Parallel Universe

Is it quantum physics?  I don’t know, but I live in an alternate universe.  It’s parallel…though what does that mean?  Why don’t we say it’s perpendicular?  I guess because there are parallels…ah well whatever.  It’s good to be home, absurd isn’t it?  I live in a hut in the jungle.  It’s hot and dusty, the power comes on only intermittently, there’s no water, I poop in a hole, and most of all no one actually calls me by my name.  At yet somehow it is home and I got a smile on my face as soon as I got to Atjoni to get on a boat to come here.

I was sort of dreading coming back.  I’ve been so busy in the city and I don’t really have anything to do here, right now.  I have ongoing stuff (youth group requires thought, English doesn’t) and stuff that I have submitted that needs follow up (lampesi’s, solar lanterns, ginger juice, Entrepreneurship training), and some work to do to prep for Camp BILT (that’s what I have dubbed the Boy’s Camp – Boys Improving Lives Together.  It’s not as good as GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) but it’s better than BLOW or nothing). 

So with not a lot to do back here, I wasn’t that excited to get back to grubbing in the dirt after all my fancy living in the city.  You know, playing in Excel, going to meeting, standing in front of people and speaking about things with certainty.  Oh and showers, water, internet, AC.  You know, fancy people stuff.  It was kind of a letdown after all that and so the exhale kinda caught me hard, but as soon as I hit Atjoni I felt better.

It was fun wandering around other parts of Suriname (I’m finally really starting to think in Saramaccan – that sentence had to be translated out of it as I wrote it) and reminding myself that I do actually like wandering around within minimal structure.  I’m not as conservative or risk averse as McM started to make me.  I had a lot of fun negotiating our way through French Guyana and what not.  But it’s cool how nice it felt to return to the Saramaccan River where you face all those challenges…but on your home turf.  It’s far from easy, but at least we speak the same language.

Oak Hill and my parents, Ithaca and Blair Street, Ariel – these are…centers…that make home.  It’s weird how my little hut has made that list.  It helped a lot that my parents and Ariel have been here.  Even so, though, it’s so much more of a home than my house in the suburbs with a yard and a two car (2.5) garage.

It’s all in what you make of it and how alive you are while you are there, I guess.  

In other news, I know how to thatch a roof.  Isn’t that odd?  I’ve helped do it two or three times now and I could probably do it by myself (you need several pairs of hands, but you know what I mean) – passably at least.  I mean it’s just ridiculous.  People missed me here.  They really did!  And they took me back in after being gone for almost a month near instantly.

This is the first community I’ve really felt a part of, I think.  I mean, TKD for sure – Cornell and Chun Ma.  Even Violin to a lesser extent when I was young, but those are both centered on something so I count them slightly differently.

It’s a weird path I’ve walked to end up here.  The only thing that ties it together is that I’ve always tried to make a positive difference in other people’s lives and, when I’ve known how, to leave things better than I found them.  It’s taken me to sweaty practices, steamy dance floors, over-cooled offices, giant warehouses, and now the jungle.  Who knows where I’ll end up next.

I would not be content helping people thatch roofs all my days, but it’s a good reminder of what is important and valuable.  What I value myself for, in terms of being a Peace Corps Volunteer, and what my community values me for have a lot of overlap, I would bet.  But I’m learning that there are things I didn’t think to value that they already knew.  Like being a good neighbor.  Or a present, positive, community member.

I’m not at all upset I was gone for a month – I did good stuff, for me and for the community – in part because of how easily I fit back into the village.  I’m not upset by anywhere my path has taken me so far.  But I’m definitely trying to learn from these things about what’s important.  And therefore at what I need to aim in the future.

Bonjour, French Guyana

Whoa, hey there!  So I just got back from my 2nd short vacation of my Peace Corpsin' career, and let me tell you!  It was fun!  It was a 5 day or so trip with three Peace Corps Volunteer and one friend of a friend that is now a friend who showed us all around French Guyana.

After a Peace Corps training, much grant writing (oh!  And Boy's Camp Planning!  Forgot to mention that in my last post!), and general doings on, a short vacation was much in order.  And it was awesome!

