"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...
Monday, August 24, 2009
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.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Pics/Videos
Pictures have been added to my facebook profile. You will need to be my facebook friend in order to see the pictures. I am in the Chico State, Brighton and East Bay networks if you are looking me up. Send me an e-mail if you have problems with this. icwrockyrodriguez@Yahoo.com
Several Videos have been uploaded to youtube. Here is the link to the video where we were cleaning meat buckets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1o3exVnOIA
Click on my username, if21 to see more of the videos.
Finally, I found out will be in the city til Wednesday. So keep on checkin out the blog. More updates soon!
Several Videos have been uploaded to youtube. Here is the link to the video where we were cleaning meat buckets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1o3exVnOIA
Click on my username, if21 to see more of the videos.
Finally, I found out will be in the city til Wednesday. So keep on checkin out the blog. More updates soon!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Meat Buckets and Swear In
"Oh, 4,5,6 c'mon and get your kicks
now you dont need that money
with a .....wha!???, do ya!"--Matt & CRod performing "Be my girl" by JET at Karaoke
Greetings from Suriname.
Yesterday, we cleaned meat buckets. Like 50 of 'em. Today, we are officially swearing-in as Peace Corps Volunteers. I don't think those two events are correlated. Anyways, Yes, our training period will be officially over at about 6 or 7 o'clock local time. But, we are stuck in the city for a few more days before we go out to site which is okay with me considering I have not done any shopping yet. While some people have purchased beds, tools and food, thus far my biggest purchase has been a pair of soccer cleats.
Anyways, a lot has been happenened over the past few weeks. First, after my initial three weeks of living with a family, I went to my future site; where I will be living and working for two years. Absolutely loved it. The village is south of the lake on the Suriname River. It is a very small village, I was told 60-75 people but I only met 40-50 people during my visit. Everyone was real cool. My first night at village, one of the locals pulled me aside, told me he couldn't read English and asked if I could help him set up a TV. If a village has electricity, from what I've seen so far I'd say it's fairly common for people to have old TVs with a DVD player. So, I go to this guy's house expecting some early-90's Toshiba or cheap Japanese knock off. Can you guess what kind of TV this guy wanted me to set-up!? Flat screen TV! I could go for one of those in my hut too but the Peace Corps ain't goin for it.
Speaking of my hut, it's not too shabby. Two pretty good sized rooms, 4 windows, 2 doors, with a wash house and flush toilet behind the house. I also have some kind of open work house and a pit to burn trash. I have been hanging my hammock in the middle of the house so far and if you lie there and look at the roof and walls of the house you can see some pretty funny and amazing stuff. First thing seen was a tarantula. I was a little uneasy with it at first but we made a peace accord and if he stayed to his side of the room we'd have no problems. Unfortunately, he didn't stay to his side of the room. Crossed over to my sleeping space and he was evicted. There are a lot of other interesting critters in the house too--lots of roaches. The best thing that happened to me so far was the spider that crawled down its web from the roof--about 20 feet up, into my hammock while I was reading. I almost flipped the hammock in hysteria. That would've made for a great youtube video. And the coolest thing I saw so far was a kaiman. Except it wasn't so cool when I saw it because I was fishing on the shore and it darted into the water about 15-20 feet away from me. I was pretty damn scared but the villagers were pretty amused by that.
As far as work in the village, I have a lot of different work opportunities there. First, there is a tourist camp which is already putting me to work. There is also a radio station in my village where I am hoping to DJ--play music, put together informationals on health and business. I have identified other opportunities as well, some of which the other volunteers before me started and others I may try and put together on my own. Most of these will be small group or one-on-one type projects involving education such as English lessons--which if you read the grammar of this blog I am sure you know I am totally qualified to be doing...
Anyways, time to finally go and buy some food--can't live off of Milk Powder, Soy Oil and Soccer Cleats. I will try and post about my last 2 1/2 weeks of homestay tomorrow. I've got some pretty quality stories. Also working on uploading videos/pictures so stay tuned. Te Amanya(Til tomorrow)!
now you dont need that money
with a .....wha!???, do ya!"--Matt & CRod performing "Be my girl" by JET at Karaoke
Greetings from Suriname.
Yesterday, we cleaned meat buckets. Like 50 of 'em. Today, we are officially swearing-in as Peace Corps Volunteers. I don't think those two events are correlated. Anyways, Yes, our training period will be officially over at about 6 or 7 o'clock local time. But, we are stuck in the city for a few more days before we go out to site which is okay with me considering I have not done any shopping yet. While some people have purchased beds, tools and food, thus far my biggest purchase has been a pair of soccer cleats.
Anyways, a lot has been happenened over the past few weeks. First, after my initial three weeks of living with a family, I went to my future site; where I will be living and working for two years. Absolutely loved it. The village is south of the lake on the Suriname River. It is a very small village, I was told 60-75 people but I only met 40-50 people during my visit. Everyone was real cool. My first night at village, one of the locals pulled me aside, told me he couldn't read English and asked if I could help him set up a TV. If a village has electricity, from what I've seen so far I'd say it's fairly common for people to have old TVs with a DVD player. So, I go to this guy's house expecting some early-90's Toshiba or cheap Japanese knock off. Can you guess what kind of TV this guy wanted me to set-up!? Flat screen TV! I could go for one of those in my hut too but the Peace Corps ain't goin for it.
Speaking of my hut, it's not too shabby. Two pretty good sized rooms, 4 windows, 2 doors, with a wash house and flush toilet behind the house. I also have some kind of open work house and a pit to burn trash. I have been hanging my hammock in the middle of the house so far and if you lie there and look at the roof and walls of the house you can see some pretty funny and amazing stuff. First thing seen was a tarantula. I was a little uneasy with it at first but we made a peace accord and if he stayed to his side of the room we'd have no problems. Unfortunately, he didn't stay to his side of the room. Crossed over to my sleeping space and he was evicted. There are a lot of other interesting critters in the house too--lots of roaches. The best thing that happened to me so far was the spider that crawled down its web from the roof--about 20 feet up, into my hammock while I was reading. I almost flipped the hammock in hysteria. That would've made for a great youtube video. And the coolest thing I saw so far was a kaiman. Except it wasn't so cool when I saw it because I was fishing on the shore and it darted into the water about 15-20 feet away from me. I was pretty damn scared but the villagers were pretty amused by that.
As far as work in the village, I have a lot of different work opportunities there. First, there is a tourist camp which is already putting me to work. There is also a radio station in my village where I am hoping to DJ--play music, put together informationals on health and business. I have identified other opportunities as well, some of which the other volunteers before me started and others I may try and put together on my own. Most of these will be small group or one-on-one type projects involving education such as English lessons--which if you read the grammar of this blog I am sure you know I am totally qualified to be doing...
Anyways, time to finally go and buy some food--can't live off of Milk Powder, Soy Oil and Soccer Cleats. I will try and post about my last 2 1/2 weeks of homestay tomorrow. I've got some pretty quality stories. Also working on uploading videos/pictures so stay tuned. Te Amanya(Til tomorrow)!
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