On A Mission

While I was in training, four months ago, heavy rainfall caused a major flood on the Tapanahony and Lawa rivers. As a result, the five of us in the area were unable to visit our future sites before we swore in. The Surinamese Red Cross distributed food to the area as most of the farms had been completely destroyed. While very much needed, however, the food distribution did not address the long term effects of the crop damage.

After coming to Diitabiki in August, Red Cross decided to partner with Peace Corps to assess the food situation on the Tapanahony a couple of weeks ago. We flew to the capital from our sites for a five day training on food security to help us judge the vulnerability of our communities. It was an international mission, and Red Cross workers from Belize and Jamaica joined us in Paramaribo. We also teamed up with other organizations such as the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), which had far more specific expertise and had been working in the region for a long time.

After training, we went for three days to the region. There were a few challenges, such as the Red Cross volunteer assigned to work with me spoke Dutch and Sranan Tongo, and I speak English and Aucan, but we were able to find some good information, some of which was surprising to us even after living there for three months.

Partnering with other organizations is one of the aspects of my service that makes me most excited. Even in the short time that I have been here, I have seen organizations come to my site for two or three days and leave with little long-term effect. Most development workers do have a genuine concern for the people they work with, but without the ability to spend a lot of time in one area, it is hard to make ideas stick. The hope that we have is that Peace Corps volunteers living in the hinterland can help reinforce the efforts of other organizations to make them last. As a rule, I am skeptical of the effectiveness of any development effort, but I try to do my best and keep the effectiveness of the results in mind so that I can learn about what does and does not work. Soon I hope to work more with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), IICA, and UNICEF. We will see what we can do by working together.