"Would you like some rum with that bread?"--Borgi at 8 am
A brokoday is a Saramaccan funeral where the village remembers the person's life by staying up all night, drinking rum, playing music and dancing. This brokoday was for a young girl, a relative of one of the woman in Gunzi, who lived and died in French Guiana. Brokodays are celebrated on different occassions after the person dies
--days, weeks, and finally months after the person has died.
The last leg usually celebrated months after the person has died is called a limba uwii (cleaning hair) which is a traditional ceremony to remember the dead's spirit and drive any angry spirits out of the village. In this case, just weeks after the person had died (instead of months) we held the limba uwii. I believe this happened because the person died in French Guiana.
The preparations for the ceremony began about 3 weeks before the actual event. One afternoon I passed the village community center and noticed the guys hanging out skinning animal hides to put on their drum sets. A few days later, I got a preview of the Gunzi drumming band called Tei Wei Sponsor. They're good drummers but their lyrics on some of the songs are comical. In one song, the lead singer calls out, "I go to the store to buy butter, flour and salt!" And then everyone else in the band repeats that line. And of course, any good party needs food. So as forementioned in another blog I went along with most of the guys in the village for the fishing trip (ndeku). And a few other guys went out hunting and one of them shot a bush pig.
Saturday, December 18, 2010: Brokoday. I was awoken at 7 am by the knocking of the village bell, "gbeingbein". I arrived at the meeting house of a dead basia about 30 minutes and was courtesously on time. The morning began with prayer, the Captain sitting in the middle of the line of men, and Max, our spiritual leader for the week, sitting infront of them. The Captain said a few words asking for good fortune and then Max said a prayer to the Gods and poured libations of rum and soda out on the ground. A few minutes later, around 8 am, we were drinking the rum. 90% palum rum: Good morning, World! While we were drinking the rum, two guys walked out of the house holding a metal box. After opening the box, they began distributing bandja kotos, hand stitched traditional tops, that belonged to Basia Sumalu. Every man at the morning tuwe dan (throw away rum) prayer got a bandja koto, including myself. The women complemented how well the piece fit me. I liked it and thought it was strangely coincidental that Basiapai inherited the clothing of the Basia Sumalu.
In the afternoon, after the village had cleared the brush and weeds in the worshipping area, we sat down and did another tuwe dan, more rum! Finally, as night fell the bands and the food made their first appearances. Learning from my last brokoday, I sought out the food early and scored some rice and chicken from the women who cooked. Around 10 pm, the first band went on. Three bands played that night, including Gunzi's Tei Wei Sponsor who I recorded and played on the radio station the following night. The most comical part of the night occurred during one song, where the band repeatedly sang "lala cassava" which means grate cassava. And so, I got to witness my first "lala cassava" dance. This will probably only be appreciated by previous Peace Corps Suriname volunteers. I was laughing hysterically as 20 Saramaccans were doing their best dancing immitation of grating cassava. It's like their equivalent of the chicken dance. After getting in a little dancing with a few 50 year old ladies, I finally crashed at 4 am.
That morning I woke and helped the women crack some peanuts for the tuwe nyanyan (throw away food) ceremony later in the day. At a tuwe nyanyan a lot of food is prepared and mixed together--rice, peanut flavored rice, fish, meat and fish sauce. Two handfuls of food are thrown on the ground for the deceased's spirit. Then, the leader of the ceremony, Max, takes the food with two hands and places it in another person's hands if they forgot to bring dishes. So I got the food in my hands--rice, fish and pig mixed with a peanut sauce. And I ate the food right out of my hands like a little kid probably much to the amusement of my village. The ceremony concluded with 3 gun shots and the crowd dispersed.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Camp GLOW (Girls Leader of Our World) in Suriname
"I wasn't ready to leave camp yet!"--Orlanda, Gunzi's only participant
Me being tagged during capture the flag.
Camp GLOW is a young woman's empowerment camp that was started in Romaina to encourage young women to participate in politics, the work force and sports. Camp GLOW's have been put on throughout the World by various Peace Corps Volunteers. This was the first Camp GLOW ever in Suriname.