We left the city the day before my birthday (thanks to everybody that sent me birthday wishes!) and went out to a Amer-Indian village where another Volunteer lives.  The road to get there is terrrrrible.  And the driver that took us was evvvveen worse.  Wow.  I have done some terrible things to cars, but...wow.  I mean we were just destroying that car on potholes, mud, and worse.  Wow.

We made it to Michelle in record time, though.  We were planning to take a more sedate (and cheap) public bus, but it's so much cheaper that it is quite literally a mob scene to get on.  So, after standing in the middle of a rain storm for about an hour waiting to get on...we failed.  People were literally throwing bags through windows to get on.  You basically try to get on before people get off and arrange to immediately take someone's seat as soon as they stand up.  It's a bit hectic.

So that didn't work out and we ended up in a car.  Which was fine but OH MY GOD THAT CAR'S POOR ALIGNMENT!!!  And I know what I'm talking about on that front, let me tell you!

The Amer Indian village was really cool, as is Michelle of course, and it was really amazing how different it.  It's really an entirely different culture.  More spread out, sedate, private, shy - not African, not Maroon, but some how more Western.  Maybe because of the 24 hour electricity and roads?  Or the personal space?  Hard to say.

Either way it was cool to expand my travels within Suriname and see a very different part of the jungle.  Michelle's experience there is so different.  The kids are quiet and disciplined.  Adults are reserved and closer to an American understanding of polite.  Woah.  You know.  Woah.  I'm not at all upset to be in a Saramaccan village instead - I like the chaos and the energy - but I am a bit jealous that she can have 5 kids in her house at the same time as 4 volunteers and we are able to carry on a conversation!

From Michelle's we grabbed a boat and crossed the river in Europe, one step removed.  French Guyana.  It really was kinda like France.  It was a cheap and slightly weak European country, or an expensive and incredibly clean and nice version of Suriname - if you felt the need to make such comparisons.  The infra structure is better (water and electricity everywhere, real roads, better education) and that's a big difference.  The other larger difference, in terms of the feel of the two countries, is just that...white people and foreigners aren't noteworthy.  They are used to Westerners that may or may not be tourists - wandering around all the time, because they are actually part of France!  Do you know with which country France has the longest border? Brazil!  Bet you wouldn't have guessed that out of this context!

So it makes it interesting to visit when you are used to Suriname.  No one is looking at you, coming up to you in English or Dutch, asking you, judging you, whatever they might 'ing you.  Some of that is also the French background, I would bet - but either way it was refreshing! 

So we crossed the river, after some incredibly weak Customs, and found ourselves in St. Laurent.  St. Laurent is far from a jewel of the French countryside but when you compare it to the border town on the Surinamese side, Albina, it is a little sad. It just has a different feel.  Like you are in a slightly underdeveloped corner of a developed place instead of the reverse.

From there, we made a fairly long drive to just outside Korou - that's where our friend and host Julien lives.  Julien became friends with a few previous Volunteers and hosted them on a French Guyana trip last year.  They had a good time and so he extended the offer to other Volunteers and we took him up on it. Julien proved to be an epic host, chauffering us around (without asking for any gas money, by the by) and showing us many hidden gems of the country side - and just generally showing us a good time.

That night, we went out for fancy crepes with a gang of French nurses we randomly made friends with (Julien got a date with one for after we left out of it.  Nice!) and then wandered around some of the clubs and bars of the town. 

Did you know that French Legionnares really exist?  And they do all kind of look like Jean Claude?  It was eerie.  They were nice enough though.  My top foreign military bar experience remains in China with Andy (I wonder where that picture got to...), but hey these guys bought us drinks so I won't complain.

It was a late first night and relatively expensive, but still fun to experience the life of the Westerners that come to work, live, and play in French Guyana for a year or two.  Korou is the home of the Space Center and so there are a lot of foreign professional types.  We'll get back to Space in a bit.

All in all, it was a pretty good birthday-day!

