A Note on Updates

Arriving in the city for the first time since late September, I have updated my blog with stories from the last three months. While long, these articles discuss some of the greatest adventures I have yet experienced, which of course, are best read chronologically. New pictures of Suriname and Diitabiki can be found here.

The Great Adventure: Part III The Journey Home

We set off for Diitabiki from our campsite near Apetina on December 8th, around noon. As the Endurance was the widest and sturdiest of the three dugout canoes, she took on the majority of the cargo. Loaded far heavier than the other boats and very top-heavy, steering my canoe felt like piloting the Exxon Valdez. The Endurance lived up to her name, crashing into rocks but surviving without a leak. Though after four swampings, Taylor gave her the nickname, “the submarine.”

We traveled about six miles that first day and camped on an island, facing the narrow side of the river. Raphael caught a huge Lowie, a type of catfish, and we stayed up late cleaning and cooking our catch. There was very little downtime during our journey. We would canoe until about four, set up camp, fish until dusk, build a fire, clean, cook and eat fish until about eleven, sleep, eat breakfast, tear down camp, and set out again. Survival and a steady pace made for little rest.

On the second day of our on our own we stayed on a massive island, most of which is underwater during most of the year. An ethereal landscape of sand, pools, and huge boulders separated two groves of trees that stand permanently above water. Howler monkeys filled the air with their hollow, eerie, and inexplicably resounding roar. The roar of the howler monkey can be heard up to seven miles away. It is the archetypical sound of the deep Amazon, and not at all what you would expect any primate to be capable of making. In hearing it for the first time, one can only imagine some terrible creature out on the hunt. In this setting, surrounded by water and truly impenetrable jungle with the roar of a hundred monkeys surrounding us, I felt very remote. While exploring the island as a possible campsite, we discovered an abandoned Amerindian hunting post in the smaller of the groves, with fames perfect for hanging hammocks. Raphael and I stayed on the island to fish and caught seven piranha between us. I was on cleaning duty that night and pulling out fish guts until about ten o’clock made me wish we had not caught quite so many.

That evening, Taylor saw a single, red eye of an animal in the grove where we had tied our hammocks. Ignoring thoughts of jaguars, Charles took his shotgun and, unable to see any other part of the animal, shot at its eye. It turned out to be a Hay, a small deer-like creature. How it came to live on an island, I do not know, but it was delicious with brown beans and rice.

On the river we encountered innumerable challenges. As we had no guide, we would stop to ascertain the safest passage downriver when we came to major rapids. Carving our way through the rainforest took time, and we made between five and eight miles progress each day.

At one point, Charles and Taylor, believing the upcoming rapids to be mild, told us to wait as they went ahead. Both Ryan and I assumed that if the passage was indeed easy, we were to follow in a few minutes. After a few small rapids, we saw Charles at the edge of a gigantic rapid yelling over the rushing water, “what are you doing!” As the current was too strong for us to get the Endurance to the bank, Charles told us to keep right to avoid a huge submerged stone. We, as Charles had, navigated the monster successfully, but the sheer height of the waves filled both canoes with water over the seats.

At another rapid, we slid onto a submerged rock, but the current was too strong to push the Endurance back, so I let the water twist us off the rock by turning the boat backwards, and Ryan and I turned sideways to navigate. We found ourselves whitewater rafting in an overloaded dugout canoe, going backwards. I directed the front of the canoe with my paddle, while Ryan poled from the rear, until it was safe to turn back around.

It rained every day, and all but two nights, challenging our ability to keep clothes and hammocks dry. The rainy season had officially begun while we were in the depths of the jungle. Late at night, while enjoying filets of massive peacock bass on a rocky hill, a couple of us walked down to the sand, where all three canoes had been dragged on shore. They shouted, “the boats are gone!” and we ran down to the beach just in time to see the last boat floating away, carried by the current of a nearby rapid. Heavy rains had caused the river to rise by about a foot in an incredibly short amount of time. We found all the boats but resolved to keep them tied the rest of the time.

