Excitements and other Good Goings on!

So hello there! It's been a good couple of days out here! I just got back from a week of CAMP BOYS CAMP. Hey Jude I am exhausted. Seriously. Peace Corps is a 24x7 job, so they say, but summer camp is realllly twenty four hours a day every day. I was kind of one of the head camp counselors, I was in charge of the lesson segment on leadership, I led the morning workout, and MOST OF ALL, I was one of the House Brothers which meant I was sleeping in a house with 5 13ish year old boys. Upside - I learned some new words. Downside - did not get much sleep.

Still, the camp was pretty seriously all around awesome. I have to say, I think the girls got a little more out of the girls camp than these boys did, but that isn't to downplay the value. The boys got a lot - the way they were engaging, the look in their eyes, the information they wouldn't have otherwise, was a clear and positive change. I say the girls got a little more simply because of the relative distance they have to traverse. Men, and even boys, here are simply exposed to more and given more messages of empowerment. So while it was a big positive push for the boys, it was a paradigm shift for some of the girls. Either way, I'm excited to continue working the camps with both genders and I'll be the Director of one coming up in May - boys.

It's interesting how much at home I feel here now. Wandering around the river and the jungle is kind of normal now and is about the same level of comfort as popping into LaGuardia for a quick look at NYC. Scheduling is hard but it doesn't matter - if you have to sit and wait a bit, it's just life. Time is fluid and it's so hot your flexibility can't help but improve. There is still a lot of the language I don't understand, but my ability to get by is solidly present. I can do a presentation in Saramaccan off an English outline and I'm sure I'm a bit off, but people get me.

Two of my friends - the girls from the two nearest villages that came over before actually - slept over again just after the boys camp and it worked out about perfectly. Made me actually sit down and rest after the Boy's Camp, something I needed to do. Nagging health issues came back hard when they caught me that over-extended by constant over-enthusiasm, minimal sleep, and other generally stressful conditions. So we hung out a bit, they bought some things at the museum (the reason for the trip), and watched Finding Nemo and had an early night.

In the morning, I walked them back to Gran Tatai (Anaconda! That's what the village names translate to. Or Big Rope. Context.) and it was all beautiful on the path and jungley. The path itself isn't quite as nice as the one I generally run - more streams to cross with rougher fords/bridges - but the scenery is actually more beautiful.

I'm really looking forward to people visiting so that you can see - my poor pictures, and the even fewer I manage to post, simply don't do it justice. Ariel is coming in less than 3 weeks and that is consuming my brain in a positive but exciting way! I can't wait to see her. It's all I want to think about and it makes my world brighter to know that I get to see her soon.

At the same time, I'm trying to make sure I have some work done to show her, my other visitors, and everybody (namely myself, the village, and other Suriname-stakeholders). So I'm finally starting to actually do project work.

Right now I have three primary things on my plate, though unfortunately I have to start with the least interesting. After that there are three back burner things - back burner because they are smaller and/or a ways off yet. We'll just go through them quickly and then I'll call this post finished! Sort of rambling and written over several days with many mood changes in between, so sorry if it's a bit disjointed!

Primaries:

1. Lampesi's - Community Wide

This project will benefit the entire village by improving access to the river. Saramaccans go the river at step-landings called lampesi's which are made from stone, wood, or mud. Wood lasts for about 5 years if you are lucky and mud is just plain dangerous, so cement is the far and away preferred choice. There are currently 3 cement landings that people use to get to the river, but one half of the village is a ways from any of them. Also the busiest landing happens to be mud - it's a testament to how convenient and important the location is given that it is so dangerous and muddy but everybody still uses it. Our goal is to make 5 cement lampesis - starting with that busiest spot, then going into the underserved part of the village.

It's my first stab at actual project work and I'm both excited and disillusioned, daunted and optimistic. Life! We've taken some pictures and I've started trying to contact potential funders, but we've also just started the actual budgeting and planning process. It's disillusioning only because of how excited people are until they start to understand how much work they are going to have to do to help me with the project proposal - and then to actually build the lampesis assuming we get the money for the supplies. It's daunting because this will probably costs $15k+ if we actually go for all 5. I may try to talk the village into going for 2 now, but we'll see how the costs look once we get that far. Anyway, exciting to actually put pen to paper and sandals to ground! Baby steps yet, but the ball is vaguely rolling! Yay!

2. Woodcarving Workshop

The guys behind the museum have built an open air structure to be a central workshop for their group. It's on the path to the museum they want it to be a combination work room, show room, and class room. Tourists will pass it and see them at work, buy the finished products, and adults and children can sign up for classes - they have already started talking with neighboring schools to do segments with 3rd and 5th graders.

In short, it's brilliant. It will improve an indigenous business, help preserve traditional cultural practices, and pass on traditional skills and the importance of the conserving the jungle (and the rare woods they need to make their stuff). Shouldn't be hard to find the money for this and I'm excited, though it will be a pretty involved planning and budgeting process.

The structure is already up, but it is just an overblown shed right now. Our goal is to get it floored, furnished, plumbed(!), wired, and otherwise set up work work and learning. I'm super excited about this and I think I can get funding organizations excited too. Again, it's a matter of getting the details nailed down so we know what we need to ask for.

3. Entreprenurial Training

I have officially founded the Pikin Slee Business Group (no formal discussion about the name as of yet) and the members have decided that the first thing we should do is seek training on how to start a business, particularly as it applies to working with banks and other potential funding organizations. Since most people don't even have bank accounts, this can be a real problem. Many organizations offer this kind of training, at least in abstract - I don't know specifics yet - so I'm excited to begin building capacity in this group so we can make this a strong vector to help the village move forward.

Simmering Away:

1. World AIDS Day (Belated)

We are starting to plan an event for World AIDS Day in the village - I am working with a neighboring volunteer who has already been here a year and we already have the funding. We just need to nail down exactly what we are doing with it. General plan is lessons in the school, presentations for adults, and a culmination party featuring a dance group that, literally, does an HIV education interpretative dance. More or less. It actually uses the traditional story telling forms of dancing and singing to teach a lesson about how you can catch HIV and what you can do about it.

I've seen it twice now - we book them for all the camps - and they are great. It goes well, teaches great stuff, and is just awesome.

2. Blue Balls

These blue balls are tough - so tough that lions can chew on them, trucks can squish them, and - hopefully - kids in 3rd world environments can play soccer and other games with them without busting.

Video of a lion playing with the ball! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9su83Pxrmc&noredirect=1

Peace Corps is currently trying to raise money to buy a slew of these to use in a business education program that focuses on teaching soft work/life skills through sports-inspired games. Every Peace Corps Volunteer in Suriname has gone through the initial stages of training in the curriculum and we are excited to roll it out with the youth groups, schools, etc that Volunteers work with all over the country. So, for the first time in the history of blog, I will formally ask for money!

Check it out here! This is a project will benefit almost every village in Suriname with a Volunteer and I can tell you that my village is already set up and ready to go - I've already started a youth group and we are chugging along well, though supplies really help!

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=568-133

And actually, it isn't there directly but there's another super cool way to support this work - if you buy a ball from them directly, one gets donated to the project of your choice! So if you happen to be looking for a multipurpose soccer-like ball, buy one here! Or if you know someone that might be - tell them about it! Unfortunately, you can't yet send them to Peace Corps Suriname, but you can still send a ball to a variety of useful organizations. Peace Corps is using the Agnar Caribbean curriculum, so that would be my choice to pick as your partner just because I know they are doing good work in the region.

