss boy or son in law of the boss. Anyways, upon my return there seemed to be some confusion over what the villagers actually wanted to me; some wanted to call me basiapai, others Konipai, meaning smart boy, and still others were opposed to both names. As of now, I am officially the Basiapai of Gunzi. As far as I understand, I have been named after one of the women in the village. Although, coincidentally, when I was first given the name I had been listening to the record The River. I like the coincidence story more.
After many complications in the city, I did finally arrive in Gunzi on August 6th. But not before more complications arose on the way to Gunzi. First, the SUV I was riding in popped a flat tire on the way to the boat port, Atjoni. Uppon arrival in Atjoni, I found out my things for my house were actually in another town back down the river. So I took a short boat trip down the river to collect my things. Unfortunately, as I was loading the boat that would charter my belongings down the river, it began to rain. To make matters worse, the boat would not start for 20 minutes. When I finally arrived in Gunzi my things were soaked and my food boxes were broken. At the time, I had been laughing about my situation up until this point, up until I opened the door to my house. I wished I would have seen another big, creepy tarantula like the last time I had entered my house here. Unfortunately, I had a termite nest on the ceiling, 15 feet up on the inside of my house. The nest was about three feet long and protruding about one foot down from the ceiling, about the size of three or more American footballs. At this point, I was not laughing anymore. I could not flex anymore as the Peace Corps would stress to do.
The afternoon of my arrival the Captain of the village and I inspected the termite nest and he devised a plan to get it down. The next day, the captain showed up at my house with a shovel, wheelbarrel and a ladder, I supplied the bug spray. He placed the wheelbarrow on my house floor beneath the nest and climbed the ladder with the shovel. I can assume you know where this is going. The next thing I know the Captain is hitting the nest and yelling, "Spray! Spray! Spray!" I must have killed about 2 million termites with that first spray and this process continuted for about 15 minutes until most of the termite nest had fallen. I'd assume I killed about 10 million termites that day and I'm damn proud of that fact because those things are a damned nuisance. That day I had to spend several hours and had to make multiple attempts before I was able to completely destroy and be rid of the nest. I also spent a quality hour or more cleaning the floor of my house because all the dead termites did not land in the wheelbarrel. I spent the following three days finding and destroying the other termite tunnels throughout the house. I went through two and one half bottles of bug spray to kill those pests and continue to stand guard looking for the next tunnel to spring up. So far, none have. And, in celebration of this fact, I decided to take a whole day to relax and begin reading the book "100 Years of Solitude", courteousy of the previous volunteer, Katchupai. And thus begin the adventures of the Basiapai...
On my last visit to Gunzi, my site, the villagers had tentatively given me the name Basiapai (Bah-see-a-pie), which translates to something like the boss boy or son in law of the boss. Anyways, upon my return there seemed to be some confusion over what the villagers actually wanted to me; some wanted to call me basiapai, others Konipai, meaning smart boy, and still others were opposed to both names. As of now, I am officially the Basiapai of Gunzi. As far as I understand, I have been named after one of the women in the village. Although, coincidentally, when I was first given the name I had been listening to the record The River. I like the coincidence story more.
After many complications in the city, I did finally arrive in Gunzi on August 6th. But not before more complications arose on the way to Gunzi. First, the SUV I was riding in popped a flat tire on the way to the boat port, Atjoni. Uppon arrival in Atjoni, I found out my things for my house were actually in another town back down the river. So I took a short boat trip down the river to collect my things. Unfortunately, as I was loading the boat that would charter my belongings down the river, it began to rain. To make matters worse, the boat would not start for 20 minutes. When I finally arrived in Gunzi my things were soaked and my food boxes were broken. At the time, I had been laughing about my situation up until this point, up until I opened the door to my house. I wished I would have seen another big, creepy tarantula like the last time I had entered my house here. Unfortunately, I had a termite nest on the ceiling, 15 feet up on the inside of my house. The nest was about three feet long and protruding about one foot down from the ceiling, about the size of three or more American footballs. At this point, I was not laughing anymore. I could not flex anymore as the Peace Corps would stress to do.
The afternoon of my arrival the Captain of the village and I inspected the termite nest and he devised a plan to get it down. The next day, the captain showed up at my house with a shovel, wheelbarrel and a ladder, I supplied the bug spray. He placed the wheelbarrow on my house floor beneath the nest and climbed the ladder with the shovel. I can assume you know where this is going. The next thing I know the Captain is hitting the nest and yelling, "Spray! Spray! Spray!" I must have killed about 2 million termites with that first spray and this process continuted for about 15 minutes until most of the termite nest had fallen. I'd assume I killed about 10 million termites that day and I'm damn proud of that fact because those things are a damned nuisance. That day I had to spend several hours and had to make multiple attempts before I was able to completely destroy and be rid of the nest. I also spent a quality hour or more cleaning the floor of my house because all the dead termites did not land in the wheelbarrel. I spent the following three days finding and destroying the other termite tunnels throughout the house. I went through two and one half bottles of bug spray to kill those pests and continue to stand guard looking for the next tunnel to spring up. So far, none have. And, in celebration of this fact, I decided to take a whole day to relax and begin reading the book "100 Years of Solitude", courteousy of the previous volunteer, Katchupai. And thus begin the adventures of the Basiapai...
