A Two Hour (Week!) Tour

So Ariel came and went (boo!), and the same with World AIDS Day (awesome, but it comes back! I hope Ariel does too!) and that left me with a vacuum of about a month and a half until My Parents Come to Suriname. In some ways, a longer spread might have been preferable, but both visits went awesome overall so I’m not going to second guess anything. But in the mean time…

I spent some just re-establishing myself and my patterns in the village – some hanging out, some teaching English and whatnot, and mostly just trying to catch my breath. However, it soon became apparent that there was too much going on to have much time for that!

It was coming up on Trimester Report Season – yes, your read it correct, Peace Corps, like pregnancy, works in trimesters. Not even JFK knows why (as far as I know). You fill out a report, talk about what you’ve done, basically try to put some metrics on Peace Corps so that we have something to show to Congress and whoever else is looking for the money it takes to fund us. Makes good sense to me.

We also had a 2^nd draft of our Community Diagnostic Report due. This was the exercise we went through during the first 3 months in the village to help us learn our way around and form a basis for communicating with outside organizations, future volunteers, etc. Updating it…doesn’t make as much sense to me at this point after being in the game for a while. The thought process was very useful, but everything gets re-written so hard to fit different grants and organizations’ needs that having a general document to use as a base doesn’t really help. Nobody wants to read a 10-pager on your village. And since there isn’t anyone coming after us…won’t do Peace Corps folks any good. I was told it was a good legacy to leave for our village to use in the future, but there are no plans to translate it into a language that my villagers use (or that the majority of organizations that will remain here after Peace Corps leaves use – I’m talking about Dutch) so that didn’t fly super well with me either. So yeah. I did it, but wasn’t excited.

What was very exciting, however, was the need to actually get started on that Boy’s Camp I’ve talked about a bit!

A lot of uncertainty about money, timing, etc (we are trying to do a lot of camps here) meant that we had a deadline to turn in a general project description and a basic budget to the Peace Corps office by right around the time all that otehr stuff was due. That caught us a bit by surprise, so my working group hadn't really met to talk through/plan/begin as much of the process as we probably should have. Which means I went into go-mode.

I had a template budget from the previous camp I helped out with and another group working on similar stuff, except with girls, so we were all bouncing around making progress. I started making phone calls, working in excel, just generally going after it. But then, we ran out of electricity in my village. And the solar panels at the museum where I usually sit to work (and charge) also died for awhile.

Soooo...I decided it made sense to go to the city a bit early. I actually finished most of the budget in the village on battery (amazing limited resources can focus the mind), but with everything going on I headed in.

And woah. It was a busy two weeks! It was a long, long time in the city but I made good use of it. Pictures were uploaded, budgets and reports and whatnot were written, I attended about a million different meetings and different attempts to beg for money about different things. And man did I put in a lot of work on Boys Camp! Including! Coming up with a name and sweet acronym like GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). Guys Leading would work, but I worry about confusion if it's all the same...but BLOW sure doesn't work....ended up with BILT. Boys Improving Lives Together. Brilliant right? Right?? I didn't here any better suggestions, ok?

So it was a good time, but a looooonnng time in the city. I enjoy the city and the chance to live a very different life for a bit. At the same time, the city is just so jarring...I feel ADD and over caffeinated all the time - even though I am not really either. I don't know why it is, maybe just over stimulation and over access? But either way, it's good to stay a bit in practice at "real" life, whatever that means. Meetings, spreadsheets, selling, buying, pants - you know, stuff like that. I do all that in the village too, actually (well, not the pants), but the cultural context is so different. I like to stay flexible.

Fortunately, the heat and the way this whole Peace Corps thing works definitely does that. It was a good two weeks, but that's all I'm gonna say about it.

Talk to you again shortly.

Evan

World AIDS Day!

The day that I said goodbye to Ariel was a hard one. First, for obvious reasons. Second, because I was also headed back to site that day. I took Ariel to the airport early in the morning, went straight to the Peace Corps Office where I crashed for about an hour, and then it was time to get up and get ready for the wagi to take me back out to site.