On the 7th, we packed up and met up with an old friend of Julien who for some reason had insisted that Julien bring us by his house for a pre-Easter lunch.  I think it was to expand his international bragging rights, because man could this guy cook!  A retired shrimp fisherman, he served amazing shrimp, pork, rice, potatoes, salad, and bread - all in some amazing combination of indonesian, caribbean, indian, and french style.  Wow.  We ate so much.  We had to take a food coma break before we could leave.

After that, we decided to go swimming.  Why?  Why not!  We knew we would float after a meal like that!  And it's always fun to swim in the sea off a different coast.  In this case, the water was pretty dirty - it was a pretty woody/sandy beach and it had been raining very hard recently, but still.  Good times.

We then set off into the jungle to one of the hidden gems of French Guyana.  It's called Cacao and it's a Laotian village in the middle of the FG jungle.  Yes, even they have a chinese-run store.  How did they (the Laotians) end up there?  I guess it has something with picking the locally unpopular side during the French piece of the Vietnam War.  Somehow, a larger population of Laotians was evacuated by the French and a chunk of them was given a chunk of jungle and given a chance to make a new life for themselves.

Which they did!  It's a vibrant little village and very starkly different from Suriname.  Even though it is incredibly isolated and a completely different culture from the majority peoples, the road to get there is smooth, you can drink the water from the tap, and the electricity is always on.  In a way it's surprising that that is surprising but it is from what I'm used to now.

We stayed at a great hammock camp in the village - dinner and breakfast included.  It was incredibly simple, but just a beautiful, peaceful setting.  A romantic weekend must if you lived in a FG city a couple of hours drive away - I think how Julien found it.  The owners are a Frenchmen and a Laotian who run it together with other Laotian family members in the village.  Interestingly, except for a narrower nose, the Frenchmen looked a lot like my Dad.  Same build, coloring, and hair, and face structure (except the nose).  New there was some Norman blood in there, right.  De la hant!  Ahn Hanh Hannnnh!  Anyway, it really was a beautiful setting. 

We continued on the next day for a quick border crossing over to Brazil.  This was back to a bit more of what I am used to - isolated, poor, and subpar infrastucture.  But very friendly and nice.  It looked like how I pictured an urban Peace Corps experience before I was a Volunteer.  It was a vibrant village - kids playing soccer, people walking around talking to neighbors, not much going on but plenty to do. 

But, it just so happened that we got lucky and there was a band in town that night!  So, we found ourselves at something between a club, a street party, and...well I guess that was about it.  Whatever you want to call it, it was fun!  We got street food and non-Parbo beers and hung out at the dance for a few hours.  It was a surprisingly fun time, just hanging around in the middle of nowhere with some nice people.

We didn't stay in Brazil long, though, and by the next day we were back in the deep jungle of French Guyana.  We were on our way back to Korou, but we decided to stop for a hike into the rainforest to see a place called the Rock Savanah.  It was about an hour hike through beautiful jungle along a path that was part creek, part sand, and all mud.  You go up and down in elevation several times until you start to just go up, and then suddenly the forest opens out into a huge rolling savanah of bare mountain rock.

It's sudden and surprising and beautiful.  There's no transition, it's just suddenly the bare shoulder of the mountain.  Steep and not alternatively, but always rolling and leading you up, it was a very beautiful piece of geography.  And it was framed by the back drop of all the jungle and it's canopy around and below us.  Because of all the rain, it was doing that amazing steam mist that rises from the trees and makes the entire world look like something out of a dream.

We were drenched in sweat, mud, and rain by the time we finished the hike, but it was well worth it.  We decided to celebrate when we got back to Korou with massive, wonderful, Hamburgers.  Ahh street food, I love you so - especially when you are there in many varieties!  All of them were big, greasy, with eggs and bacon and veggies and whatever else you can imagine.  I had two.  Both were doubles.  It was glorious and a great end to a good day.

That night, we slept at a much more basic tourist camp than we'd been doing recently.  Everywhere we went was just hang your hammock style, but this one lacked a floor, walls, electricity, staff, etc.  So it was kinda just a open air shed, actually.  It's redeeming characteristics were 3.  One, it was very close to where we needed to be the next day (and Julien was getting understandably tired of driving so much).  Two, it was super cheap and we were running low on Euros.  Three, it was right on the beach.  Once we brushed the sand off our feet and out of our hammocks, we fell asleep in sea area and the sound of the waves.