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Fraternity Abroad
"We are... Parbo Delta Parbo!"
So, here is the crazy story about the past two weeks. We, all 22 of us official Peace Corps Volunteers, were supposed to leave the city on July 30, after about 6 days in the city. Due to complications, we have been here for two weeks but have enjoyed. Over the past two weeks, while I was supposed to be shopping for food and other necessities for my site, I went to the beach, twice. We visited the Jewish temple ruins out by Redi Doti. And we swore in as official volunteers at a fancy hotel where they gave us all the peanuts we could eat. Actually, like a herd, we followed the peanuts from table to table as they were being put out. As James would put it: 'there were six of us and they were delicious'. James, my roommate from Miami and again now, at the Stadz hostel, is the quotable guy from the meat bucket video--"step 1, get dirty; step 2, get clean".
Anyways, I would say that I had the most interesting adventure over the past two weeks. One night after I had come back from karaoke, myself and two other chums were standing infront of the hostel and heard some Caribbean dance music playing down the street. Needless to say, we decided to investigate. We walked inside the open venue and went up to the bar and asked one of the ladies what was going on. She told us it was her sister's bigi feryari and asked if we wanted a Parbo. So, we decided to stay. For those who do not know, a bigi feryari is a big deal. It is a birthday that ends in a 5 or 10--it was the birthday girl's 60th birthday. It was a huge celebration with a band and a video camera crew. After sitting down and conversing with some of the locals for 10 or 15 minutes, we were offered chicken on a stick and were told we could stay as long as we wanted......but only if we would dance. Much to the party's amusement we hit the dance floor and let it rip--three awkward 20 year olds in T-shirts and shorts at a fairly formal party. And, they filmed us. I have the feeling we are going to end up on America's Funniest Home Videos some day down the line, the three of us dancing like idiots.
As I was saying earlier, we have been in the city much longer than anticipated. This meant that some of us, particularly myself, had to give up our single/double rooms and be moved. The solution: move six of us onto cots in a two bedroom apartment. So, we decided to start the first Suriname Fraternity, which we called 'Parbo Delta Parbo'. It was basically a great excuse to sit around and play guitar, listen to music, hang out and eat food at Madonna's with our 'crew'. Actually, our initiation was finishing the pork chops complete dish at Madonna's restaurant--it's a big dish of pork chops, chow mein, rice, beans, french fries and kosbanti(green beans). And so, for the past week we have been able to live it up in our little paradise down the stairs and enjoy each other's company before we head out on our big journeys.
And with that, I must bid you all adeu as I will be heading to the interior tomorrow. I may be there for as long as two months. But, I am going to try to have a family member transcribe my blog for me over the phone and keep it updated every two weeks or so. So, bookmark the blog and keep checking periodically. Peace out all.
So, here is the crazy story about the past two weeks. We, all 22 of us official Peace Corps Volunteers, were supposed to leave the city on July 30, after about 6 days in the city. Due to complications, we have been here for two weeks but have enjoyed. Over the past two weeks, while I was supposed to be shopping for food and other necessities for my site, I went to the beach, twice. We visited the Jewish temple ruins out by Redi Doti. And we swore in as official volunteers at a fancy hotel where they gave us all the peanuts we could eat. Actually, like a herd, we followed the peanuts from table to table as they were being put out. As James would put it: 'there were six of us and they were delicious'. James, my roommate from Miami and again now, at the Stadz hostel, is the quotable guy from the meat bucket video--"step 1, get dirty; step 2, get clean".
Anyways, I would say that I had the most interesting adventure over the past two weeks. One night after I had come back from karaoke, myself and two other chums were standing infront of the hostel and heard some Caribbean dance music playing down the street. Needless to say, we decided to investigate. We walked inside the open venue and went up to the bar and asked one of the ladies what was going on. She told us it was her sister's bigi feryari and asked if we wanted a Parbo. So, we decided to stay. For those who do not know, a bigi feryari is a big deal. It is a birthday that ends in a 5 or 10--it was the birthday girl's 60th birthday. It was a huge celebration with a band and a video camera crew. After sitting down and conversing with some of the locals for 10 or 15 minutes, we were offered chicken on a stick and were told we could stay as long as we wanted......but only if we would dance. Much to the party's amusement we hit the dance floor and let it rip--three awkward 20 year olds in T-shirts and shorts at a fairly formal party. And, they filmed us. I have the feeling we are going to end up on America's Funniest Home Videos some day down the line, the three of us dancing like idiots.