Day 1: After nearly a year of searching for funding and preparation, on December 10 we finally arrived at Isadou, a tourist camp on the Upper Suriname River, with about 20 Peace Corps Volunteers, several Peace Corps staff, and 6 Saramaccan cabin moms. The first day was an orientation for a cabin mom and the volunteers. Denise and Catherine went over the schedule and expectations and the highlight of the day was the yoga lesson, lead by Amber and Shannon, where 10 Peace Corps Volunteers and a few of the cabin moms had to lay on the ground and then lift their legs over their head. Ryan, our P.C. Volunteer photographer, captured the moment pretty well.
Day 2: A lot of nervous energy in the air as we woke up this morning. Will the girls show up on time? Will they actually show up!? The cabin mom who was supposed to represent Gunzi had already cancelled on me and I wasn't sure if the only kid coming from Gunzi would actually make it on the boat. When the boats showed up we breathed a sigh of relief, 48 out of 49 girls we expected had arrived. 29 of these girls were from the school I worked with for the World AIDS Day event, the rest came from 4 other villages. We signed the girls in and split them up into four teams, I was on the green team. The girls on the green team had a lot of personality. We started out as a group playing a name game I learned during a backpacking class. You go around the circle, you say your name and you pick a word, usually an animal, that starts with the same letter as your name.
For example, I became known as buffalo Basiapai throughout camp. The biggest personality on our team, a girl named Pam who played a character named Sweet Lover for our World AIDS Day skit, became known as Sweet Cookie-Sweet Lover. I also introduced myself to the entire camp as buffalo Basiapai from 104.1 fm in Gunzi and realized I had some fans in attendance after some applause.
After the ice-breakers, we ate lunch and did the first two lessons the girls had to attend: self-esteem and environment
. Chris Arronen from Idaho lead the self-esteem lesson. Amber from California and Jessica from Illinois led the environmental session which was about how to manage and reduce trash. After lessons Matt from Washington and I played slagball, a game Saramaccan woman play that is similar to baseball. After being applauded for my radio work earlier in the day, I was surprised when I got a lot more negative attention on the slagball field. I was jeered and heckled like I was a Dodger playing at Candlestick Park. Day 2 ended with an overly dramatic dance-step movie we played on a projector for the girls.
Day 3: Today I gave my lesson with Michelle from Washington. We gave a nutrition lesson and taught the girls how they can eat to prevent high blood pressure and diabetes, two prevalent diseases on the Upper Suriname River. Each lesson was given twice, first Michelle and I gave the lesson to the blue and yellow teams, then the orange and green teams, as to split up the girls and make them more manageable. The lesson started off with a competition between the two teams present to see who could arrange the food pyramid more quickly so I could grasp what they knew. Then, Michelle and I showed the girls the correct way to arrange the foods on the pyramid. Michelle then talked about vitamin deficiency and then myself and two representatives from the local medical posts talked about high blood pressure and diabetes. The lesson wrapped up by handing out 3 paper plates to each girl and having them construct 3 mock healthy meals. Almost all of the girls passed the lesson. Other lessons today were Exercise, HIV/AIDS and Sexual/Reproductive Health.
After lessons, I was again heckled during slagball. And today, I didn't even play. I had become the center of attention at the camp. Even the cabin moms were ribbing me pretty good, today. Clearly, I got a kick out of the whole thing.
Tonight, we had our HIV/AIDS night. The night started with the Tutu school kids I had worked with performing their skits. Then, a professional group from Masiakiiki, a 1 hour boat ride away, performed a skit but they were rained out half-way through and had to re-perform the skit the following morning. The night wrapped up with an informational HIV/AIDS movie. After the movie, the kids and I were running through the rain back to our cabins--I had to take care of a leak in one of the kids' cabins.
Day 4: The night before, we were supposed to finish with a guest speaker. She is a woman with HIV. I had met her for the first time the day before and had an amazing conversation with her the night before. Due to time constraints, we pushed back this woman's speach until this morning. Definitely the most unforgettable moment of camp. After the camp, I ran into the tourist camp owner telling this woman's story to a group of guys over beers in Tutu and some of the guys asked me if this lady's story was true. The tourist camp owner said he almost couldn't believe the story was true because the woman looked so healthy and strong and yet there she was standing infront of 50 young women telling them that she was living with HIV. During her speach, a few people cried, including the woman giving the speach. She talked about living with HIV but mostly talked about how one must carry themself so they don't contract HIV, she talked about faith, the importance of family, staying strong in times of adversity and told the girls to take what they learn in this camp and apply it to their everyday lives. Definitely the high point of the camp.