So check out the soccer ball website if you are interested in learning more about that and their general junk.

http://www.oneworldfutbol.com/

3. Boy's Camp

Finally, as I've been saying, I'm going to be in charge of a Boy's Camp sometime in May. Gotta start planning that with the 2 other Volunteers I am working with at some point! I'm also considering coming home sometime over the summer - because of the camp it's looking like it probably won't be for TKD Semi-Formal, but I may try to catch Ariel's graduation or something like that. No firm plans yet, or even soft, but I'd like to come how somewhere around the year mark.

So that's what's spinning around here, as they say (Sarammacans do, anyway). How are you?

Adventures in the City

So, hello there!

I'm writing this from the Peace Corps office in Paramaribo after a week in said city. A lovely week, really. Food, fun, and foot infections! Last part not so lovely, but thoroughly deal-with-able.

Anyway, it's been a good time in the city and I'll break this up into 3 bits.

1. Friends

It's really really cool to see the rest of the Volunteers. We don't all love each other, but it's cool as we start to figure out who we actively like and who we are just ok with - everybody is basically fine with each other, even if they don't seek out a specific person's company - and that makes it a pretty solid group. Plus everyone is generally pretty positive, supportive, and sensitive with a good mix of wild and creative that makes for fun get togethers.

Also, it's really cool staying with Jose - my best friend's father's friend who happens to own a business (and have a really nice house) here in Suriname. He reminds me of a mixture of Andy's dad, Dan, and a solid shot of European - in other words, he's pretty cool. Very well informed, well traveled, and generally just interesting to talk to - we don't agree on every point but I learn something interesting regardless of what we are talking about.

He has a very nice house - king size bed! with AC! - and is a very good cook and just a very good host. Sort of all the best parts of a total dude and a helpful, nice guy. Doesn't sleep much so it makes for some late nights, but generally worth staying up for.

2. 21 Kilometers

I ran a half marathon! My first ever, but I would definitely do it again! I don't feel the need to go for a full, but still I had a great time! I did not push myself too hard and it went really well. The whole build up to it was a lot of fun - something to train for is always good to keep you motivated in exercise so that was nice. And then it was a big to-do in the city and all that, and the race itself was awesome!

I started off with my running buddy from training - she's a more experienced but solidly slower runner than I am but that's helped since she and I have run all my record-breaking long distances together. We hung together for the first 15ish kilometers with several other people - including a random spanish guy - popping in for anywere from 2-13 of those ks.

I trained pretty hard and so I was feeling great the whole race - I had breath and energy to cheer and joke as we passed check points, cops, and the occasional crowd of spectators. So I decided that I wanted to try to catch the guy in 3rd place for Peace Corps (my friend and I were 4th and 5th at that point). Around when I was thinking about this, a little kid conveniently started acting like he wanted to race (a bored 5-year old spectator) and so I waved goodbye to my buddy and raced the kid for a hundred meters and then kept on going at a good clip.

We were about 5k out at that point and I managed to catch my man with about 2 kilometers to go. I was starting to feel it at that point, but still having fun and so I was wavering if I should finish with him or keep pushing on. Fortunately, at that moment an older lady that I had passed a bit ago caught up to me and passed me! She was clearly experienced and had her goal in mind or whatever so I made it mine to beat her!

We were step for step for the next kilometer and with 1 to go, I clipped it up again and was able to lose her. By this point, I was really feeling it - especially because the sun was long down and I was drenched with sweat so I was actually getting slightly chilled. I just tried to talk myself into the idea that the chill was just runners' high and kept on going. Plus, by that point there was starting to be a crowd and everybody likes to finish strong and that goes double if there are spectators!

I always try to sprint the last bit of a run, but this was one pretty long run! Still, gotta have some style so I started to get psyched up and then I got perfectly lucky. Just as I came into view of the finish line - a little over 100 meters out - I saw a guy halfway between me and the line. I didn't have to even think, I just took off sprinting to try and cross before he did. I made across about 20 feet in front of him, fists in the air, and 1:59:58 on the clock!

So it was a lot of fun!

3. Work

I'll include in this medical and developmental stuff - since it's all kind of part of my job here.

My health in the lead up to the city was solid, except that I got a really bad blister on my heel while training for the marathon. I was planning to do 2-3 big jungle runs before heading into the city - each one a jungle half marathon - but after I did the first one I was so drained, and so blistered, that I only did it once. Fortunately, it turns out that a jungle half marathon is way harder than a city half marathon and so I was in good shape for the race, but I was also fairly worried about my feel. I had that blister, several smaller ones one various toes, and I randomly managed to get 2 infected ant bites during normal life in the week leading up to the race.

I was most worried about the blister, but surprisingly all that stuff was fine during and after the race - but the weird toe nail infection I've been fighting (despite the fact that it seemed to be gone just now) decided to come back after the race and I also got an ear infection. Nothing major, but very annoying!

Anyway, my goal in the city was to finish my funding proposal for the Adult Education Program and get started on the next thing - landings for the village. I didn't get much of a start on that, but I did finish that first funding proposal! Very exciting! I haven't heard back anything as of the moment that I am publishing this, but still! Ground broken! I'm officially all Peace Corpsing and whatnot!

And that, my friends, is that!

Adventures with Friends

So it's the week before I go back to the city and there is some scrambling to get things prepped to go, but there's also a giant awesome ceremony called Limba Pasi - so why not have a giant sleep over party!

Pikin Slee is traditional enough and big enough to be a pretty cool place to visit - and of course has yours truly hanging out in it. So now that people are getting comfortable on the river and in their homesites, they are starting to explore - I know I want to start doing so soon myself!

So my 3 closest neighbors came to visit and one other girl who is a good friend but a bit farther away. Jonathan is my closest closest neighbor and I see him about once a week but we don't see the others that often since they are a boat ride away instead of walkable.

Jonathan didn't spend the night, but the 3 girls did - and man was it crowded! Or, I suppose, woman was it crowded! 3 hammocks, one cot, and a whole lot of junk. We went through an insane amount of food - fortunately I am well stocked. They ate an ENTIRE JAR of Nutella. Much of it with a spoon. People get crazy out here. I go through a fair amount of peanut butter (because it's good on everything and sometimes you need the protein, fat, and salt if I've only been eating my own cooking for a while straight), but other people can't keep it in the house or they just destroy it.

Thanks to those of you who are helping me stay supplied with other yummy snackables so I can steer clear of spooning my staples to death. I miss spooning.

So anyway, it was pretty cool. I got to show off my village to some friends and that was really fun! It made me realize how many people I know and how much I have settled into the community. Also, showing people around was better and worse than I thought - we got mobbed and (relatively pleasantly) harassed quite a bit. People were friendly and not too aggressive (with a few exceptions), but the mobbing is going to be worse when Ariel comes to visit. I think the aggressiveness - in terms of people hitting on the girls anyway - should be better. So hopefully it will balance out and be good. A bit nervous

But yeah - having visitors is really fun. It helps you see your daily life through new eyes. This was my second time seeing the ceremony but it was still very cool for me. Evil spirits (people in masks), traditional drumming and dancing, and lots of food and drink. I had 4 shots of rum before 10am that day. Rough, but fun. 3 of those were poured from the bottle into my mouth by grandmothers. That's just kinda how it goes...

