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.

Quama

So, this is all a bit out of order but there it is. Adventures in the jungle. Quama is the Saramaccan name for Bamboo and in the particular adventure, we went into the jungle to suuku (seek!) it.

We were making an entry way for the Medicine Garden we have been building behind the museum and apparently it had to be bamboo. After working on the garden for the morning and having lunch, Etsio told me to put my boots back on, grab my machete, but leave my bag - we were going on a quest.

We walked along a path I thought I knew until we took a turn I had never seen before. In a few moments we were behind what I thought was the last row of houses in the village and waking through a satelitte 'burb of Pikin Slee I never knew existed. The houses were a bit nicer and a bit further apart, but many were unfinished and I didn't actually see many people at all. Rich city folks perhaps?

Finally, the jungle closed in over the path and we left the village behind. It was a broad, well traveled path - leading to people's grounds I think - but the jungle is thick on both sides. After about 15 minutes, we stopped at what seemed like a random spot and turned off the path. The two Rastas broke a trail into the jungle, looking for the bamboo. After a little bit it was a clear false start.

We went back to the path and walked for another ten minutes until we could hear a stream. Again, we cut a path through the jungle to find the stream and finally we saw a patch of bamboo. I felt like I was in that scene in Swiss Family Robinson. I think I've mentioned that movie before, haven't I? Heck yeah.

The bamboo here is subtlely different - it doesn't harden in the yellow way you have in the states or Asia and the joints have these kind of sharp, thorny growths. We went to work cutting the largest growths down. These were 20-30 foot long sections of bamboo, as thick as your wrist at the base.

At first, I helped by dragging the sections back to the path since the Rastas are so much better with machetes than I am. After a bit, though, I decided to make a go at it. Machetes are fun! I'm getting better with mine and you'd be amazed how much of a difference a little practice and some sharpening makes.

When we finished, we had 3 bundles of probably about 80 pounds of bamboo - maybe 15ish lengths each. We tied them into bundles with vines cut from the trees around us and, in true Saramaccan fashion, put the bundles on our heads and set off on the long walk back to the museum.

Yes, I carried a 15 footish bundle of bamboo (we cut the longest pieces in half) on my head. No, I didn't do it for long. Wow, that is hard and it hurts your head. I have a strong neck and back, no worries there, but the top of my head was killing me! Etsio at least has his dreads and the other guy brought a kosu to use as padding. So I alternated with my shoulders, but all in all it was a good feeling.

Until we forded a creek and my boots filled with water. It's hard to feel tough and manly with squelchy boots, but it was only another half mile or so.

Just another day in the jungle.

Brooko di Dea

Once darkness fell, it was about time for the Brooko di Dea. Though I still don't actually know when I should show up to these things and the Saramaccan approach to time doesn't help here. Again, somebody said they would come and get me and that never happened. Again, maybe it was going to and I just lost patience before they did - who knows, whatever it worked out!

Some kids came by on their way to the party so I tagged along - they were actually going to wait until the dancing started to go and skip the "boring traditional drums part" but I persuaded them to take me their before they wandered off to watch music videos at someone's house nearby. Odd how cultures juxtapose, isn't it?

When we got there, though, they were setting up the giant speakers for the dance party part of the Broko di Dea. This is the fun part for the kids in particular and so it kind of resembles an 8th grade dance. Seas of kids, a few adults - mostly too cool to dance as long as the kids are there - a couple of people going hot and heavy, and lots and lots of semi-awkward circle dancing. Except, of course, that circle dancing is what Saramaccans do, so there is nothing awkward about it.

In addition to doing insanely amazing things with their hips and back on occasion, basic dancing for Maroons consists of happily flopping around your hands and feet in the most Steve Erkle-way imaginable. It's the easiest dance style in the world (again, this avoids actively dancing with partners. Do that at your own risk. Four year old girls can do things with their hips that beats anything you have ever seen in a club in America. Anything. In any kind of club. So imagine the teenagers) and they love it when you get in on it. They will occasionally fall down laughing, but keep your cool and roll with it and it's totally easy! Also, if you can pop and lock (brooko - breaking - in local parlance) or do rubber knees (I can do that one!) you will have an never ending fan club.