We were down to our last day and we knew how we were going to spend it - at the Space Center, where Julien works.  He's no rocket scientist, but he's plenty smart and plenty nice and he took very good care of us.

We were signed up for a free tour of the facility and so we spent most of the day being shown around by French tour guides in a big bus with dozens of other tourists.  Of course, it was all in French so it was a bit difficult to follow, but we still had a great time.  It was cool just to see what people can dream and build and do.  The scale of human accomplishment is truly awesome.  We didn't get to see an actual launch - so that remains on my list of things I'd like to do - but we saw a lot of the facility and several videos and everything else about them.  So it was a great final day.

Of course, the fun wasn't quite over.  As previously mentioned, Julien had a date that night so he found us a ride to the border on a local Craigslist rather than taking us himself.  We were a bit apprehensive, but that changed when a nice BMW rolled up and announced he was our ride.  Young fellow, nice guy, good driver, but wow.  We FLEW to the border.  He wasn't nearly as reckless with his car as that other driver I described before, but man did he drive fast.

We still got to St. Laurent just as dark had fallen and we didn't really have the money to spend the night.  So it was a our goal to get across the border and over to Michelle's again with the money we had left.  And so Evan went into negotiation mode.  I really do enjoy it.  It's just plain fun, but somehow I know it isn't the same in English and in America.  Arguing about actually small numbers in a foreign culture in a foreign language is fun.  It's a contest and if you do it right it's a friendly one.

With the boat guys, I did it right.  We were swarmed as we got out of the car, but I managed to keep it relatively controlled.  Got our bags on the boat, got the guys to agree to take us directly to Michelle (not the normal drop off spot, but just a bit farther down on the river bank), and all for only 25% more than we paid coming over when the whole trip began.  A 25% premium was cheap because it was night time and we were asking them to go further.

But, unfortunately, my Negotiation Prof's words proved all too true - it's not over until the check clears and there is no lawsuits.  Midway through the trip, they decided that the money wasn't enough to cover the trip.  In particular because they were running low and gas and consulted another boat man who backed them up that I had put one over on them to get them to agree to the number I did.  Hey, man, they agreed!

Admittedly, it was super low.  Either way, they agreed to put us down at the normal spot at the agreed upon price - which was definitely fair and I wasn't sad.  I asked them to help us find a Taxi and off we went to Michelle's.

And then the same thing happened!  The guy agreed to 25!  And then as we went, he said 30...and then 40...and then 50.  30 would haI ve been fair and I was prepared to go there, but by that point it was clear he was a bit...off...and he was threatening to drive off with our bags in his trunk.  So we settled on 40 and sent him on his way.

It was exciting and slightly negative, but really I had a huge amount of fun with it...especially the part where he and I were arguing full out - me with my foot in the driver's door to keep him from sitting down and driving away...or when I was complaining to his wife (who was also in the car) and asking her why her husband was trying to rip us off.

In short, it was full on haggling in the way that just doesn't quite happen in a flea market, and I love that kind of thing.  I like negotiating - in the haggling sense and also in the way of figuring my way around obstacles.  I like making do, making it happen, whatever you want to call it.

Anyway, we spent a good night at Michelle's and then went to an Aucan village were another PCV friend, Kate, lives - Aucans are another tribe of Maroons, similar to Saramaccans but different.  It's a relatively large and developed village, but it sounds a lot less...neighborly than mine.  It was cool to see Kate and see a different village, though.  That whole border area is entirely different and I really enjoyed seeing a different part of Suriname.

And then we were back in the city!  And that was that.  A great trip.  I really enjoyed French Guyana.  And I can't wait to do more in Brazil.

Bye!

Doings Doings Doings.

After my parents left, the busy-ness just kept on keeping on.  I'm not one to sit idlely by...well you know except for all the time I spend sitting around - but it isn't idle! It's cultural exchange!  But there hasn't been much sitting around recently anyway, so there it is.