So it was pretty cool to be out and about in the village with people. It was also cool to hang out around my house. It made me appreciate my set up quite a bit - both the work I've done (shelves, organizational stuff, other small improvements) and what the people did before I came (building stuff, garden, garden again). Apparently I have a pretty nice place, relatively speaking - I was pretty sure of that anyway but always nice to get re-affirmed. All said, I feel really lucky to be in my village.

The other thing that made it fun was just hanging out with some new(ish) people. Jonathan came for one day, but the girls stayed for 2 nights so it was a lot of girl talk but we all know I'm ok with that. Really, it was very cool to share perspectives on Peace Corps and life and you know boys and clothes and all that. In some ways Peace Corps does occasionally feel like all the best (and occasionally the worst) parts of summer camp - that goes on for 2 years.

This was definitely one of the best though. Deepening friendships, realizing what you have and have made for yourself is good, and generally having fun while broadening your experience of life.

Not a bad way to roll into a week in the city, though definitely feeling a small step behind on some stuff! Still, there is time. But time to focus on work will come soon.

Request Line!

Hey guys!

And final post of this scattershot shotgun sandblast of posting. Look at me! I can alliterate! A little!

Anyway!

Several people have asked me about animal life here in the jungle. And man is there animal life...and bug life. Ants. Ants are the worst by far. They bite you and it hurts. And then they keep chewing! Seriously, they are bad. Cockroaches are a bit gross but not bad, same with centipedes and the like. Gnats and little annoying flies can drive you insane but aren't too bad, but let's get down to the good stuff - coolest animal encounters so far in Peace Corps.

1. The Sloth. You probably saw this story in an earlier post so I won't say too much, but basically I saved a sloth's life. Yup. Me (and several other people). Rescued it from death and dogs with broom sticks and dutch courage. Yup. Sloths are awesome.

2. That baby boa constrictor one guy almost stepped on. A fellow PCV was hosting me for a few nights and he was texting as we walked around his village at night (the future is everywhere!). He finished and turned on his flashlight just in time to NOT step on a beautiful baby boa constrictor moseying across the path.

3. Dead Electric Eel. Would be tops if it was still alive, but instead it was dead in a fishing net I set with my friend Edua. Less dead were the giant Piranha which are somewhere around 7 on this list. They are awesome and scary! There teeth are the size of our teeth and a big one could probably get it's mouth around your wrist. The first thing you do when you catch one is break it's jaw - even before you beat/stab/etc it to death

4. Scorpions. One was on my porch the other day and a while back we came across a family of them in the jungle while digging for mulch. As you may know, scorpions are like peppers- the smaller the more burney. Fortunately, my friend killed the mulchey ones with his machete and I killed the one walking across my porch with a bucket. Neither was bigger than my pinky and I don't like hot peppers anyway.

5. Dead Caiman. Caiman are kind of baby-ish crocidiles? Bigger than an iguana and...you know...crocidile shape. I passed two floating belly up in a stream I run by. They didn't smell good. Haven't seen any live or near any water I hang out in. I'm ok with that.

6. Jaguar. Why, you might ask, is the Jaguar number 6? Because I haven't seen one yet! It's the most famous jungle animal around here and I'm torn between wanting to see one...and not. I mean mostly I want to see one, but I don't want to fight one!

I'll leave it at 7.

Request #2

I've heard that some people have been wondering how I make delicious banana breads and cakes and what not. For Banana bread, I basically just Bmiss Ariel a lot and then squeeze really hard and out pops tastey goodness! Cake comes in a box, so I just follow directions. The doughboy lives here too, duh.

Oh but how do I bake suck tastedy goodness things? Why, in a Dutch Oven! Now, apparently, this is not a snicker-inducing phrase to many people. But it is to me and I'm only just starting to be able to say it with a straight face. It's a fart joke. We'll just leave it at that. I still can't say the Saramaccan word for cat. Just can't. In other news, can you think of a four letter word where the second letter is u? Duty!

So, whatever it is back home, out here a Dutch oven is a temporary contraption that you assembly out of items in your household when you feel like baking. Basically, I take my largest pot (all pots are relatively heavy metal here, so it works) and I put a baking pan inside that. I found a nice non-stick one in the city for SRD$20 that fits perfectly. The trick is, it can't touch the outside pot directly on any surface. Mine fits so perfectly that I had to bring my big pot to the the cake pan store to make sure it would work.

To keep it from touching the bottom, I made a quadpod of. legs out of folded/coiled aluminum foil. The lid of my pot has a tight seal which is necessary, but it loses a lot of heat at the center (maybe because of the handle?) Some PCVs recommend covering the pot with towels to reduce that and I've done that - I've also singed my towels. So now I put one towel just over the center and then put the lid of my other small pot on top of that - twice the fun, half the flammability.

And there you have it - a baking device for any kitchen!

And finally....Request 3! Food.

Food fantasies are a reality. When I would cut weight on the TKD team they generally revolved around quantity - leading to many silly eating challenges. Do you know how tired your jaw gets trying to eat 1.5 pounds of boneless chicken wings in 15 minutes?

Out here, you tend to get fixated on specific foods rather than obscene quantites of random food like objects. And thus, I started writing letters. I sent one to Oreo, Clif Bars, Odwalla, and Chipotle. Here's the one I sent to Odwalla, for your reading pleasure! As you can see it's half joking, half sales pitch, half cry for help, and half...well I'd say just plain over the top but I'm out of halves.

.....

Dear Odwalla,

I miss you so. I am a Peace Corps Volunteer currently serving in the Amazonian jungle of Suriname, South America and you are one of the pieces of home I miss the most. The tasty, nutrious joy that is your juices and bars knows no bounds - but unfortunately your sales territory and my budget do. I left you for a good cause and I'm proud to be a Volunteer, especially as a member of the 50th class of the Peace Corps, but I'm sorry I left you nonetheless and I hope you forgive me.

Most of my fellow Volunteers swear by the Clif bar as the king of the care package, but I know better. You are just as hardy and can handle the heat, humidity, and tough travel conditions of jungle life, but your taste is simply unmatched in my eyes (and mouth!) You are a luxury and a taste of home, as well as a blast of intense nutrition, in a life that often lacks these things. Though the rainforest is bursting with plant life, the local diet is often sadly deficient in fresh fruits and vegetables. As a Volunteer, I live at the standard of living of my community and it is my job to help improve that for all of us.

Care packages from home that contain little things like you go such a long way to keep me going and moving towards the goals of the Peace Corps - working together with my community on sustainable development while spreading peace and friendship. It's the little things that help you maintain that all-important positive attitude and one bar can make the difference between a tough day where you feel beaten down and a great one where you can recognize obstacles as opportunties.

So thank you for being there. I only wish you were here, because I miss you! I know I'm the one that left you, but still. If you are able to, you have no idea how big an impact a care package from you would make to me. And, if possible, maybe you could even throw in something for the other volunteers here to help me bring them to reason.

Thanks again,

Evan Delahanty

Peace Corps Volunteer

Pikin Slee, Suriname

c. 011 597 718 5227

Peace Corps Suriname

PO BOX 9500

Franchepanestraat 12-16

Paramaribo, Suriname

South America

I'm GLOWing!