After this we had three lessons, Goal Setting, Leadership and Careers. Careers was also another high point for the camp. A prominent Saramaccan woman lead the session. She listed all the jobs men and women traditionally do in the culture, one by one she read off the jobs men do and asked if a woman could do that job, every girl emphatically yelled yes each time.
Later in the day, we played slagball again. I was only heckled once which was a drastic improvement over the last two days. Today, we played Peace Corps Volunteers versus all the girls who wanted to play. Even though we won, we had the scorekeeper tell the girls they had won. While they were celebrating we took two buckets filled with water balloons and pelted the girls with about 100 water balloons. Also a memorable moment of the camp.
The day wrapped up with a slide show of all the photos that had been taken during the camp and I supplied a mix CD of the pop music I play at the radio--Waka Waka by Shakira, Yori-yori by Bracket, and Night Shift & One More Night by Busy Signal (look em' up on Youtube). Of course, as had been par for the camp, when my yoga pictures were shown in the slide show I got quite a few applause. What can I say, I'm a Saramaccan celebrity. I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. After the slide show we let the girls dance for about a half-hour. When the music turned off and we tried to get the girls to sleep they revolted. They stayed up, danced for a whilte and then decided to sing church songs for another 30 minutes. Damn teenagers. Actually, I found it a bit comical. Maybe all that empowerment stuff had already gotten into their heads.
Day 5: Last day of camp! I spent most of the day doing radio interviews with cabin moms, teachers, Peace Corps Volunteers, the tourist camp staff and the campers. I played the interviews on Radio Mujee, 104.1 fm, one of the love stations in big sexy Sipalwini (our station's motto). I did take a quick break to play capture the flag though, which our green team won after a 40 minute stalemate when Pam aka Suti Lobi stole the flag and brought it to our territory while the other team was distracted. It was pretty awesome.
The camp finally came to a close with the Tutu school girls leaving on their boat, singing to their new friends from other villages as they undocked and rode off. My first camp, ever, and a great one.
Camp GLOW is a young woman's empowerment camp that was started in Romaina to encourage young women to participate in politics, the work force and sports. Camp GLOW's have been put on throughout the World by various Peace Corps Volunteers. This was the first Camp GLOW ever in Suriname.
Day 1: After nearly a year of searching for funding and preparation, on December 10 we finally arrived at Isadou, a tourist camp on the Upper Suriname River, with about 20 Peace Corps Volunteers, several Peace Corps staff, and 6 Saramaccan cabin moms. The first day was an orientation for a cabin mom and the volunteers. Denise and Catherine went over the schedule and expectations and the highlight of the day was the yoga lesson, lead by Amber and Shannon, where 10 Peace Corps Volunteers and a few of the cabin moms had to lay on the ground and then lift their legs over their head. Ryan, our P.C. Volunteer photographer, captured the moment pretty well.
Day 2: A lot of nervous energy in the air as we woke up this morning. Will the girls show up on time? Will they actually show up!? The cabin mom who was supposed to represent Gunzi had already cancelled on me and I wasn't sure if the only kid coming from Gunzi would actually make it on the boat. When the boats showed up we breathed a sigh of relief, 48 out of 49 girls we expected had arrived. 29 of these girls were from the school I worked with for the World AIDS Day event, the rest came from 4 other villages. We signed the girls in and split them up into four teams, I was on the green team. The girls on the green team had a lot of personality. We started out as a group playing a name game I learned during a backpacking class. You go around the circle, you say your name and you pick a word, usually an animal, that starts with the same letter as your name.
For example, I became known as buffalo Basiapai throughout camp. The biggest personality on our team, a girl named Pam who played a character named Sweet Lover for our World AIDS Day skit, became known as Sweet Cookie-Sweet Lover. I also introduced myself to the entire camp as buffalo Basiapai from 104.1 fm in Gunzi and realized I had some fans in attendance after some applause.