It's just been super busy.  Let's see what all has happened, not in any particular order...

I had a Peace Corps training!  It was only a week long, but it's kept me in the city for almost a month.  I have had sooo many meetings and things and doings and goings on.  The training was focused on technical stuff as well as some standard safety and security style things.  And, in more exciting-ness, one of the days was almost entirely led by me and a partner in crime (another Volunteer)!

We gave led a day long training segment on Income Generating Activities - or more usefully on how you can help people in your communities that want to start a grow a business.  So we taught people the basic skills you need to evaluate a business idea, come up with a basic accounting system, a basic marketing strategy, and talk vaguely intelligently about business stuff so you can begin a business plan or meet with a bank or other potential funding source. 

It wasn't super intense, but it was detailed enough that people actually left with an understanding of what really goes into a business plan.  Or how you actually do a break even analysis to figure out when and how your business will make money, what your price point is, stuff like that.  It was doubly fun because, although I'm far from an expert about any of that stuff, it felt pretty good to be reminded that my soft skills BA in BS background hasn't stopped me from actually learning to do some real things that are actually useful - and involve basic math!

One of the other things that I've recently had going on is a Ginger Juice Business that my 6th grade class has started as part of our Youth Group.  So I've been going through a lot of this similar stuff with them and it provided a very helpful real life example several times in the class.  Ooh!  Also!  I pretty much free styled an Excel spreadsheet doing a real backoftheenvelope style break even analysis for a fictional rice mill business scenario the group came up with.  I miss Excel.  I know, it creeps me out too.

So I actually wrote a grant proposal for the Juice business while I was here too - submitted to a local Rotary Club.  Collaborated on a grant proposal to introduce solar lanterns.  Wrote another grant to start a new womens/business group in my village producing arts and crafts.  And wrote an infrastructure project grant to get my village those lampesi's. 

Of course, none of those have actually come to fruition yet or anything, but man oh man have I put out a lot of words and asked for a lot of money over the last few weeks!  Which is fun.  I quite enjoy trying to get free stuff.  And when it's for a good cause, I enjoy it even more.  I'm far from an expert grant writer either, but I'm definitely getting some practice in it and I think I'll have a fully justified resume bullet by the end of my two years out here!

All this professional-style work and time in the city - both during my Two Week Tour and this recent bout - has made me really think about what I want to do next.  It's something I've been trying to think about and figure out for a long time and it's just plain difficult.  One of the hardest parts of doing something are figuring out what to do...as any kid on a summer break afternoon well knows.

Increasingly, I'm leaning against MBA school.  It still feels like a waste to me.  It's a way to refocus your career on something new and if I still don't know exactly what that is - why spend 6 figures to do that?  Having a Masters in general, and MBA specfically, and a degree from one of the schools I would probably end up at also specifically, would open a lot of doors so it's far from off the table.  But I just don't think I want to do it.  Not sure yet.  We'll see.

But I do like trying to get free stuff.  And I do like operations and management.  And I do like trying to make the world a better place.  I also like having a lot of control of my way of doing things, which points towards being part of a loose structure or one of my own devising.  So something that combines at least a few of those would probably be ideal.  I've started to look more seriously at disaster management stuff - for the government or some NGO.  Event planning and fund raising for some NGO would also be pretty cool.

It's early yet to be developing specific leads, but I'm definitely spending time thinking about it.  It's scary to think that I just kinda appear back in the states in 15 months.  I'm pretty sure I'd prefer to appear in NYC or DC, but I'm also pretty sure I'd prefer to appear somewhere near Ariel.  A couple of assumptions there, but whatever.

So not sure.  And not that far away from when I will actually have to start sending out applications to things again.  Can't escape it forever.

I don't exactly want to go back to a cubicle, but there's plenty of stuff - like those excel spreadsheets - that I do actually enjoy that happens in cubicles.  So I'm not fully against it...but I'm certainly learning that I was wrong in what I said to McM years ago in my first full tilt job hunting bout.  I said that I like problem solving and people and it didn't really matter to me what the problems where and what the people were doing.  It was about the approach and the process, not the widget.