I was in such a rush because, through a somewhat annoying but ultimately completely fine turn of events, that was to be the opening night of my World AIDS Day Celebration! And let me tell you, we were set to celebrate AIDS hard! Cookies, Condoms, DJ, dancing, popsicles, (wooden) penises (had to finish it out) – we had it all!

Another volunteer helped me organize the event, but this was the first real, visible thing I did in the village and so it was a big deal for me and them. It wasn’t ideal to have it just after 3 weeks of distraction with Ariel visiting, but it was nice to have some solid distractions lined up for right after she left!

So it was all set to be a tough but awesome event – and it turned out to be exactly that! I landed in Pikin Slee at about 4:00PM and tossed my stuff down in my house. I changed into some nicer clothes, made up a sack of AIDS aides and headed to school. The three day celebration started with a lesson for the students in the Adult Education Program – about 91 (men and) women from the village.

I had organized it so the bulk of presentation was done by the local medical clinic staff and, by lucky coincidence, there were several doctors visiting from the city that also helped out. After they did a short lesson about HIV, AIDS, and all the rest I took over and did a group test to check for learning and understanding. We did that by using the illustrated cards Peace Corps helped to make and asking people to interpret and explain them, which they did brilliantly –it was a very simple set up that worked well to transfer and reinforce information.

And finally, the end on a fun note and make sure people were fully prepared to work with the primary HIV transmission prevention device, we had a condom race! I actually almost ruined it because I had forgot to get bananas to use as part of the race, but I was able to find some at the last minute.

Essentially, we lined up the adults in teams of 10 or so each one had to put a condom on and off the banana and then pass it to the next person in line. Saramaccans are crazy competitive, condoms make hilarious (and slimy) toys, and this was mostly a group of young/middle aged women. So it was a pretty intense and hysterical, race! I couldn’t tell you who won, but, really, don’t we all win when people gain important knowledge and the skills to apply it? And I get to watch a hundred people wrestle with slimy bananas?

The following day, we did the exact same format with the 60-70 kids in the 5^th and 6^th grade. If anything, the kids were less competitive and more shy than the adults, but it still went really well.

The capstone event was a community wide Education/Dance Party the following day. I had partnered with the Museum for them to host it and handle most of the logistics (hell yeah – look at that sustainable delegating and community partner-ing. Count ‘em, three (3!) community partner organizations in one event! The only thing they needed me for was the condoms, and really the Clinic can get them too if they ask in advance. And the cookies/popsicles, but those aren't truly required.) So the Museum hosted the event, we put up flyers all over the village, and the lessons the previous days all served to generate the buzz and hopefully draw people to come.

It’s really hard to know how an event like that is going to go down, especially when you aren’t around for the days right before it. The museum had money to buy food and a plan to organize sound system, etc – but we really just weren’t sure how many people would come. Pikin Slee has over 2000 residents and I bought 400 popsicles. Too many, not enough? Who knows! I also just wasn’t sure how much last minute organization, fire starting (to get people to actually do stuff, come, etc), and fire dampening (who knows what might go wrong) would be needed so I invited plenty of friends. About half a dozen other volunteers that were nearby came to help out as needed. In the end, it was mostly moral support but that is not something to scoff at!

Thanks to all the partners, helpers, and planning the event went really well. The only hitch was that the Museum had not managed to put up a tent to reduce the impact of rain and sun and, of course, it did both (and hard!) that day. Almost no one showed up for almost 45 minutes past our supposed start time because it was raining and storming. After that, it turned into the steamy heat that makes a long walk to the Museum pretty unappealing – and we didn’t have much shade to offer the audience.

But we still got 200+ people in attendance (and maybe more – all the popsicles disappeared, that’s for sure!) and the actual pieces of the Party went great! We started with speeches by local personalities – the village DJ, Edji (my counterpart, Basia, and one of the top guys at the Museum), and of course yours truly Seei Pai! We kept them as short as one can in Saramaccan and launched into a very brief lesson by the Clinic staff.