The dance part goes on for ever and I didn't make it past it this time. My feet were hurting and I left around 1:30. Last time, I didn't show up until around then and the party had already settled down into older folks playing cards and Daam (local checkers), so I don't know exactly where that transition point is yet. The dance party is fun, but unexceptional at this point, so I went happily to bed.

In the morning, at 8am, the drums started up again. And this was everything I had been waiting for and more. Etchio (who plays drums as well) had told me that this would happen and so I was somewhat prepared when he should up at my door around 730am and I made it to the party about an hour later.

Everyone was dressed in traditional clothing and I made my attempt to as well! Saramaccan men occasionally wear a camisa - sort of a loin cloth/diaper thing - and my host mom gave one to me so I was going to trry to wear that. Unfortunately, it ends up being a bit small/short for comfort and so I decided not to wear it after consulting with a neighbor (sati poi! in local parlance - too short!). But I wore my nicest bandja kosu (shirt piece) and was given a head wrap when I got there, which was unexpected and cool!

This morning part of the ceremony consisted of 10 drummers and dozens of people with sticks clacking to the beat. It was a riot of color, with everyone in their best and brightest kosus, as the dozens with their sticks paraded in a circle in front of the Dead House and the drum section. That's one of those very literary phrases, isn't it? 'Riot of color' - you never really hear that outside stories, but I guess this is a story for you so it works out!

Anyway, it is a shuffling, swaying, but upbeat dance that occasionally branched off to I don't know where. When the dancers returned, they would be carrying some piece of the jungle - rice, branches, plants, sugar cane, etc - and piled it in the center of the dance area. The drumming is intense and, like any good drumming, doesn't need a tune or much of anything to grip you and pull you in. Drums, I think, are like fire - they grab primarl pieces of our human psychology and hold on tight.

As we sat and watched the dancing, women regularly came around with small bits of food (cake, popcorn, candy (did I mention that the favorite candy here is Hall's cough drops?)), pop, and rum. The first time the rum came around, you were supposed to wash your hands and face in it, which I did. The second time, you took your shot. A shot of 90% alcohol at 9am chased by some sunshine and fifteen minutes later some kind of green soda pop? Heck yeah.

But you get caught up in the ritual of it and it feels good. Apparently, that I was given a head wrap meant that I was invited to dance in the circle if I was so moved (not everyone is invited) and many people did get moved. Though some in different ways during different aspects.

At one point during the ceremony, several dancers took over the circle. They were covered head toe - jump suits or jackets over jeans, boots, gloves, and Halloween ghoul masks. At first, I didn't know how to take this - several of the men in the circle had also been completely covered (though no masks) and in weird outfits by my standards. One was in an orange jump suit and faceless motorcycle helmet, for example. But it quicky became clear that these new folks were bad spirits. And people were scared.

I say it with a straight face and I mean it - they started a near riot of kids. At one point, they were dancing very aggressively in and at the Dead House and the elders/family gathered there. One of the elders got up and almost ran. At first I thought it was part of the show and maybe it was, but he came back with a machete and a bow and was talked down by others while the ceremony continued. Later he looked pretty embarrased in a way that does not say "part of the show" to me.

Others fought the evil spirits more symbolically. One of the alpha men got up and dance-fought against the group of spirits to push them back from the Dead House and the elders and drove them off for a bit. Another time, a particularly boisterious and dirty little old grand mother (she has several times now asked after the size and status of my penis and not in a sensitively curious kind of way) jumped up and surprised them from behind with the kind of bump and grind that only Saramaccan hips can supply. Woah. Also, completely awesome. Though they briefly circled around her and danced it out, she drove them off quicker than the man or the elder with his machete.