After the ice-breakers, we ate lunch and did the first two lessons the girls had to attend: self-esteem and environment
. Chris Arronen from Idaho lead the self-esteem lesson. Amber from California and Jessica from Illinois led the environmental session which was about how to manage and reduce trash. After lessons Matt from Washington and I played slagball, a game Saramaccan woman play that is similar to baseball. After being applauded for my radio work earlier in the day, I was surprised when I got a lot more negative attention on the slagball field. I was jeered and heckled like I was a Dodger playing at Candlestick Park. Day 2 ended with an overly dramatic dance-step movie we played on a projector for the girls.
Day 3: Today I gave my lesson with Michelle from Washington. We gave a nutrition lesson and taught the girls how they can eat to prevent high blood pressure and diabetes, two prevalent diseases on the Upper Suriname River. Each lesson was given twice, first Michelle and I gave the lesson to the blue and yellow teams, then the orange and green teams, as to split up the girls and make them more manageable. The lesson started off with a competition between the two teams present to see who could arrange the food pyramid more quickly so I could grasp what they knew. Then, Michelle and I showed the girls the correct way to arrange the foods on the pyramid. Michelle then talked about vitamin deficiency and then myself and two representatives from the local medical posts talked about high blood pressure and diabetes. The lesson wrapped up by handing out 3 paper plates to each girl and having them construct 3 mock healthy meals. Almost all of the girls passed the lesson. Other lessons today were Exercise, HIV/AIDS and Sexual/Reproductive Health.
After lessons, I was again heckled during slagball. And today, I didn't even play. I had become the center of attention at the camp. Even the cabin moms were ribbing me pretty good, today. Clearly, I got a kick out of the whole thing.
Tonight, we had our HIV/AIDS night. The night started with the Tutu school kids I had worked with performing their skits. Then, a professional group from Masiakiiki, a 1 hour boat ride away, performed a skit but they were rained out half-way through and had to re-perform the skit the following morning. The night wrapped up with an informational HIV/AIDS movie. After the movie, the kids and I were running through the rain back to our cabins--I had to take care of a leak in one of the kids' cabins.
Day 4: The night before, we were supposed to finish with a guest speaker. She is a woman with HIV. I had met her for the first time the day before and had an amazing conversation with her the night before. Due to time constraints, we pushed back this woman's speach until this morning. Definitely the most unforgettable moment of camp. After the camp, I ran into the tourist camp owner telling this woman's story to a group of guys over beers in Tutu and some of the guys asked me if this lady's story was true. The tourist camp owner said he almost couldn't believe the story was true because the woman looked so healthy and strong and yet there she was standing infront of 50 young women telling them that she was living with HIV. During her speach, a few people cried, including the woman giving the speach. She talked about living with HIV but mostly talked about how one must carry themself so they don't contract HIV, she talked about faith, the importance of family, staying strong in times of adversity and told the girls to take what they learn in this camp and apply it to their everyday lives. Definitely the high point of the camp.
After this we had three lessons, Goal Setting, Leadership and Careers. Careers was also another high point for the camp. A prominent Saramaccan woman lead the session. She listed all the jobs men and women traditionally do in the culture, one by one she read off the jobs men do and asked if a woman could do that job, every girl emphatically yelled yes each time.
Later in the day, we played slagball again. I was only heckled once which was a drastic improvement over the last two days. Today, we played Peace Corps Volunteers versus all the girls who wanted to play. Even though we won, we had the scorekeeper tell the girls they had won. While they were celebrating we took two buckets filled with water balloons and pelted the girls with about 100 water balloons. Also a memorable moment of the camp.
The day wrapped up with a slide show of all the photos that had been taken during the camp and I supplied a mix CD of the pop music I play at the radio--Waka Waka by Shakira, Yori-yori by Bracket, and Night Shift & One More Night by Busy Signal (look em' up on Youtube). Of course, as had been par for the camp, when my yoga pictures were shown in the slide show I got quite a few applause. What can I say, I'm a Saramaccan celebrity. I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. After the slide show we let the girls dance for about a half-hour. When the music turned off and we tried to get the girls to sleep they revolted. They stayed up, danced for a whilte and then decided to sing church songs for another 30 minutes. Damn teenagers. Actually, I found it a bit comical. Maybe all that empowerment stuff had already gotten into their heads.