Turns out the content matters more to me than I thought, so that's going to play a much larger role in this next go around. I'm interested to see how it turns out.  Preferably with a higher salary than Peace Corps!  But also with a higher world-bettering quotient than generic corporate too.

My Parents Come to Suriname

And so, indeed, they did!  A shorter visit than Ariel's and a bit less action packed - or at least fewer destinations and events crammed in - but very welcome nonetheless.  My parents are always a welcome and positive presence in my life and their love and support means the world to me.  More than that, I'm lucky to even be friends with them in a way that makes hanging out on in a thatch roof hut in the middle of the jungle a fun visit as much as a welcome reunion.  I guess I'll refrain from any comparisons to condiments, in this case.

In any case, everything went quite smoothly.  My mom managed to make friends, unsurprisingly, with approximately half of Air Suriname and so they flew through customs. They had a much easier time than Ariel, with all the visas and whatnot. Funny how 1. Being in America and 2. Calling ahead can really help smooth things outsometimes. Of course, calling ahead often is made much easier by being in America, but good on them in any case! It made it nice and easy, though they made it out way faster than I expected!

So I basically left my parents playing scrabble in the airport for 45 minutes waiting for me to pick them up at midnight...whoops! Sorry! Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind too much. They do love scrabble, as do I!

So it was a nice midnight drive back to my friend Jose's house - he was gracious enough to let us all stay there, which was really awesome. To thank him, and because they are just generally friendly people, my parents brought Jose several gifts from America. They also brought stuff for me. And for John - another volunteer whose mom is now friends with my mom because of the ways of the world, which is cool! So....they actually brought way more stuff for others than for themselves. Look at the Delahanty family making the W shine!

Annnyway, Jose got a hummingbird feeder and some cheap American wine that he missed from his boyhood, John got some winter clothes (hiking trip in southern South America), and I got all sorts of wonderful loot! Ariel was the only present I needed for Christmas, but all the stuff my parents brought sure didn't hurt and was awesome! We didn't part all those gifts until later, we actually just kinda went to bed!

In the morning, we did the walk around Paramaribo. We didn't really do the hardcore touristy stuff - just the Saramaccan touristy stuff and the main arts and crafts store. They got to see the market and the main Saramaccan street, we bought lots of kosus and other good cultural stuff, and they had a good time hanging out at the Peace Corps office and meeting the gang.

And that was only the first day!

I don't really remember what we did the second day...but I know we prepared to go out onto....THE RIVER!  I managed to secure us a decent wagi and my mom the front seat, so off we went towards the Jungle, come Monday.  Instantly, of course, my Mom was best friends with the driver.  Turns out he speaks pretty good English - why didn't I know that?

The boat ride also went well.  The river was high and the weather decent, so we saw a few rapids and maybe a bit of rain but really no issues at all.  And so we arrived.  Nothing can truly prepare you for Saramacca, at least I don't think so, but my parents have now experienced it and shared it with me.  It's a really cool feeling to be welcomed home into some place so foreign to people that have helped you make a place home for most of your life.

We had a good time sharing the daily life of a Peace Corps Volunteer, though as they can attest - it's kind of difficult to share the daily life of a Peace Corps Volunteer!  I have methods, madnesses, and any number of other systems that I have evolved through 8 months of living and contemplation (and a life time of being full of odd ideas and BS)...and it turns out those don't always work for other people.  It's no different than any bachelor pad, perhaps - idiosyncracies in sync with my own.  Some rough edges are smoothed over, some are only smoothed over to my eye and maybe not someone elses, and some I've never bothered with because they don't bother me.  But they might bother you!

I admit those kind of things make it easy to step on each others toes - hard not to do in a house as small as mine actually!  And that is of course where it is different.  My systems aren't just bachelor pad - they are JUNGLE bachelor pad.  I do my baking on my front porch bench because it keeps ants down.  I'm weird about keeping food covered because my roof poops.  Do I have as good a reason for...any number of other things...nope!  And even if I did it might not be obvious for you to figure out the reason or the rule after only a day!