And then we got to the crown jewel. No, not the popsicles – the dance performance! For this event, we brought in a Womens Group from another village on the river that uses traditional story telling and dance methods to educate about HIV/AIDS. The group actually got their start at an HIV/AIDS education event organized by a Peace Corps Volunteer in their village several years ago. At the end of that event, participants were challenged to summarize what they had learned about HIV/AIDS in skits – and one of them went so well that people kept asking them to do it. First in their own village and now all over the country.

So it was really cool that we could bring them to Pikin Slee and show people a truly local face for the lesson. The play goes over transmission, prevention, and medical treatment but manages to be very funny (and dirty) while covering a serious subject manner and passing on the critical information.

After that, there was nothing more except to pass out popsicles and condoms (not like the bananas and condoms from the race!), shake hands, and buy a beer for the many helping hands that made the day go so well.

It was a great event and everyone was very proud to be part of it and very appreciative. So it was a pretty cool Peace Corps moment. I had a great time, my village had a great time, people learned stuff, and we all got popsicles.

And that’s what I call a good couple of days!

Ariel's Visit

That girl. She’s pretty awesome and I’ll tell you why. And! I’ll do it with a simile. Ariel is like barbecue sauce. I trust she and everyone else will appreciate the comparison, given that barbecue sauce is my favorite condiment. It would be close if you put guacamole into the category but I think it falls elsewhere anyway. And you can say that Ariel is like guacamole if you prefer, but I'm going with barbecue sauce (she isn't green...well except for a brief part of her visit. Read on!).

Barbecue sauce is spicy, but not so much that it overwhelms that sweet, savory, yummy taste. If you have tasty food in front of you, it makes it tastier. And if you have untasty food, barbeque sauce is tasty enough that it makes said food palatable so you can eat it! And if you get some all over your face while you are eating it (par for the course for me, as anyone who has seen me eat a burger knows) – it’s all good, since it is more than tasty enough to enjoy by itself too!

I realize it isn’t a perfect simile, but at least I can still spell simile. Got it on the first try too. Sadly, can't actually say the same about barbecue sauce (it's not actually bar-ba and there isn't a q! Seriously.) But, like I was saying, Ariel makes the journey just plain better – and it’s a pretty awesome one out here to start with, so it was a really good visit.

It wasn’t perfect, but life isn’t. It was as good as I could have reasonably hoped for and it was great to have three weeks together after so long apart. It was long enough that it felt like more than just a visit and gave us enough time that we had space to just exist together for a little, which is an important distinction.

However, it almost didn’t begin very well! Or at least, it seemed in danger of not happening for a bit! Suriname just changed its visa procedures and, somehow, the airline personnel weren’t familiar with the new rules. So they briefly refused to let Ariel on the plane. I got a call from her early on the 28^th (was due to arrive around midnight that night) and lemme tell you, that is not the way to start your day! Fortunately, she was able to get it straightened out by showing them the new rules on the internet and making them call someone in Suriname that actually knew what was going on.

Seeing her get off the plane (and then turn around and go back through customs again due to some further issues obtaining the visa card and whatnot. Yeah. It was a bit nerve wracking! She was literally the last person to make it through the whole rigamarole) was quite precisely a site for sore eyes. That’s the best way to put it, nothing else need be said.

So we started off with a few days in the city, topped off by New Years. New Years was about what I expected – a giant, fire cracker filled, street party. We didn’t actually see many (any?) of the giant strings of fire crackers directly, but that was ok. And the party was loud and fun. Also as expected, not exactly Ariel’s or my cup of tea, but fun to experience.

On the 2^nd, we headed into the jungle. This was the best part of the trip for us and we really had a great time. Being together with her in my jungle palace made it a home in a way a guy like me just doesn’t achieve on his own, no matter how much time you spend in it and how many adventures begin there.