After a night of little sleep (or none for most of the officials and highly-involved people), it's a dizzying spectacle. When the dancing finished, we officially said good bye to the dead by symbollically throwing away water and liquor - tonight they will throw food as well. It was foreign and beautiful and moving in it's own way. I didn't feel like I should bring my camera, but I think it will be fine next time, so look forward to seeing more about this then or when you come visit. Fortunately or un, in a village this size Brooko di Dea's are fairly common.

Limbo Pasi

Wow. Well that was cool! Tiring, but really cool. The last two days-ish was a marathon of cultural event(s). I'm not entirely sure where one left off and the other began, so I'll leave it loose with that 's.'

I think I've talked about Brooko di Dea's before - it's in the style of an Irish Wake - when someone dies they have a funeral party that starts at dark and goes until the sun comes up. You dress in traditional clothing, eat some traditional foods, and drink decent amounts of um traditional rum? Did I mention that their favorite brand of rum here is abou $US10 a bottle and 180 proof? My friend Thomas doesn't read this blog as far as I know, but he may be getting a bottle as a present.

However, before we get to the Brooko di Dea let's talk about Limbo Pasi. I'd heard about this from a couple of people and one of my main contacts here - the Rasta and Basia Etchio, he of whose name I butcher the spelling and will stop explaining his relationship to me - told me he would help me go to it at around 7AM the next morning. So I was up and ready to go a bit on the early side - I've been sleeping a bit later recently and I'm usually lucky to be leaving my house to wash by 7am, not ready to take on the world yet.

Of course, no one had showed up by 8 (Etchio is better about this stuff than most, but this was not a surprise and just in stride, weird that it didn't even phase me - integration!) and then another guy came by and said I could walk with him. So limbo pasi would literally translate to clean the path - and that turns out that is exactly what it was! Community Clean up day of the Grand Landing and the path around it to one of the main ceremonial areas of the village. Everyone showed up with a machete, rake, shovel, and/or hoe and set to work.

You could say it was a bit of a pleasant Peace Corps shock - the first sign of wide spread community organization and working together I had seen! Went very smoothly, didn't seem to require much hassle or bribing, and a lot got done with a lot of hands in a very short time. Afterwards, most people hung around for a while and some rum appeared and suddenly huge amounts of sugar cane.

This is where lines blur and I'm not sure if this was still Limbo Pasi or was no prep for the Broko di Dea. We started washing and cutting up copious amounts of sugar cane. Sugar cane here, for those who don't know, kind of looks like thick-ish bamboo that isn't hollow. It's tastey in a not-my-favorite kind of candy sort of way (if you are ready this, please send chocolate. Please. I don't have a strong sweet tooth, but, like cutting weight for tournaments, Peace Corps causes food fantasies. I miss chocolate, beef , broccoli and mexican food - in particular burritos and cheap cheesy salsa. I'll talk about chocolate more in another post here in a bit).

Umm sorry about that...anyway...we washed the sugar cane and kept some of it in six foot segments while cutting up the rest into small chunks with machetes. A cool little simple machine made of wood was driven into the ground next to a beautiful tree - a basic cane press! We began to crush the cane juice out of the long segments there while other began to mash the small bits in the giant mortar and pestles that are one of the favorite tools of Surinamese. Not really that different from our cider making process at home, with a few modifications.

I, wisely for once, stuck to the washing part and thus escaped with nothing more than some splash stains and sticky hands! I haven't had a new injury in a while, which is nice. My thumb is just about all set and my feet still hurt but are on the mend, thanks for asking. Kind of having some kind of ear-ache issue, but on drops for that which are helping quite a bit! I'm sort of taking the accelarated health-acclimation approach from what the Doc and other volunteers have to say, but really I'm ok with that.

Once we had produced copious amounts of juice, the began to cook it down into sugar cane cider! Sugar cane cider, like sugar cane wine, is really really good.

