Into the Jungle

For the second week of training I went on a volunteer site visit to Pikin Santi (Little Sandy) to visit Matt in North East Suriname. They were actually wrong about the name, though. The village has a lot of sand that seems to get everywhere. I took a chartered van with a few other Peace Corps volunteers to Mongo, where I boarded a motorized canoe for another couple of hours or so to Matt’s site. There I encountered the reality of life in the interior. Matt lives in a house typical of many Surinamese Maroons—a wooden, rectangular structure about fifteen by twenty feet—simple but not uncomfortable. I slept in a hammock for the first time and have thus disavowed beds for the remainder of my service. Maroons greatly value cleanliness, both of oneself and of one’s house, and given the hot and very humid weather, this makes perfect sense. Sweeping the house is a daily routine and keeps out most of the critters. Bathing occurs three times a day, generally, either at the river or in a special washhouse with buckets.

The cooking arrangement surprised me. Matt does not know how to cook rice, Suriname’s staple and the most easily accessible food, so I had to cook. I’m still not quite sure how Matt has survived on granola, canned tuna, and ramen for a whole year, but he seemed to have a system. Anyway, I found directions, of all things, on the back of the packet of rice, and that seemed to help. We tried our hand at frying some vegetables, and Matt was able to help more there. The villagers, however, would not believe that Matt had actually cooked, and they insisted that I had done all the work myself.

Matt’s Peace Corps project consists of finding a solution to guarantee clean water in Pikin Santi all the time, which may be as simple as regulating the government-provided diesel, so that the generator-operated water pumps keep the storage tank full. Matt is also teaching American culture and language classes to about twenty-three children. He has encountered some challenges in trying to teach a very broad age range, but he is working through it.

At Matt’s village I compiled a list of supplies that I will need before I open my site in August. As I am the first volunteer in my village, I will need to purchase more than some of the other volunteers. The initial list is below:

Machete, broom, dust bin, boots, plastic chairs/table, lantern, locks, buckets, saw, hammer, right angle, file/waterstone, chisel, clothesline, string, electrical wiring, bulbs, nails, shove, rake, hoe, metal grate for grilling, Tupperware, two-burner gas stove, plates, cups, silverware, pots, pans, bowls, strainer, cutting board, washcloths, large spoon, soap, bleach, toilet paper, mirror, bleach, cookbook, lighter, matches, candles, padlocks, and food, including plenty of coffee.