Ariel was a rock star in the village. Unsurprisingly, she took to jungle cooking, jungle washing, hammock sleeping, and the other rough necessities of life out here easily. But I was surprised by how well she picked up the language and the culture. She picked up Saramaccan (mostly understanding, with some talking) amazingly quickly. I’ll say part of it was the brilliance of her teacher, but really it was just plain impressive on her part.

We had a really good time in the village and got to share many adventures. Ariel helped me run a community clean up activity with my youth group and helped out with English class, we went to a traditional dance party (I danced. Like a jungle cat. You had to claw. Rar!), and we generally ate as many new fruits and vegetables as possible! Of course, Ariel didn’t love all of them and, perhaps also of course, not all of them liked Ariel! So she had a rough day or two in the middle with…umm…severe indigestion. But she bounced back and it’s all part of the epic.

We also got to go into the jungle to a mountain where many of my friends grow crops. It’s about a two hour walk into the jungle and you can see real mountains from its top. It’s mostly just a really steep hill – I believe I’ve already written about it – but it is a beautiful spot and I was really glad to be able to share it with her.

In true jungle form, we got stuck there during a huge rainstorm and so were late coming back. But it was a great ending to eleven days in the jungle.

After that, we wandered around the country just a bit. First, we visited another volunteer that was hosting a World Map painting event. The event was at the school, but the goal was not really for the kids to paint it. In fact, quite the opposite. Turns out Saramaccan kids aren’t so good at painting inside the lines – at least not when you have hundreds of them in a small space. Maybe that’s just all kids.

So, Ariel and I played to our strengths. She helped paint, I helped distract the kids. You can see from my new facebook profile picture how successful I was. Sacrifices must be made for art. Sacrifices like BRAIIIINNNNSSSS!

After that, we spent a day at the top eco-resort in Suriname. It’s called Bergandal and it is super nice. And way too expensive to actually sleep/eat there, so we just went for the day. That’s where we did the zip line. We went through the jungle canopy and across the river on a series of eight or so long, fast zip lines. Highly recommend it, at least if you can get the kind of value for your money that we did. It would have been a fair deal at the jacket price, but I was able to get us the local deal and so it was absolutely a steal. Very cool.

We continued our dive into nature by going to a different kind of eco-resort for a night the next day. Brownsberg Mountain is a reserve of virgin jungle with trails all over the mountain and a sleeping camp and restaurant on top. It’s not luxurious like Bergandal, but it is one of the best ways to see a lot of the most beautiful flora and fauna of Suriname.

It was interesting because we had the place completely to ourselves – we slept over Sunday night and no other tourists were there, not even a full complement of staff. It wasn’t what we expected, but it turned out to be a good capstone to our travels. We got to enjoy nature, see lots of cute froggies, and have a chance to talk and be together in a relatively quiet and beautiful setting. Except for the howler monkeys. They sound like the mouth of Hell. It’s pretty cool, but if you didn’t know what was making the sound you would run. Trust me, you just would.

The visit finished up with a few days in the city. Our adventures were mostly done at that and so it was a time to spend time together and prepare to say goodbye.

Goodbye wasn’t easy. As stressful as it is to be apart, being together with the specter of leaving again is also stressful and that understandably built in the last days of the visit. That’s why it was nice that we ended with some slower activities like the mountain and then some time in the city without any real agenda. But it is a tough balance – trying not to let the future spoil the present.

As I said at the beginning, I think we did about as good a job as possible. Being together with Ariel here was wonderful in a way completely different from anything else and it makes it easier to continue to be here. On the other hand, it also reminds me how much I am missing back in the States. But, overall, it balances towards supportive of my journey here instead of undermining and I think that is a good thing.

So yeah. It was a great time in my time here for me and for Ariel. I’m very glad she was able to make it so Suriname, glad beyond words. I know I’m a great writer and all that, but you really don’t understand this life until you see it. And when you can share it, even briefly, with someone who is your barbaque sauce, well then life is pretty good.