After that, it was crazy hot and I knew it was going to be a late night so I basically spent the rest of the day cooking and resting. I cooked a lot! And! It turned out really well! A lot of fried and not a lot of protein, but still I was pretty pleased. I made taia weed (big leafy green that looks like rhubarb if you are color blind and don't really know what rhubarb looks like) and okra - both cut up small and cooked down until soft with some oil, maggie (bouilloun and salt), and water - so sort of a stir fry? I also stir fried eggplant and cooked kosebanti.

I have so much kosebanti (the local long green beans) right now - I've eaten them every day this week. Fortunately, I'm decent at cooking these! Same recipe as above, but keep it covered and you end up with lightly stir-fried/steamed green beans that taste awesome. Good with anything - I had them with Pasta and Tomatos, in Ramen, and with rice last night. Unfortunately, I'm still pretty bad at cooking rice. Odd that rice is being the toughest, and least tasty, part of my cooking. I guess? I'll figure it out, hopefully.

This is running long, so I'll end it here and do a separate post on the Brooko di Dea - that warrants being available for a quick read. Later!

Food and Culture

So...trying to get more regular here! Posting on the blog I mean, not talking about anything else, though I guess I kind of am given the title! Food and nutrition is a big thing here, in many different ways. I may very well do some nutrional education work while I am here and, of course, feeding myself an staying healthy is pretty high on my priority list.

Nutrition here is interesting. On the one hand, folks do eat more vegetables than I originally felt led to believe - most meals have a vegetable portion - but it is small and often cooked until mushy with salt and oil. Men are very fit (it's no coincidence, I think, that there is not a word in the language for sit up - my attempt at a six pack is almost laughable here compared to what almost every male is walking around with naturally) but women tend to be overweight and often significantly so - but that is in fact the standard of beauty. Diabetes and high blood pressure are increasingly rampany throughout, however.

So it may be more about the don'ts then the do's when it comes to education - don't cook with so much oil, don't fry everything, don't cook with so much salt and MSG and all that, etc. But we'll see.

My food situation is questionable. I have more than enough food to last me a good long while, but most of it is canned or otherwise packaged and all of it - here's the kicker - is prepared by me! I'm far from a great cook but I'm an even worse one here! Between unfamiliarity with the ingredients, unfamiliarity with the stove and the utensils, and general cooking un-know how I am struggling to cook tastey food! I quite accidently made a very good meal last night and it was awesome! I should have taken pictures and sent them to ARIEL because it was almost vegan and could have gone on her blog!

My neighbor gave me okra and squash and I combined that with rice and lentils. I lightly stir fried the okra (they cook it to slimy sludge here and it is terribly) and that ended up ok but didn't go as well as I remember watching others do it and cooked down the pumpkin in the Saramaccan way which is sort of a thick pumpkiny stew - very tastey. I cooked the rice and the lentils together in the same pot - the rice was overcooked by the end - and I was thinking that was a mistake and I decided to stir in 2 eggs just for the hell of it. Somehow, the lentils turned to the consistenty of re-fried beans and when I mixed in the other stuff it was actually hella tastey! But those successes are rare!

So I'll learn, but it's making me recognize how much I depended on the few standbys I actually knew how to cook and how much I actually ended up eating out in the States. It creeps up on you and can definitely be expensive - so a good wake up call! Can't wait to go back to those terrible ways! You have no idea how much I miss Subway and Chipotle. Grocery store sushi. Oh dear.

On the plus side, my primary sponsors - the village Rastas - planted me an incredible garden and it is starting to be ready to harvest! I have my own long green beans and other stuff to come soon! So I definitely can eat quite healthy here! My neighbors have already started taking stuff and that is fine, because they help me cook it too. It was a bit awkward at first because I really think on of my neighbors tried to tell me that one of the rows of beans was hers and I couldn't have any awhile back and then when faced with the Rasta's clearly explaining it to me (and my increased language skills a week later) she of course retreated. It may have just been me misunderstand, but I think she was trying to put one over on me. Hard to say, but she's one of the neighbors I like less, just because.