No, I didn't find a uranium deposit and I'm not pregnant. They way I go to the bathroom sometimes, however, I almost feel like....well let's just leave that there. There's something called Peace Corps Butt and I've never had it but I can imagine it.

Moving on.

So starting committees and getting people talking and moving is part of what helped jumpstart me after the overwhelmingly awesome party and slightly unrealistic expectations of some of those people around me.

The other two parts were seeing how I can absolutely change lives here without a single cent. During the training, we received HIV education visual aids that several of the PCVs made together with a Surinamese artist. Up there with the paper clip and rolling luggage, they are one of the most brilliant things I have seen.

The idea was pretty simple - people understand things better when they are presented in a culturally appropriate way. In this case, that means something that doesn't require reading and has people and activities in the picture that look like the audience. So these PCVs got together and made hand-illustrated cards that show local people doing local activities to explain how HIV is transmitted and what you can do about it. They directly address local worries - like if you poop next to someone that has HIV, will you get it? If a mosquito bites them and then you, will you get it?

And they work. I've had them for two weeks and I've had two amazingly spontaneous and comfortable discussions with small groups of young men hanging out on my porch. A common question when you come back from the city is, "So what good did you find there?" When somebody asked me, I pulled out the cards and we went from there. You know they are good because, after I go through them and put them down, the guys snatch them up to go through them again more slowly - and they don't need me to explain it, even though their level of knowledge is not that good.

That, my friends, is lives changed. And brilliant marketing, too. These people have a lot of HIV awareness money thrown at them, but I'd be willing to bet that the $100 those PCVs paid the local artist will buy more awareness than a couple thousand bucks worth of seminars based around a foreign curriculum. Well played and I provided feedback up the chain on that one.

Number two, and a big one here, was Camp Glow. That is why I've a bit behind on blog posts. I helped out a week long camp for Sixth grade girls called Girls Leading Our World. It's a Peace Corps female empowerment camp that is done according to a basic model all over the world, though of course (as expected from above) every iteration is heavily modified to fit local needs.

It was only about 30 girls for 4 days, but wow. You could almost see those girls' lives changing for the better in front of your eyes. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant or...anything bad. Man, my vocabulary is tanking. But just think about the scenario.

First, we at least doubled the size of these girls' world. Most had never been outside their village before or slept away from home. Second, we spent time asking them what they want to do and telling them they can do it. That doesn't happen here. Not like this - not with female role models (and respectful males) of all stripes hitting the points again and again. And third, above all, we spent all the time in between telling them how.

It was a pretty powerful experience. Girls know they should stay in school - but why and how gets glossed over. We helped them connect the dots in some of those basics that we take for granted in the States. Goal setting isn't a given here - people live in the subsistence cycle and that means there isn't always time to take a step back and see how you can get a leg up.

The change from day 1 - a bunch of scared, quiet girls not sure of themselves - to day 4 - girls with new friends and new ideas and a new sense of possibility was incredible.

I still want to do the tangible projects that have metrics and bullet points and all that. But I know really see the other side of how we can change lives here. I never doubted it exactly, but now I've seen and been a part of it in a big way. And I get to do it again next week. I'm going to be taking more of a leadership role in a Boy's camp based around the same concept (we decided against calling it Boy's Leading Our World, however). The goal is to be on the leadership committee for the ones coming up in spring. I'm excited at the prospect.

Alright Then

Hello there, my friends. How's it going?

It's going well here, though I've been in a slight amount of a funk the last week or so - probably because of all the excitement of the previous weeks! Not bad to have a slow week, now and then. Still, higher gears can and will be reached. We've already started actually, though it's been raining a lot recently and that has a way of...sloooowwwwwinnnggggggg things down.

Anyway, I'll try to cram a bunch into this one, so bear with me.

After the training in the city, I rushed back for the Pikin Slee event of the decade - the Museum grand opening party. The Museum really is the crown jewel of Saramacca land, as I've taken to calling it. I would say it's a solid step above a small town museum to antique farming/random famous guy/whatever battle was fought there - which is pretty impressive given the context. The rastas built it from the ground up and they did a good job.

They did not, however, do it alone and that was evident at the party. Basically everybody that was at the training conference (counterparts, organizations, etc) was at the party. Probably close to 500 people for a 3 day event. Food, drinks, live music, traditional dancing, spectator sports, community sports, and even a movie! A documentary about Pikin Slee made this past July.

I generally helped, networked, and soaked up free stuff as much as possible. What I didn't do was sleep very much, but what can you do. It was an awesome event - by far the most impressive thing I've seen in Suriname. Not only did they create an awesome product, but they threw a great party to celebrate it. It was a lot of money on celebration.

At first, that made me feel a bit off. But, the more I thought about it, the more it made me realize just how worth celebrating this accomplishment really is. And the celebration helps bring attention to it - for the people that did it and for everyone else to realize they can do it to. And that's pretty important here. Still, 6 ministers of government (including the VP), numerous television and other news media (I even did a brief radio interview), and a helicopter. Yes, there was a helicopter.

In short, it was so good it was almost depressing. Combined with the Captain's idea that our first project has to be a solar panel for every household in Pikin Slee, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I will probably never throw an event that good as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The budget for that party had to be larger than the average Peace Corps project. Needless to say, a solar panel in every house is also a bit out of scope - that's 1000+ panels at US$1000+ a pop.

So I felt a bit lost for a few days. But then a couple of things happened to help me out. The first was doing the other 2/3s of my job - getting out and talking to people. Because, as you'll see if you read my report, people here haven't actually been talking to me about a solar chicken in every pot. It's about more basic infrastructure stuff.

Oddly, water has kind of fallen off the map (I've heard rumors of a government project that was abandoned a few years back being restarted), but fixing the jetties that are the village's access points to the river is bubbling up. And so I did my best to Peace Corps the problem. Afterall, it isn't my job to do development projects here - it's my job to help the village develop themselves. And that means dialogue. Organization. Committees. Bureaucracy! About the only benefit of bureaucracy I can think of is that it makes it tough for one person to set a radical agenda.

So I spent the next week or so working on starting all the groups I've been saying I might start. Not just because of the solar panel thing, of course, but that is certainly a factor. So now I have an English Group, a Youth Group, a Pre School group kind of randomly formed and I jumped in with it, and I'm getting ready to start the Business Group. I've also convinced the Captain and several other key players that we need to start a Development Steering Committee to talk about larger projects (like solar power for the entire village or jetties or water). Not much has happened with that one yet, but the agreement is there.

So I'm excited about the prospects. I'll get into the other two reasons in my next post. But I want to briefly digress, as I do so often, into a discussion of radical ideas. The museum was a radical idea. I just found out that my captain here (I've only got one Captain and it's Paul) won some international award for his advocacy for native land rights here in Suriname. His name is Wanze and I haven't googled it yet, but apparently it's kind of a big deal.

So should I really be stepping on the big dreams of a village and it's leaders that have actually achieved some big things? Their winning some of those land rights in the international courts right now. The last thing I want is to stand in the way of a vision. And Evan likes to aim big. Why not aim for solar power? I mean I can see ways that it might happen. But I don't think that's the best use of PCV-me's resources. Something that big is political and Captain Wanze has political clout - or at least is working on it base on that award and the direction the court case is taking. I'm here to help improve the daily standard of living.

Incremental improvement is what I did for the last 4 years. It isn't as much fun as dreaming of 24x7 green power. But I don't think that's the way I'm going to rock people's world here. There are other ways, and you'll read about them in the next post!

radical agenda - but they can!