Because of how used yout get - and have to get really - to solitude and the routines it takes to handle that and all the normal tasks of life in the jungle - it can make one somewhat crochety.  Yes, I said it.  I am one step closer to my ULTIMATE GOAL.  I hope to be a crotchety, dirty old man as soon as possible.  Nothing creepy or mean, mind you.  But hopefully I will attain the wise valued status of someone who is looked to by many to dispense wise statements in eye-roll inducing terms.  Is that too much to ask, I ask?

Anyway, it makes it good to get out of your routines and travel around, have visitors etc.  Everytime I do, I learn something about myself or about how to make a little improvement to the way I live.  For example, I realized I am needless wary of having to wash an extra dish.  It literally takes 10 seconds and I have to walk to the river anyway.

I have perhaps wandered far afield, but that's what happens when you take so long to put up posts.  Still, I was glad to be able to show my parents a good time - and a part of the world, and their son in it, that they would never experience otherwise.  And having your parents around is humbling in a way that is just plain good for an crotchety young man like myself!

Peace Corps, and maybe the lifestyle of the jungle in general, lends itself to time to think and good conversations when people are there to have them.  We had many of those and that is the true core of any visit.  At the same time, it is also very exciting to show people things they have never seen.

Walking the village with my parents was so much fun. Tiring as hell, repetitive, and hot - but still so much fun.  It's a place where I am still learning how to act and react and seeing them do the same is fun for all of us and offers new experiences that are also fun for everyone.  Though sometimes just tiring.

Beyond all that, though, I really liked how my parents got to really share the Peace Corps experience.  Ariel had this too, in some ways - seeing a traditional ceremony, cooking with locals, assisting with my English class and my Youth Group - and I'm glad my parents were able to get it as well.

First, was one of the first nights in the village.  The money I helped get for my Adult Education Program finally transformed into actual school supplies in the village.  By luck, my parents were there on the day that we distributed them to the students.  It was a really cool night.  Speeches, singing, pictures - and just an overwhelming amount of gratitude and, more importantly, motivation to continue pushing development in the village.  Not just for me, but for the students. 

I was doubtful about the decision to spend the bulk of the money on school uniforms right up until I saw the way the Adult students received them.  It really does mean something to them - something real and inspiring, for them and me.  It's a testament, really, to the Peace Corps model.  I never would have chosen to spend money that way, but I listened and I facilitated and I helped sell it so we could buy them.  And it was the right thing to do.

I am really glad my parents got to share in that event, to see the fruits of a small, but somewhat formal project and how the system is supposed to work and, everyonce in a while, actually does come together for some magic.

They also got to experience the other goals of Peace Corps.  One evening, my Dad and I decided to go wash in the river while my mom stayed back at the hut.  Dad and I ended up spending 30 minutes or more working out with the kids, doing ourselves proud as Chun Ma TKD instructors, lemme tell ya.  It's so cool how some things translate across everything.  One of those are how a positive adult male role model can motivate and teach something to boys.  With a few pushups, situps, and whatever else, we impacted a group of kids.  Was it a big impact?  No.  Did we spread peace and friendship and move a few lives for the better, in no matter how small a way?  Absolutely.  That's what this is about and it was so cool to share that with my Dad.

At the same time, my Mom managed the same thing completely on her own on the porch.  We came back to a chorus of young children singing and dancing the Itsy-Bitsy Spider with my mom.  It's the same thing again - an adult doesn't have to have anything, language or otherwise, to be a positive influence on the children, and maybe I should just say the people, around them.  You just need your own positivity.

That's getting pretty mushy, but what can I say - I am sort of a Peace Corps Volunteer and I don't hug trees so...However you say it, it was really cool to see my parents fitting into that.  They are role models and positive influences in my life, and it's really cool to see how quickly that can translate into being a positive impact for others - no matter how foreign the situation.

It's something worth digesting further, I think.  I was really glad to be able to share that with them.

Anyway, there was other fun stuff.  The Butterfly Farm (live butterflies, paintings, pin ups, live snakes and turtles, and so much more!), the museum, the "this is my son" stance my mother learned from an old Saramaccan lady, but I'm going to go ahead and end the post there. 

Thanks for reading.

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.