And it is a pretty...grabby...culture. You ask for stuff and if someone offers you something you take it. It's just part of the culture so you can't judge it by American standards, but that is really tough - particularly when you mix in the pollution caused by the strong stereotype about white Americans being super wealthy and being walking ATMs/candy machines. So you can't judge...but sometimes you can. And you certainly shouldn't say yes very often.

But really, people ask you for stuff alot and it's generally either just "Give ___ to me" or occasionally "Give ___ to me fast." Kids look at me blankly when I tell them to ask in a more polite way, even when adults have explained that there are technically more formal/polite ways to ask - which of course adults almost never use either. So it's tough not to feel like they are trying to abuse you/being rude, but really they aren't - and increasingly they aren't as we get used to each other and exchange cultures and boundaries.

For example, culturally you don't ask for covered things. So cover your stack of cans and they know they are being rude if they ask you for one - and they generally won't. That can make it hard when you are in the act of looking for something or cooking something and I haven't fully gotten comfortable there yet, but it's a big improvement. Additionally, I have come up with good responses.

Some are things I do. For example, if you call me foreigner I will chase you down and make sure you know my name and possibly give you my Peace Corps spiel. It often embarrasses them and I'm ok with that. At this point it's mostly kids under 3, so I just go for the name part. If you ask me for money I will yell at you and remind you that I live here.

Others are things I am helping the people here understand. For example, they don't initially understand that I'm not paid to be here and Peace Corps doesn't have money. So I've learned to explain that all of my stuff was given to me by the Peace Corps (pretty close to the definition of a living stipend, don't you think) and I need it all because I am going to live here for 2 years and I don't have fields like them or a gun to hunt like them or a family to bring me food like them or a job that pays like (some of) them.

The phrase, "No one pays me while I live here" has gone a long way to help people understand. The idea of volunteering is not well understood, but we are getting there. And people are noticeably less grabby after that. You start to see a movement towards the pure cultural stuff (which is hard enough to get used to) and pull out the stereotype driven polllution.

The other thing that seemed to help was doing some old fashiioned cultural exchange. I'm helping people learn English, informally for now, and so one of my neighbors that I do like more said to me "Gimme that!" I was surprised and taken aback and she asked if she had said it correctly in English. I pounced!

I explained that she had spoken the words correctly, but that asking for someone's things like that was incredibly rude in America. I went on to explain how big of an adjustment it was for me here in Suriname where it is ok for people to ask you for stuff - because it was terrible manners in America and everyone would think you were a terrible person. I laid it on thick. And she got it! People here...are people. Generally, they aren't dumb, they are relatively friendly, and they don't want to feel rude - but at the same time they want free stuff if there is free stuff laying around! People are people.

After that, she's been going out of her way to offer to give me stuf and started asking for things much less - and when she does ask, it's for stuff that makes sense. Like an onion, because she realized she was out in the middle of cooking, instead of one of my 2 pots when she has 20. They love their pots here - most women collect them. Literally stacks. Often still in the boxes.

On the other hand, may have something to do with the fact that I have started baking! I'm 2 for 3 on banana breads thus far. Upside, everyone loves it! Downside, it makes me miss Ariel even more and I'm going to run out of sugar! I made my first one and gave it to the above neighbor, my other favorite neighbor, and my Rasta's - along with some random kids of course. Several people wanted to learn to cook it and so I've done that twice now. One of those times, I may have accidently sextupled the salt quantity. Whoops. And forgotten the backing soda. It was still edible...but not wonderful. The other two were really good though!

So yeah, having things that I'm willing to give (and unsolicited), having people understand my role and my living restraints, and helping draw distinctions between what I can and want to gift to people and not is all going a long way to make life more fun. And it is pretty fun in general so this will only help make it more so!

That's all for now!