Training in the City

So here we are, back again. Back, you might ask, from what? Or where? How, when, and why seem slightly less applicable, at least in that sentence structure! I am back from two weeks in the city for my Early Service Training. EST is the official gateway to fully functional volunteerhood. I am now empowered - through the training I received and by the permission of the organization - to write project proposals, seeking funding for said, and to take vacation time!

The last three months were focused on learning and integrating. If you'd like to read what came out of that effort, let me know and I can send you the report I submitted to Peace Corps. It's not a bad read, though not my best writing work I'm sad to say. Still, it's just a springboard for future work so I have time to refine it.

But really, I think of it as Set 1 complete. There was a warmup set - Pre Service Training. Now there has been a first set - where you really throw yourself out there and start to get a feel for it. And this training marks the transition to the real work. Seven more sets to go - time to push through and make it happen. A set is three months basically, not a training - though I do have to go into the city for training or otherwise every three months so whatever.

Seven sets to get as much out of this workout as possible and to...leave...um...as big of dents in the floor...from where I dropped my weight stack...as possible? So the metaphor broke down. Sue me. I want to get a lot and give a lot - you get it.

Anyway, it was a good training. Project management is project management and funding proposals are just cover letters - whether you attach a project plan or a resume, you are still asking them to give you money in exchange for work and time. Still, specifics on all of that was very helpful. I've never had formal training on any of it, really, so it's nice to go through the steps and whatnot. When it comes to training, I remain impressed with Peace Corps - they do a very good job.

Still, the best part of the training was the Counterpart Conference and Resource Fair. The CC brought us together with our counterparts - or whomever from our village we could convince to come to the city for 3 days - in a guided conversation about expectations and possibilies. The RF took that possibilities step out of the abstract by introducing us to a flock of organizations with money and a desire to spend it helping Suriname. It was somewhere between club fair and career fair. And it really did make you feel the possibilities.

It made me excited for the next several months. There is a lot to do and, after the training and the many conversations, I feel well prepared to do it. Now it's just the matter of squeezing out the sets and doing like I always do - makin' it look good.

One aside. Being in the city was awesome. Thank you to everyone who sent me letters and packages - you have no idea how much they mean to me! Food, friends, and English felt pretty good. But it's good to be home, too. It was a strange but wonderful feeling to hear myself give that "I finally arrived home" sigh when I settled into my hammock, that first night back in my thatched roof hut in the jungle.

Food!

Let me begin my stating that for far superior thoughts on food, you should check out Ariel's blog that she does with a mutual friend Alex - http://www.aveganblarg.com/ They cook vegan, but more importantly they cook tasty. Here in the jungle, I often end up cooking vegan or vegantarian myself - my other inclinations are generally more expensive and requiring of refridgeration - but not nearly so consistently tasty. But I'm learning! And I'm happy to have spent a few happy hours in Ariel's kitchen learning amazingly applicable things for my cooking here - who would have thought a collegiate Vegan kitchen wouldn't be that far from a Peace Corps jungle kitchen? Of course, it is really far which is tough but we do what we can.

So, this is the story of a meal I made. But it starts with a woman. A grandmother that lives near me, to be exact. One whom I have helped make cassava and other things and who, as grandmothers the world over, often gives me food and expresses concerns about me not eating enough, etc. Unfortunately, she tends to give me/make TERRIBLE tasting food. Cassava bread is in fact almost unpalatable unless it is still warm or smothered in peanut butter. She often has meat, which is wonderful - meat! But jungle meat, particularly smothered in local oil, is not actually yummy. And she knows I love okra and so often calls me when she makes it...but the way they cook it here, and in particular the way she cooks it - mixed with the incredibly bitter vegetables they love here and cooked until it is slimy and viscous - it hurts. It just hurts.

GRANDMA BAO - They do have Bao in this country. Asian market in the city. Oh yes.

ME WITH CASSAVA

In this grand tradition, she gave me some quaak. It's cassava based, but prepared differently and kind of dried/baked into something like grape nuts that can be eaten as a hot cereal or mixed with rice. I didn't think to get a picture of it in raw form, but picture grapenuts without anything grapey and you have it - she gave me a large calabash full of the stuff. I didn't really know what to do with it except I was pretty sure I wouldn't love it for breakfast.

So here's what I did instead, here in my jungle kitchen. Two burner propane stove, two pots, one pan, only the spices and sauces you thought to bring from the only city in the country - a seven-ish hour journey away by car and boat.

THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

THE TOOLS OF MASTERWORKERY (more commonly known as the majority of my pots and pans)

I made soup! Well, really stew. Given the amount of wood-ish stuff, dirt-ish stuff, and small beasties (even after washing it several times), I knew this was something I wanted to boil hard. So I put it all in my big pot and started it a roiling! I knew it was going to be bland to death except for that faint (and not entirely wonderful) cassava back drop, so I added two packets of Chinese Chicken soup flavoring and a healthy extra dose of garlic and soy sauce. It boiled into the consistency of a slightly watery gruel, but smelled pretty good - now to make it into actual food! It was probably about 20 minutes for those of you following along at home, but you'll know by looking and tasting.

STEAMY POT (ignore the fact that you can see green beans and thus know that this is out of sequence)

My garden here produces green beans, antroelwa, and eggplant so far. Antroelwa is perfect for one thing - giving away. I don't know how to cook it yet, but I know it would have to involve sugar because it is just to bitter for me to love at this point. But the eggplant and beans are good and a staple of my diet here. So I cut them up together to steam/stir fry in my pan with a maggie (bouillon) cube and a bit of oil and enough water. It comes out tasty every time - so easy even I can't mess it up! Though I almost did this time, since I learned in this go that they are better cooked separately - too bad I only have the 1 pan!

Given how much stew-base I had made, it was a good thing I hadn't picked beans in 2 days - I cut up a bicep-sized bundle of green beans, and they are generally 14-18 inches long here. It was about three eggplants - they are less than half the size of what I picture eggplants as in the States, but they add some consistency and some variety to whatever you throw them into. The oil and bouillon are mostly for flavor and sticking, the water should be just enough to boil into steam not to really boil the veggies. Stir it up good when you first start it, but then leave it covered for about 10 minutes before you begin checking it. I like them slightly crunchy, here. When my mom makes them, with almonds and other lovely things, I like them cooked soft - but here a little bit of crunch is welcome, since Saramaccans cook EVERYTHING until it's soft. Including fish bones, which I think I mentioned in a previous episode.

STEAM-STIR FRY ATTACK THROW DOWN

So anyway, green beans are good, but do they have protein? I don't know, but I know I love my protein - especially when eating cassava based foods. That's thanks to an article my dad sent me - thanks Dad! - about an odd neurological condition that can strike if you aren't getting your proteins right while consuming large amounts of cassava. I'm oversummarizing and I didn't read the article deeply, so my facts are basically nonexistent, but let's just be honest - this stew still needed some oomph!

So I mixed in three chunks of white protein - I would recommend tofu for those vegemites among you and eggs for those baby-eaters lacking access to tofu! They do have it here, but it requires refridgeration so you can't keep it for long.

Saramaccans eat asian style - rice based and pulling from several small communal dishes of vegetables and whatever else. So they are occasionally scandalized by my approach of mix-it-all-together-smush! Thanksgiving loaf, any day of the year. And that's the approach I did here, quite appropriate to the stew-like idea I think.