Day 5: Last day of camp! I spent most of the day doing radio interviews with cabin moms, teachers, Peace Corps Volunteers, the tourist camp staff and the campers. I played the interviews on Radio Mujee, 104.1 fm, one of the love stations in big sexy Sipalwini (our station's motto). I did take a quick break to play capture the flag though, which our green team won after a 40 minute stalemate when Pam aka Suti Lobi stole the flag and brought it to our territory while the other team was distracted. It was pretty awesome.
The camp finally came to a close with the Tutu school girls leaving on their boat, singing to their new friends from other villages as they undocked and rode off. My first camp, ever, and a great one.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Ndeku: Drugging the creek
"Where's your bag of fish?"--Woman
"I put my fish in someone else's bag."--Me
"Ha, then you won't be eating any fish tonight."--Woman
Ndeku, a Saramaccan fishing method for catching lots of fish where the fish get drunk and the people have to do a lot of hard labor. I know what you're thinking, doesn't that actually defeat the purpose of fishing?
Upon my return to Gunzi after a two and a half hour up-river boat trip from Zemoise, still with my bags in hand and life jacket on, I walked past a group of men who had congregated behind my house. "What are you guys doing?" Since Gunzi's motorcycle gang was there and logs and sticks were a plenty in the vicinity I figured it was some kind of Hell Angel's meeting like used to go down back home on East Lewelling. "Ndeku!", my friend Kuka yelled. I had been waiting for over a year to go on a ndeku trip. Up to this point, I had only heard the amazing tales from a few very lucky Peace Corps Volunteers who had attended ndeku creek druggings. I ran to my house, threw down my baggage, grabbed my machette and rubber boots, then headed out into the jungle with a 50 pound bag of sticks and logs on top of my head. We walked out 3 miles into the jungle before we arrived at the big creek that runs under the great bridge.
I walked out with 3 other men and met up with 13 other people who had come to drug the creek. There were about 20 sacks worth of ndeku wood that people had carried for 3 miles from the village to the creek. After dropping our sacks or wheel barrows of logs and sticks on the ground, we took our machettes and began to cut down trees. We cut pieces of these trees into clubs to hit and mash up the ndeku. The purpose of this was to expose the white wood underneath the bark which has some kind of chemical that drugs the fish and forces them to the top of the water. We spent over 2 hours pounding ndeku, re-filling the sacks and wheel barrows with the pounded ndeku.
We began bringing the pounded ndeku to a few big rocks that the creek ran around.
Maku, who appeared to be our spiritual leader, begged the god of the forest for a good hunt of the fish and prayed that none of the kids got hurt. I think he was praying for me. After Maku's prayer, a few of the guys began to rinse and pound the ndeku even further to create a milky looking white substance that began running down the creek. Within a minute a sting ray had floated to the top of the water which gave everyone a scare and then another minute later a load of little fish floated to the top of the water and the kids who had come to the ndeku began scooping them up with their strainers into buckets. After observing for a few minutes and waiting until the men got down pounding the ndeku, I jumped into the creek with my machette. Finally! All those episodes of Man Vs. Wild that I watched before Peace Corps were going to pay off.
With machette in hand, I began heading down the creek with the men who were wielding machettes and bags to hold their hauls of fish. Up to this point my only fishing experience had been with a 13 year-old kid named Stephano and I dropped the one fish he handed me which meant my total fish haul for my year and change in Gunzi was -1. So the guys did not tell me to bring a bag because they didn't think I would catch any fish or they wanted to take my haul. I was relieved to immediately snag a tiny fish that wasn't alive and had floated to the top of the water. I raised my living-room, aquarium sized fish in triumph, my fish haul for over a year in Gunzi was now 0. We continued to head further up the creek and I found a few medium sized fish, two of which I was able to maim with my machette and throw into someone else's fish bag. I caught a lot of little ones with my hands, by the end of the day I could grab the fish routinely like a shortstop scooping up a ground ball. By the end of the day, I had caught over 20 total fish.
Of course, this event couldn't pass without a comical, token Peace Corps moment. After catching a few small and medium fish I was getting my confidence up. I was holding my machette and knee deep in creek water. I was standing next to a man named Mambele, probably the best hunter and farmer in the village. I had just thrown a fish in his bag and we were standing next to each other looking for fish when all the sudden something began shaking underneath and between my legs. Apparently, my reaction should have been to swing my machette down and kill whatever had floated to the surface under my legs. Instead, I let out an exclamation of surprise and almost jumped out of my rubber boots. Mambele turned around and I pointed at the water. He swung his machete at the water a few times and then pulled a 30 pound monster of a fish out of the water. Moments later, he caught an even bigger fish and would finish the day with 3 fish around 30 pounds.
