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 28th (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 2nd, 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.
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