UNHOLY MIXTURE OF TASTY JOY

After that, I gave it some time to cool and meld a bit and then it was time to eat! Pretty darn tasty, surprisingly enough! I don't really know how to cook, but when it comes to making things up as I go and having fun at the same time I tend to do alright. Usually.

GARRRRRRLICSSSS! Some of this got thrown in - who'd have thunk it!

FLYING SAUCES! Well maybe they aren't flying. But they are on my wall! Kind of!

Anyway, sorry I can't always include pictures like this - it's just too hard given the type of internets we have here. I'd love to be offering better albums and comments too, but it's just too hard for the above reasons. So check out the link at the top of my blog for the photos I have been able to upload - jumbled as they may be - and enjoy this slightly more coherent attempt. And now, more food pictures! Yay!

ANOTHER DAY'S ATTEMPT - Lessons learned! Don't mix beans and eggplant when you cook them! Use both your pots! Rice turned out ok this time. TVP for protein, good vegan meal!

ANOTHER UNHOLY MIXTURE!! - from training. When the primary ingredients made available to you are peanut butter, bread, nutella, and cucumber...well eventally you end up throwing them together. What can I say - it wasn't half bad! It made for breakfast and I can claim the title of champion (family scrabble, thank you very much just to name one example) so therefore UNHOLY MIXTURE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS! NOW ABSESTOS FREE!

BANANA BREAD! I tried to get a picture of the um...you know...banana bread itself. But it goes fast. Very fast. It once got a speeding ticket in Pennsylvania. No joke. I've made banana bread about 6 times here and it's turned out tasty four times, ungreat once, and burned but tasty once! Not bad! Wish I had chocolate chips though.

That's all folks! Bye!

Keeping Fit and Fitting In

Hey guys!

Things are pretty good here and I've got some internet time and some battery so I thought I'd throw up a live blog post! Actually my first one written while actually on the internet. So you are looking at now. Don't ask about then. This is now.

It's been a good couple of weeks, recently. Health issues clearing up, though still a variety of minor cuts and whatnot, starting to be able to contact more people and more regularly to say hi to the people important to me around the world, and feeling good about life here.

It's starting to be life, too, which is nice. It's a weird life, that's for sure but it's life. I'm starting to feel more in control of myself and my surroundings - though we are still a long way from actually in control, if that is ever possible - and that helps a lot. I'm working out almost every day and I've started teaching Tae Kwon Do! I almost forgot how much I love TKD and teaching TKD too - but I really do.

It's hard for me and for students to be consistent here, in a world without a real focus on exact times or communication about tomorrow, but I've taught almost every day for the last week or two with at least some overlap in who came to learn. We are starting to put the formal stuff in more deeply - bowing and all that - but we've got the basic rules down at this point. No hitting other people and you have to have pants on to do the class. Both can be a bit hard to maintain, unfortunately.

I also started teaching English yesterday! Not exactly a roaring success, but not bad for no training, no things, and no way to communicate to the larger population what's going on! About 10 people came by and we had enough pens, paper, and chairs to make it work. And chalk! Unfortunately, I was a little late asking the Captain about the chairs so he was slightly miffed. Only slightly, but you forget that it is in fact a very hierarchical structure here...sometimes.

He knew I was beginning the lessons soon...I just didn't think to inform him of the exact date and time because I knew he didn't want to come learn. Still should have though so he could ask me how he could help, rather than me asking for chairs the day of. But, that's the nice thing about doing a small, informal projecty-thing like this. I'm learning. I've learned how hard it is to communicate things to a disparate population within the village. A couple specific people or the whole village is doable, but finding the people interested in a thing is tough. Also, tell Captains. Other lessons forthcoming, I'm sure!

I'm also getting better at cooking! What does that mean? Less rice, more pasta. And more lentils and similar products! Split green peas have even more protein, did you know that? I'm still eating a tremendous amount of green beans because that's what my garden has right now, but they are tasty so that is fine with me.

In terms of work, I'm excited that things are beginning to begin. I've learned a lot about the village and I am now constructing the baseline report that will help me educate potential donor organizations about Pikin Slee and the needs of the people here. It's cool to see how much you can learn by just living in a curious and friendly way. It's hard to do formal research both because of the lack of formal resources and because that might send the wrong message.

I think of it as semi-passive sponging. You just kinda float around to the hot spots, see what's going on, soak up some fun and some knowledge and some relationships, and then float on to whatever's next. People know I'm here to help and they are friendly, so it's easy to learn if you have the right attitude - and there is so much to learn! For me, and for people outside the village with the resources to help us improve things here.

I've started making a map of Pikin Slee with the doctor here - that is definitely something I wouldn't want to do on my own for fear of making the wrong impression. We've managed to find 2 historical resources from past government work and have been filling in details base on the doctor's and others' living experience here - where the water is, the stores are, the places people wash and work, etc. We've been trying to walk around with it to fill in more details, but we keep being delayed.

And that's the crux of life here - patience, because plans are tough. We wanted to begin walking around last week, but there was a pregnant lady. And then, very unfortunately, she died. The whole village went quiet for a few days - a mother and unborn baby dying together is very rare and very unlucky. Even worse, some people think they saw an evil spirit lurking around the hospital around the time of her death. It's not on me to judge their view of things and so I don't - this is something they take very seriously here.

A medicine man arrived yesterday to help cleanse the hospital, the doctor, and maybe the village - I'm not sure. I have not been involved in it, but I know a lot of things were put on hold while they were waiting for the medicine man to arrive and do his work.

But today they have finished and just in time for a party here in the village. A visiting soccer team has arrived and there will be games and dancing today and tomorrow! Hopefully there is some time in all of that to get started on this map!

Hope things are well for all of you!

The Horizon

Peace Corps is such an odd mixture of things. I work unbelievably hard everyday and almost every moment is a test of some combination of my patience, initiative, mental toughness, physical toughness, capacity to learn, positive attitude, and focus on my goals. Just to name a few. And you know me, the mornings where I don't start my pushups before 7am or I turn off my light a bit early so people don't clop clop on my door and I can watch a movie in peace - I feel guilty. Interesting fact - clop clop is what knocking is here and you say it, you don't physically knock. Probably because not everyone has/had doors and even if they do, they might not be mighty.

I know I've mentioned this before, so skim if you like - it's my blog too, after all. And I don't reflect as fully here as I probably need to be. It's hard to write for a public audience when I am actually a government employee who literally took an oath. But I need to capture these thoughts, and the deeper ones, because of what they represent. Growth. I'm definitely not going to get much added to my savings plan by these two years and that's not what I came for - I came to grow and to explore the unknown and take risks to help myself and help others. And to find something worth breaking a sweat over 24x7 - which the above qualifies for and I haven't found in this much abundance since Cornell Fight Team.

So when I say it's hard, you know I mean it because I know what hard work is and because you know I'm not complaining - to a surprising degree my research, guesswork, and training pretty much prepared me to expect what this is. I like that it's hard - it helps keep me motivated. It's supposed to be hard - that's how you know you are getting better. I've said that to my students at home in TKD and I say it to myself in the mornings when I do pushups and in the afternoon when four people are staring through my window talking a hundred miles a minute about me, at me, and through me.

