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.