As I was saying earlier, we have been in the city much longer than anticipated. This meant that some of us, particularly myself, had to give up our single/double rooms and be moved. The solution: move six of us onto cots in a two bedroom apartment. So, we decided to start the first Suriname Fraternity, which we called 'Parbo Delta Parbo'. It was basically a great excuse to sit around and play guitar, listen to music, hang out and eat food at Madonna's with our 'crew'. Actually, our initiation was finishing the pork chops complete dish at Madonna's restaurant--it's a big dish of pork chops, chow mein, rice, beans, french fries and kosbanti(green beans). And so, for the past week we have been able to live it up in our little paradise down the stairs and enjoy each other's company before we head out on our big journeys.
And with that, I must bid you all adeu as I will be heading to the interior tomorrow. I may be there for as long as two months. But, I am going to try to have a family member transcribe my blog for me over the phone and keep it updated every two weeks or so. So, bookmark the blog and keep checking periodically. Peace out all.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The End of Home Stay
"You know you've been in Suriname too long when this(Parbo) is refreshing."--One PCV
So, the last three weeks of home-stay/training could be summed up in three big events: taco day, the jungle walk and the Peace Corps project. Otherwise, we had language class in the morning and spent most of the afternoons watching films with the locals--an Office marathon one day, and eating a lot of ice cream.
So, first things first, the work. For my business training I did a project with youth on how to create a product. It went so-so. I took the idea from a past project at Chico State which was a great success. The jist of the project was to brainstorm different activities or things you liked and try to put together a new product. It could be anything, even something imagined and unrealistic. In the United States when I did this project, the kid decided to build a miniature wooden rocket car. When I practiced this project, in English, with other Peace Corps Volunteers two of the girls came up with a high heel that could double over as a hiking shoe and have a portable pouch inside. Anyways, here, in Suriname, because the learning style and classroom setting is different and because I am not fluent in the language yet, it was hard to convey this process to the kids and even the ones who did understand it were hesitant to do the project. Even though the execution of the project was not a huge success I learned a lot about how to more effectively work with youth here and that's the small victory I am going to have to take with me from here on out.
The jungle walk. Myself and a few other volunteers staying at our home stay put together a little walk with these kids. Myself and Mike, from Florida, split from the main group to go do a nature walk on our own. We saw some cool shit. We saw a ton of toucans, a couple of monkeys going through the trees and a rare crab sighting. The highlight of the trip though, was when we were walking back. In mid-conversation Mike suddenly stops me and says, "Look!" I don't see anything. Within a couple of seconds this huge bird with about 5+ feet of wing span flies out infront of us on the road. It was awesome.
And finally, the taco day. As an appreciation for our home-stay families we cooked up tacos with guacamole, tomatoes, beef, cheese, lettuce and beans. It was a huge success. There are a lot of pictures of this up on facebook. Also, I have never been so sick in my life. Go figure that Mexican food would've been the cuisine to thrash my stomach in Suriname.
So, the last three weeks of home-stay/training could be summed up in three big events: taco day, the jungle walk and the Peace Corps project. Otherwise, we had language class in the morning and spent most of the afternoons watching films with the locals--an Office marathon one day, and eating a lot of ice cream.
So, first things first, the work. For my business training I did a project with youth on how to create a product. It went so-so. I took the idea from a past project at Chico State which was a great success. The jist of the project was to brainstorm different activities or things you liked and try to put together a new product. It could be anything, even something imagined and unrealistic. In the United States when I did this project, the kid decided to build a miniature wooden rocket car. When I practiced this project, in English, with other Peace Corps Volunteers two of the girls came up with a high heel that could double over as a hiking shoe and have a portable pouch inside. Anyways, here, in Suriname, because the learning style and classroom setting is different and because I am not fluent in the language yet, it was hard to convey this process to the kids and even the ones who did understand it were hesitant to do the project. Even though the execution of the project was not a huge success I learned a lot about how to more effectively work with youth here and that's the small victory I am going to have to take with me from here on out.
The jungle walk. Myself and a few other volunteers staying at our home stay put together a little walk with these kids. Myself and Mike, from Florida, split from the main group to go do a nature walk on our own. We saw some cool shit. We saw a ton of toucans, a couple of monkeys going through the trees and a rare crab sighting. The highlight of the trip though, was when we were walking back. In mid-conversation Mike suddenly stops me and says, "Look!" I don't see anything. Within a couple of seconds this huge bird with about 5+ feet of wing span flies out infront of us on the road. It was awesome.
And finally, the taco day. As an appreciation for our home-stay families we cooked up tacos with guacamole, tomatoes, beef, cheese, lettuce and beans. It was a huge success. There are a lot of pictures of this up on facebook. Also, I have never been so sick in my life. Go figure that Mexican food would've been the cuisine to thrash my stomach in Suriname.
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