I'd estimate that we waded, and at some points swam, a little over a mile down the creek. The group of men I was with, seven of us, caught over 500 total fish in about two and a half hours. And that lady was right, I still haven't eaten any of those fish, yet.
Fon Ndeku
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLipx0WB3WM
Kids Catching Fish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4G2hVADTWg
Me going for fish w/ machette
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElFPHgDzk90
The Big Kahuna!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7t2GW9lQQ
"I put my fish in someone else's bag."--Me
"Ha, then you won't be eating any fish tonight."--Woman
Ndeku, a Saramaccan fishing method for catching lots of fish where the fish get drunk and the people have to do a lot of hard labor. I know what you're thinking, doesn't that actually defeat the purpose of fishing?
Upon my return to Gunzi after a two and a half hour up-river boat trip from Zemoise, still with my bags in hand and life jacket on, I walked past a group of men who had congregated behind my house. "What are you guys doing?" Since Gunzi's motorcycle gang was there and logs and sticks were a plenty in the vicinity I figured it was some kind of Hell Angel's meeting like used to go down back home on East Lewelling. "Ndeku!", my friend Kuka yelled. I had been waiting for over a year to go on a ndeku trip. Up to this point, I had only heard the amazing tales from a few very lucky Peace Corps Volunteers who had attended ndeku creek druggings. I ran to my house, threw down my baggage, grabbed my machette and rubber boots, then headed out into the jungle with a 50 pound bag of sticks and logs on top of my head. We walked out 3 miles into the jungle before we arrived at the big creek that runs under the great bridge.
I walked out with 3 other men and met up with 13 other people who had come to drug the creek. There were about 20 sacks worth of ndeku wood that people had carried for 3 miles from the village to the creek. After dropping our sacks or wheel barrows of logs and sticks on the ground, we took our machettes and began to cut down trees. We cut pieces of these trees into clubs to hit and mash up the ndeku. The purpose of this was to expose the white wood underneath the bark which has some kind of chemical that drugs the fish and forces them to the top of the water. We spent over 2 hours pounding ndeku, re-filling the sacks and wheel barrows with the pounded ndeku.
We began bringing the pounded ndeku to a few big rocks that the creek ran around.
Maku, who appeared to be our spiritual leader, begged the god of the forest for a good hunt of the fish and prayed that none of the kids got hurt. I think he was praying for me. After Maku's prayer, a few of the guys began to rinse and pound the ndeku even further to create a milky looking white substance that began running down the creek. Within a minute a sting ray had floated to the top of the water which gave everyone a scare and then another minute later a load of little fish floated to the top of the water and the kids who had come to the ndeku began scooping them up with their strainers into buckets. After observing for a few minutes and waiting until the men got down pounding the ndeku, I jumped into the creek with my machette. Finally! All those episodes of Man Vs. Wild that I watched before Peace Corps were going to pay off.
With machette in hand, I began heading down the creek with the men who were wielding machettes and bags to hold their hauls of fish. Up to this point my only fishing experience had been with a 13 year-old kid named Stephano and I dropped the one fish he handed me which meant my total fish haul for my year and change in Gunzi was -1. So the guys did not tell me to bring a bag because they didn't think I would catch any fish or they wanted to take my haul. I was relieved to immediately snag a tiny fish that wasn't alive and had floated to the top of the water. I raised my living-room, aquarium sized fish in triumph, my fish haul for over a year in Gunzi was now 0. We continued to head further up the creek and I found a few medium sized fish, two of which I was able to maim with my machette and throw into someone else's fish bag. I caught a lot of little ones with my hands, by the end of the day I could grab the fish routinely like a shortstop scooping up a ground ball. By the end of the day, I had caught over 20 total fish.