So Peace Corps is that deep seated character building stuff that you need to know you have and people love to ask you about in interviews and you have great stories about for the rest of your life. It's pretty cool and I like it. But what makes it truly exciting, is that all of that is the backdrop. You have to do all of that, get past surviving all of that, get good at all of that as a stranger in a strange land in a strange language so you can get to the final third of the Peace Corps job. Having a measurable impact at helping people improve their lives. That's important for them and for me. I would be successful in the Peace Corps eyes, and probably to a large part in the community's eyes, if I just succeed at living well here - exchanging cultural and personal knowledge, spreading peace and friendship.

But as much as I love hugs, and I do, that won't cut it in my eyes. And, hopefully, not in the eyes of the people in the village who worked hard to bring me here. It's exciting because I have to apply the ephipany that I had in Tae Kwon Do at Cornell and never quite repeated at work - when you are doing something that is worth fighting for, it isn't enough just to show up and survive. Don't think about making it until the clock runs out, think about how much you have to squeeze out of each minute before the clock runs out. And this is about people's lives.

And the opportunities to work together to make a difference are starting to appear. The head master of my school started the first adult education program in the interior last year. He fought tooth and nail to get the teachers partially paid, but they are scrounging school supplies and motivation to keep teachers and students going. They managed to keep about 125 of 150 students and over 2/3 passed into the next grade at the end of the school year (an amazing statistic in Suriname). The headmaster has looked for more money to give things the kick they need to keep going and to grow, but hasn't found it. And now, a neighboring village wants to start a similar project.

So with the headmasters and the volunteer in that village, if we can find not even $US1000, we can fund a school year for nearly 200 adults. The numbers are heartbreakingly small, aren't they? But if we can find that money, 200 people are going to get closer to being able to read, write, and 'rithmetic. You could ask, how important is reading out here for adults that aren't going to move to the city. It's a fair question - there isn't much to read. But there is when it comes time to install a solar panel, or learn about aids, or even apply that medicine the doctor gave you correctly. And math is needed without question. Many people here get money from the government, but one problem is that most of them can't count well enough to know when the distributors of that money are cheating them. So it is pretty exciting.

At the same time, I'm helping the headmaster put his student records into Excel. It stinks because I'm sure there is a better way to do it, but this will work and probably be simple enough that he can upkeep it by himself. He wanted to be able to save them to a flash drive so they are more protected, because when you lose someone's record it is gone forever now and that can make a lot of things tough. If we do that, we will be either the first school or possibly the second (the government is working on a pilot project, but we don't know it's current status) to have computerized records.

Both of those will likely be relatively small, quick projects. Finite and easy to finish, though finding a sustained source of funding for the Adult Education Program is problematic. For larger work, I'm going to try to make a map of Pikin Slee. This will help with any number of things, the primary one being it will show the people here and the outsiders with money just how much they have and how much they don't. No one actually knows how many people are here - and that means no one understand how far how many people walk to carry drinkable water to their houses. I certainly don't understand that yet and I live here - how can you ask UNICEF or some rich Dutch guy organization too?

That happened yesterday and it was very interesting. I was talking with a friend of mine here about how he makes money and what he wants to do. His house is next to the primary dock for the village and he was talking about putting in a pay toilet and a small store so the boatloads of tourists can drop off some of their money, as well as other things, when they pass on their way to the tourist camp or the museum. I mentioned that, though I don't know a lot about it yet, there are several programs that help you get loans or grants to start businesses like that. He was casually interested, but not jumping up and down.

I was jumping up and down. I started doing back of the envelope calculations to get at estimated cash flow, profit margins, growth opportunities (you could put it pay toilets in several other locations and they would work, I'm pretty sure!) Obviously, silly. You can't foster entreprenuership without the entreprenuer. He is enterprising, but also clearly wasn't excited about a possible loan. Worth looking into for me to educate myself about the options so I can explain them better and help him or someone else if they are jumping up and down, but not a go just yet.

So the opportunities are beginning to show, in terms of concrete work I will be doing over the next few months. That feels good, though is certainly scary as well. Just living is almost challenge enough. It's hard to stay healthy and happy and keeping going back out there to live among people who don't yet understand me and that I don't yet understand. But only almost.

Baku

I almost feel like I am writing this in a whisper. The funeral rites for the dead Basia are still going on and a few days ago I participated in one of the more intense parts. For several days, many of the men (almost 50) have gone to the graveyard to dig the basia's grave (baku means hole in general and grave in this context). The ritual is long and complex and involves significantly more than just digging a hole in the ground. I ended up going across three days, including the day we actually buried the Basia and I could have gone at least half a dozen more times if I had so wished.

I say that I write this in a whisper because it is a secret. It is amazing to consider, but I would imagine less than a thousand white people have ever seen what I saw in this ritual. And that knowledge comes with a curse - tell about the rituals, particularly for profit or in a book or movie to be sold in America and you will die. When it was explained to me it was mostly just an explanation, but the element of threat and seriousness was there to a degree that disturbed me and almost made me angry or confused. After all, why would anyone want to spy on the dead rituals of the Saramaccans? I don't know, but I had to cleary state that I was not, would not, and respected there secrecy. Which I did, and I meant it. Curses aside, it's their secret to keep. So I can't write much about it.

What I can write is that I felt honored to be a part of the ceremony. Though at first I was given conflicting advice about whether I should and could go or not, the village elders plainly told me I was as welcome as any person of the village. One said it straight out in Saramaccan, "Yu wan kondre sembe nownow, naso?" You are a member of the community now, aren't you? That was a great feeling.

The Dead

Continuing the topic of the dead, it has been a week filled with activities centered around the death of one village Basia. He was a senior figure in the village, despite apparently living in the city (not sure exactly how that works or if my details are even correct) and so it was a tremendous ceremony - many people have not slept for at least 3 nights. Well, there is a lot of napping here and there, but no formal sleep.

My health is doing alright, various issues continuing to improve and despite some other minor things now and then I am doing pretty well, but sleep is precious so I haven't stayed up to late for most of this. It's tiring, here! But I have been very involved during the days and that has been wonderful - the village has really gone out of their way to include me and let me get a front row seat and even take part.

First, we went to the airstrip in a village about 45 minutes upriver. The body, now about a week old, was flown in and we retrieved it and carried it back to Piki See with us. On the way, however, we stopped and transferred the body from the city coffin to a simple curved board made from a single piece of a giant tree, covered in banana leaves and kosus. The body was wrapped, but they were careful to leave the face and feet exposed. I don't know why, but this was maintained throughout the many wrappings and transfers of the various ceremonies so it must be significant.

We then took the now semi-exposed body the rest of the way to the village. We brought the body to a grove of trees tucked just outside the main ceremonial entry point to the village. This part of the ceremony was referred to as washing the dead, and it was a literal washing. We removed the wrappings and a woman came forward to wash the dead Basia. He was wearing nothing but a kosu wrapped around his waist and she washed every bit of exposed skin with an herbal potion.

When she was done, the body was again wrapped in several sheets and placed on the ceremonial

bearing board. Now, we began to bear the body into the village. I don't fully understand this portion, but it is customary that you must ask permission to bring the dead into the village and that the elders do not grant this easily. In fact, the more important the dead person is the more they refuse. So over a dozen times, the men carrying the dead Basia on their heads where phsyically blocked from entering the village when they tried to pass through the spirit gate.