That’s all he wrote, on this one.

Christmas in the Jungle

It’s called Bedaki, actually – Christmas in Saramacca land, that is. Just like in America, it is a much anticipated day and the kids go craaazy. Everyone in the village was very insistent that I spend Christmas and New Years in Pikin Slee, but that was not the plan since Ariel was coming in on the 28^th. They almost convinced me to try to make it back in time for New Years, but that was just too quick of a turn around – and I’d heard that New Years in the city was worth seeing.

So that meant I was even more looking forward to Xmas because I’d be missing New Years with my neighbors. But the main countdown was really to Ariel’s visit – it just so happened that I was leaving for the city the day after Bedaki so it all worked out.

Anyway, lemme tell you about Christmas out here. Bedaki is not very Christian or western or anything like that. As far as I could tell, the most western thing about it was that it happened on Dec 25^th. The way you celebrate it is somewhere between Caroling and Trick-or-Treating. Basically, you wander around to your various friends and neighbors houses and shout ‘Bedaki! Bedaki! Bedaki!’ (occasionally getting in brief, friendly contests for who will say it louder/more sing-songy/more times). And then the people at the house give you cake, some kind of snack, or something drink.

To prepare, I made 2 banana breads the night before and I actually helped one of my friends make one that day of – so I was pretty well baked, you might say! Only in the Dutch Oven sense, however. I actually made the 3^rd one in a real oven though, now that I think about it!

After baking and all of that, I decided to really get into the fun of things by getting my hair braided! The pictures are hidden somewhere in the online albums (probably), but let’s just say…it was ridiculous beyond words. I had been hoping to meet Ariel at the airport with cornrows, but…well I just couldn’t.

One time, the sixth grade girls in my youth group braided my hair during a rain storm and it turned out in great corn rows. Except for one which they messed up and so it came out really quick. One time, some six year old girls did my hair…and they kinda just put a rubber band around the base of each lock of/curl of hair and pronounced me beautiful. They used yellow rubber bands and so I kind of looked like a macaroni drawing of medusa.

For Bedaki, I decided to go for the pros – women about my age (sisters) who are married to two of my closest friends in the village. It all started off so well…great corn rows, solid but not so tight they hurt…but then they got closer to my foreheaded and decided they wouldn’t be able to go all the way with the cornrows. So I ended up with 4 medusa-macaroni curls for…umm… bangs I guess? It was so ridiculous (and they were so pleased with themselves) that I decided to leave it in until I got to the city the next day just so more people could marvel in the glory.

My Peace Corps friends did not disappoint – they described the look as a cross between Hellboy and that time Justin Timberlake got cornrows. Yup. That good.

So anyway, after, getting my hair done with my girlfriends, I did just a little Carol-and-Treating and then another of my friends asked me to come help her make roti. Roti is a yummilicious food that both Ariel and my parents now understand. Why the rest of you don’t understand, I don’t know. Seriously, I think it makes a huge amount of sense as a convenience/fast food in America.

It’s Indian food, so there’s curry and potatoes and other vegetables and then you can get meat, tofu, egg, whatever after that. It would work great as a competitor to Subway or Chipotle - choose your ingredients, roll it up, and off you go. Really, it’s just an Indian food burrito anyway. But tasty! And pretty healthy and cheap, so I feel like it should come to America. Not sure why it isn’t there yet. I’m trying to talk one of my Peace Corps friends into opening a restaurant making it when we finish up. We’ll see on that front.

Annn-errrr-whey, roti turned out to take up the entire rest of my day. Not exactly my plan, since I wanted to do more of the traditional (village style) holiday stuff, but on the upside I now know how to make roti! I will now pass this knowledge on to you!

1. Mix yellow split peas and cloves of garlic and then grind them up into a chunky powder

2. Make dough (tortilla style) and pinch off balls of it.

3. Make a dent in the ball and fill it up with the powder from before, and then reform the ball so that the powder is in the middle.