Of course, this event couldn't pass without a comical, token Peace Corps moment. After catching a few small and medium fish I was getting my confidence up. I was holding my machette and knee deep in creek water. I was standing next to a man named Mambele, probably the best hunter and farmer in the village. I had just thrown a fish in his bag and we were standing next to each other looking for fish when all the sudden something began shaking underneath and between my legs. Apparently, my reaction should have been to swing my machette down and kill whatever had floated to the surface under my legs. Instead, I let out an exclamation of surprise and almost jumped out of my rubber boots. Mambele turned around and I pointed at the water. He swung his machete at the water a few times and then pulled a 30 pound monster of a fish out of the water. Moments later, he caught an even bigger fish and would finish the day with 3 fish around 30 pounds.
I'd estimate that we waded, and at some points swam, a little over a mile down the creek. The group of men I was with, seven of us, caught over 500 total fish in about two and a half hours. And that lady was right, I still haven't eaten any of those fish, yet.
Fon Ndeku
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLipx0WB3WM
Kids Catching Fish
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4G2hVADTWg
Me going for fish w/ machette
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElFPHgDzk90
The Big Kahuna!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS7t2GW9lQQ
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
World AIDS Day 2010 in Tutubuka
"I wanna run, I want to hide, I wanna tear down the walls that hold me inside. I wanna reach out, and touch the flame." --U2, Where the Streets Have No Name
Translation(Saramaccan): How will you carry yourself?
World AIDS Day 2010
World AIDS Day in Tutubuka, again. 7 weeks, 32 new kids, 2 new teachers, 1 new Peace Corps Volunteer-Josh aka Tutubala, Catherine and I.
This year's lessons and World AIDS followed a format similar to the one the year before with a few modifications. We spent several weeks in the school, again, teaching the kids about what HIV and this year we talked more about HIV in Suriname--who's at risk, Suriname's prevalanece rate.
This year's class consisted of 29 girls and 3 boys which created some unique opportunities.
One of the new additions to this year's program, due to my vastly improved language skills, was the use of the radio to expand our potential audience. I already used the radio to promote and report on the boatman training that I hosted in early November. This year, I used the radio to advertise all 3 World AIDS Day hosted by Peace Corps Volunteers on the radio and I worked with a local health on a Saturday night show which we discussed HIV/AIDS information and other heatlh topics. But the biggest success was teaming with the host of the new Tuesday night show called "Time for Lovers", the Saramaccan equivalent of love-line. The show's host, my friend from Abenaston named A.S., reads letters, usually fictional, from distressed Saramaccans and he lets the audience call in and give advice. I arranged for one of the doctors at the medical clinic to write a few different scenarios-mostly having to do with testing for HIV, and had A.S. read them on Tuesday nights. The response was pretty good as the fictional letters were pretty juicy but addressed real-life scenarios observed on the river. The radio work wrapped up with me playing interviews from the World AIDS Day event and doing a T-shirt giveaway over the air for listeners who called in and could answer a question about HIV correctly.
After returning from the city on November 28 with the supplies for our event, Catherine and I spent all week working with the kids on the skits. On Friday, we ran through each skit twice and talked with the kids about Saturday's schedule. On Saturday, Catherine and Josh with the help of Mark and Ryan--two other new PCVs who came to help out, set up the community center with the school kids and the DJ we hired. I was an hour late because I basically had to drag the one kid I was responsible for bringing from Gunzi to Tutubuka. We ran through the skits two more times and then the DJ played music until some local women finished cooking lunch--rice, beans, chicken, cumbers with onions and vinegar, eggplant and it was friggin' delicious!
The event kicked off a little after four o'clock and the kids did a good job on the five-part play we had rehearsed. The two main characters names were Carla and Suti Lobi(Sweet Lover), Carla's boyfriend who was played by one of the 29 girls in the class since the 3 boys were too shy. The skits were addressed issues in today's Saramaccan culture--men leaving the village for work, taking another woman, catching HIV, transmitting it to their first woman and wrapped up with the two main characters testing, getting the results and what happened when they told their friends and family. Then, the kids added a little piece, I am not exactly sure what the hell it was about though. One of the lesser characters was now pregnant, everyone on stage was laughing, and it appeared someone was cussing out the male character, Suti Lobi. After the kids got done with the skits, they sang several songs they had rehearsed by themselves without any direction from teachers or the Peace Corps. This turned out surprisingly well and help conclude the kids' piece on a high note. The event finally wrapped up with some words from Catherine and one of the health workers from the medical clinic gave a speach.