Finally, we were allowed in and we carried the body to the sacred square. There, the body was wrapped in dozens or even hundreds of Kosus, until he was at least twice the size of a person. It was almost like an Egyption sarcophagus, though again they made sure to leave feet and face exposed.

After this, we washed our hands and faces in rum and then everyone ran to the river and jumped in, wearing all of our clothes. We washed ourselves and our clothes and that was the end of day 1 - that night most people stayed up the night to break the day, but I did not.

The next day, we made the coffin. The men came together to build the coffin, while the women made mountains of food. The women made fresh rice (just cut and beaten that day) and many other dishes and, after the coffin was complete, we gathered in one of the community halls to eat. I was invited to sit with the Captains and Basias, so I was in the center and in great place to get good food!

It was a very confusing ceremony. In some way, I think they were calling certain people up to take food, but at the same time anyone in the VIP seats (which included me) seemed to be getting up to grab whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Bottles of pop, rum, food, cake, whatever it was. Eventually, it broke down and everyone else came into eat too and people started taking things to go home with them instead of just to eat or drink there.

I ate and drank well, but the lesson was definitely to not be shy. Similar to the ceremony of Throwing Away Things it was raucous and a bit rude by American standards, but fun and feast like in a very family kind of way.

Today, supposedly some men will dig the grave and carry the body there. I think I was invited

to this, but it wasn't entirely clear and I have been told that this is not something most people (even most Saramaccans) are generally welcomed too so I'm not sure. I have not gone out of my way to make it happen today and, as it is now late afternoon, I think I may have missed this part of the ritual. I am interested to se that, but we've got plenty of time and, really, two days of dead ceremonies was enough. Today was a good day to catch up here.

I hope all of you are living well and whatnot wherever you are. I miss you! Drop me a line!

Throwing Things Away

Saramaccans have a very interesting relationship with the dead. Really, they just have interesting relationships period. I've come at this several different ways already and I'll do it again for a moment. Living in a Saramaccan village is kind of like being in a constant family reunion. Sometimes it's boring and aggravating, sometimes there is too much going on, there's always kids running around underfoot, nothing happens on time, everybody knows each others business, you tell the same story and say the same things about 18 times, there is always food going somewhere, somebody is always happy to see you, and it's sometimes a lot more fun to be a bit of an outsider because you don't have as many ties as the other people. Sometimes it's more awkward too.

And you really can't judge them by American standards. If you do, they are a rude, disrespectful people. They aren't, they just express things very differently. Because they really are all family and they have been living together, in their own little word, since birth and beyond. So please does kind of drop out after 20 years of living next to them and they are your sister in law or cousin by marriage anyway, so let's just not waste time on silly formalities.

But getting back to the dead portion, when somebody dies everyone gets involved because everyone is involved - it's all family. After the Break the Day I posted about before, there was a ceremony roughly called Throwing Away Things. I'm not sure if everything was actually the dead person's or if much of it was donated by the various family clusters involved, but the ceremony was a combination of Halloween and...well as if the entire village were a pinaata. Yeah.

So after some drum playing in the central sacred space, we followed three men with drums around the oldest section of the village. At certain, pre-determined spots they would stop and play the drums for a bit. And then the people in that house and the other main actors of the festivity with start throwing goodies. At first, these were semi-standard goodies. Cookies, matches, soap, and the occasional kosu. But then they started to get crazier. Spoons. Dishes. I got a bowl. Keep in mind all dishes are plastic. Though, actually, they threw the lids of a some glassware and if you caught the lid you could go up and claim the glass bowl. Hammocks were thrown. Calabashes. Forks. Silverware holders. Almost like a Halloween where you ran out of candy but didn't want to disappoint the kids so you just started digging around in the attic.

Of course, it had just rained hugely so there was a lot of mud and a lot of slipping and wrestling for things - most of it good natured. After everything was thrown, two people would fire of shotguns and the crowd would move onto the next house on the circuit. Quite a bit of fun, if a bit violent and mud-splattered.

Staycation!

So I'm really going to mix my time sequence up here and talk about 2 separate adventures at once. Atjoni is the primary point of entrance to the Suriname River - it's the port where all the boats launch from and it's got electricity and restaurants and government offices. In short, after 3 weeks upriver, it's pretty much heaven.

I went there for the day with a guy who is quickly becoming my primary friend here - his name is Edua (Edward with out the -rd). He is building a new house and I have helped him for a couple of days here and there, so he asked if I wanted to come to help him buy and bring back cement. When you are a Saramaccan, you basically only have to buy 3 things to build a house. Cement, nails, and gasoline to run the generator - everything else you need you either have, borrow, or take from the jungle.

Edua cut the wood himself, made the stone for the foundation with river sand and leftovers from other projects, but to make the floor he had to go buy 12 bags of cement and Atjoni is where you have to go. Now, each bag of cement is 100 pounds, so this isn't light work. But for the cost of loading and unloading 1200lbs of cement, Edua treated me to a beautiful man date.

It started with boat hopping our way down the river so we didn't have to pay with the trip. It turns out Edua owns a piece of a boat, so we just had to find it in a different village and jump on.

Once we got the Atjoni, we helped the other boat that had gotten us to that village unload some things and then paid for the cement. While the store was preparing the cement, we settled in for a couple cold beers and hot food prepared by other people! Baami!

Baami is the best dish in Suriname, so far, and I had been hankering for some - this worked out perfectly. It was lovely. I also may have bought a couple bags of oreos. Like I said in that other post, for some reason Suriname is tweaking my sweet tooth hard. I miss chocolate and cookies.

The clif bars my mom and a different friend sent me a running low, but they are the best thing ever. Oreos keep forever and are wonderful. I've been making banana bread, but it just isn't the same without chocolate. I've heard that milk chocolate spoils quickly, but dark will keep for quite a while. Oh yeah.

So between the beers, the baami, oh and some barbacue chicken (yes there was barbacue chicken! It was wonderful!) Edua probably spent $30SRD on me. Not a bad wage for throwing 2400lbs around. And a lot of fun hanging out with him and just getting out of the village for a day.

I think these little staycations are going to be important. A lot of the other volunteers are big on city trips and I can see that - Paramaribo is a surprisingly good city, especially by my incredibly relative standards now - especially if you need to re-supply. But it's a full day of travel each way and $300SRD round trip. When you go, you are probably going to stay for at least 4 or 5 days. And I think, from the sanity point of view that many people take, I can hack it without that.

It's just a lot of time away from the village during this relationship building period and that day in Atjoni was a great re-charger for way cheaper. Last week (I'm writing this 2.5 weeks later, sorry), there was a going away party in another village on the river for the volunteer I stayed with during training. That was another nice staycation. An hour in the boat, a weekend eating good food and speaking English, and you've got a great re-charge to keep you going with out all the time and expense of a city trip.

So I think that' s going to be my goal. Stay out as long as my food holds out and use the time that others spend travelling and in the city to do more of the work here (and there is a lot that some other volunteers don't have, since this is one of the biggest villages Peace Corps is in and also I'm the first volunteer so I'm breaking new ground) and also just to explore the country and other villages.

We'll see how that changes over time, but at a month in that sounds like a plan. Speaking of exploring an 'cations, I'll be open for visitors after October. It's a bit expensive to get here, but it's cheap and fun once you are here and there are a lot of adventures to be had and beautiful country to see. So let me know if you want to stop by!

Laters, my friends.