4. Roll that ball flat and lightly fry it on a skill it so that it becomes like a tortilla – but it is actually a roti wrap!

5. Make lots of curried vegetables, meats, etc

6. Put the curried vegetables, meats, etc into the roti wrap

7. Fold/wrap the roti up and then enjoy!

I ate much roti. And just plain fried dough. It was pretty awesome.

So, didn’t get any presents. Didn’t get much loot in general, really (though had a belly full of tasty food, so that’s good enough!). But it was a good day nonetheless. And a really nice last day in the village before heading in to meet up with Ariel.

Oh Dear!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear indeed. Indeed! I am a bit behind. More than a bit, really – nearly 3 months and let me apologize, gentle readers! I offer no excuses, only know that you have been far from my typing fingers undeniably, but not far from my story-telling heart!

I’ll just briefly fill in the story and then the many adventures I have to share will follow, each in their own vignette. I will do my best to keep them digestible and enjoyable, as always. Anyway, I’ve missed you! So let’s dive in!

After Boys Camp I did a swift dive back into my Peace Corps-ing village life as I tried to prepare for various things – most namely World AIDS Day, which you will hear more about. My efforts to be super-efficient were spurred by the desire to be guilt free in my enjoyment of time with Ariel who arrived in Suriname on Dec 28^th (about 3 weeks after Boys Camp). I was not quite as productive as I wanted, but I did pretty well all told. The wait ended with Christmas in the Jungle and I went to the city to prepare for Ariel the following day. Let me tell you, I’ve never felt the countdown ancies more! I actually had trouble sleeping! And reading!! Of course, it was the countdown to Ariel instead of to Christmas but I could ask for no better present than her presence, to steal a line from somewhere.

Ariel’s Visit went as well as I could have hoped – life ever fails to achieve perfection, but that doesn't mean somethings can't go pretty darn well. Seeing her was simply amazing and I’ll say no more about it (untrue even in this post, much less the one dedicated to it!). It was needed and necessary and good – for both of us, I like to think.

That visit ended with a kiss and a sprint back to the village for World AIDS Day (the caps mean it will be a post! Oooh, maybe even a hyperlink? Dare I? Dare I??? Nope, not that organized!) which unfortunately had ended up being exactly the day Ariel left – Jan 19. It was a long day that lead into 2 more – my AIDS education event spanned 3 days – but it went absolutely swimmingly. Education, condoms, and cookies were all distributed to hundreds of people and the critics loved it. Zero rotten tomatoes (I don’t know the website very well so I don’t know if that is actually good or bad, but you know what I mean. Nobody threw stuff at me. It went really well. More in the actual post, ok? Sheesh!)

After that, it was another 3 weeks of Peace Corps immersion – reestablishing myself in the village and trying to do all sorts of things! Unfortunately, it was tough to do them in the village since we ran out of oil (and with it, electricity). So I went on a Two Hour (Week) Tour of the city – longer than I wanted, but it turned out I needed every minute to get stuff done before My Parents Come to Suriname!

That visit also went very well – adventures and fun were had by all and my parents no doubt have some new stories of roughing it to add to the ones beginning “Back at the farm…” We really had a great time! I’m glad they were able to come and that it worked out for them to stay in my house. And in my hammocks! Say what you will, they are still some tough farm folk and it was awesome to have them here!

And that is that, so to speak. Here I am, back in the village, trying to do some Peace Corpsing! Throughout it all, I’ve been thinking about my future in Peace Corps and after it (not sure if that will be a separate post or not yet) and all those future thoughts and visits have me a bit on edge – so now I’m just try to settle back in and enjoy the adventures the jungle has to offer me and that I have to offer the jungle! And that's mix of Looking Ahead is actually going really well, just now!

So, that’s the summary, now let’s dive in to the rest! Welcome back to my life, I hope you missed me! I know I missed you.

XOX,

Evan