My most favorite part of the day came after the skits and music had come to an end. No one was sure how this conclusion would play out, it was the idea of the health worker who had given the speach at the event. The health worker wanted to do a candle light vigil and we bought 200 candles in the city not knowing if this would actually happen. Everyone was directed to meet at a store on the other side of the village at 6:30 pm. As people arrived, we spent about 30 minutes passing out candles and lighting them. A walk was then led across the village of Tutubuka, population 1,500, and we arrived back at the community center with about 200 people where the kids began singing songs while holding their candles in the air. It was a truly beautiful sight, one I won't ever forget, and a great way to finish the day.
World AIDS Day 2010
World AIDS Day in Tutubuka, again. 7 weeks, 32 new kids, 2 new teachers, 1 new Peace Corps Volunteer-Josh aka Tutubala, Catherine and I.
This year's lessons and World AIDS followed a format similar to the one the year before with a few modifications. We spent several weeks in the school, again, teaching the kids about what HIV and this year we talked more about HIV in Suriname--who's at risk, Suriname's prevalanece rate.
This year's class consisted of 29 girls and 3 boys which created some unique opportunities.
One of the new additions to this year's program, due to my vastly improved language skills, was the use of the radio to expand our potential audience. I already used the radio to promote and report on the boatman training that I hosted in early November. This year, I used the radio to advertise all 3 World AIDS Day hosted by Peace Corps Volunteers on the radio and I worked with a local health on a Saturday night show which we discussed HIV/AIDS information and other heatlh topics. But the biggest success was teaming with the host of the new Tuesday night show called "Time for Lovers", the Saramaccan equivalent of love-line. The show's host, my friend from Abenaston named A.S., reads letters, usually fictional, from distressed Saramaccans and he lets the audience call in and give advice. I arranged for one of the doctors at the medical clinic to write a few different scenarios-mostly having to do with testing for HIV, and had A.S. read them on Tuesday nights. The response was pretty good as the fictional letters were pretty juicy but addressed real-life scenarios observed on the river. The radio work wrapped up with me playing interviews from the World AIDS Day event and doing a T-shirt giveaway over the air for listeners who called in and could answer a question about HIV correctly.
After returning from the city on November 28 with the supplies for our event, Catherine and I spent all week working with the kids on the skits. On Friday, we ran through each skit twice and talked with the kids about Saturday's schedule. On Saturday, Catherine and Josh with the help of Mark and Ryan--two other new PCVs who came to help out, set up the community center with the school kids and the DJ we hired. I was an hour late because I basically had to drag the one kid I was responsible for bringing from Gunzi to Tutubuka. We ran through the skits two more times and then the DJ played music until some local women finished cooking lunch--rice, beans, chicken, cumbers with onions and vinegar, eggplant and it was friggin' delicious!
The event kicked off a little after four o'clock and the kids did a good job on the five-part play we had rehearsed. The two main characters names were Carla and Suti Lobi(Sweet Lover), Carla's boyfriend who was played by one of the 29 girls in the class since the 3 boys were too shy. The skits were addressed issues in today's Saramaccan culture--men leaving the village for work, taking another woman, catching HIV, transmitting it to their first woman and wrapped up with the two main characters testing, getting the results and what happened when they told their friends and family. Then, the kids added a little piece, I am not exactly sure what the hell it was about though. One of the lesser characters was now pregnant, everyone on stage was laughing, and it appeared someone was cussing out the male character, Suti Lobi. After the kids got done with the skits, they sang several songs they had rehearsed by themselves without any direction from teachers or the Peace Corps. This turned out surprisingly well and help conclude the kids' piece on a high note. The event finally wrapped up with some words from Catherine and one of the health workers from the medical clinic gave a speach.
My most favorite part of the day came after the skits and music had come to an end. No one was sure how this conclusion would play out, it was the idea of the health worker who had given the speach at the event. The health worker wanted to do a candle light vigil and we bought 200 candles in the city not knowing if this would actually happen. Everyone was directed to meet at a store on the other side of the village at 6:30 pm. As people arrived, we spent about 30 minutes passing out candles and lighting them. A walk was then led across the village of Tutubuka, population 1,500, and we arrived back at the community center with about 200 people where the kids began singing songs while holding their candles in the air. It was a truly beautiful sight, one I won't ever forget, and a great way to finish the day.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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.
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