The next day we passed Gaanboli and began to see an occasional boatman. The river was so full of rapids that we made only four miles that day. Ted and Raphael needed to fly out of Diitabiki by the 16th, and we had planned to arrive in Godolo by the day before and secure a ride for them to Diitabiki. But on the 13th, and only halfway to our destination, we found an Ndjuka boatman to take them to Pashtone, the mining camp to find another boat from there back home. We bid them farewell, and the four of us continued on our journey.

We made phenomenal time during the next two days. Based on our average of five miles a day, we estimated that it would take three days from Pashtone to Godolo. Charles, Taylor, Ryan, and I made thirteen miles the day we left Ted and Raphael. The next day, we met an incredibly long series of shallow but challenging rapids, which Ryan and I navigated expertly…up until the very last significant rapid of our adventure, when I hit a rock and swamped the boat. As I bailed and retrieved our floating cargo, Taylor celebrated the event with a rousing chorus of The Yellow Submarine. Despite the rapids and the spill, we made about twelve miles that day, passing Gololo and camping at Doo Wataa, the widest part of the Tapanahony River and on the home stretch.

The next morning we were greeted by Kate, one of my Peace Corps colleagues, traveling with a UNICEF worker and some donors to Godolo. Having been greeted in English, and in familiar territory, Charles decided that our excursion should be over rather than spending an extra night at Doo Wataa as we had planned. After lunch we took the last five miles to the Lon Wataa archipelago and Diitabiki on Wednesday, December 16th, arriving merely hours after Ted and Raphael had flown back to the city. It had taken two days to arrive at Apetina, and a full week of canoeing to return the sixty-five miles home through the unknown.

It was a relief to arrive back home in Diitabiki. We had traveled into the depths of the Amazon, and survived without guides, catching and hunting our food, and carving our way through the bush. Based on our pace during the excursion, home was still two weeks away from the first village to employ any means of transportation other than dugout canoe.

The Great Adventure: Part II Ascent to Apetina*

On December 6th, we rose at four in the morning to begin our adventure to Apetina and back again. We loaded Charles’ large motorized canoe, the Pilot, with trunks, fishing tackle, and camping equipment, and then lifted two heavy dugout canoes, side by side, upside down, on top of our luggage. Charles drove to Loabi to pick up our friends Ba Djapin and Mi Sa Libi, who had agreed to take us to Apetina, leave us there, and bring the Pilot back to Diitabiki ahead of us.

When we reached Pashtone, the mining town marking the beginning of the trail into the goldbush, we picked up the third dugout canoe, which we had previously arranged to rent for Ted and Raphael. The third canoe fit upside down on top of the others. I had never seen a dugout canoe carry three others before.

With the extremely low water level and heavily loaded boat, we often needed to swing over the sides of the Pilot to ascend the rapids. At one point, all of us, save Djapin, who was driving, needed to exert every ounce of energy simultaneously to pull the boat up the rushing water. At a monstrous, fifteen foot high, multistage, class four rapid known as Lolo Sula (Rolling Rapid), we disembarked and climbed to the top of the first stage, as the Pilot took a running start. When the boat hit the rushing water, the bow shot into the air, at least four feet above our heads when Mi Sa Libi threw a rope to the five of us. The force of the water, however, was too great for us to even hold the canoe in place. We needed to unload all three dugout canoes and practically every piece of cargo to conquer Lolo. After hauling the Pilot, the three smaller boats, and all of our equipment up Lolo, we stopped for the night, exhausted, at Gaanboli, the last Ndjuka village.

On our second day, we continued to ascend the Tapanahony. A few intense rapids slowed us down in the morning, but after we crossed the border into Amerindian territory, the water became smoother. The virgin rainforest, populated only by tiny villages many miles apart was overwhelmingly beautiful. The dry season had exposed part of the sandy riverbed and massive stones marked with lines of water up to three meters high, rose above us.

In the afternoon, fifteen minutes before Apetina we encountered an insurmountable obstacle. Another massive rapid of a nearly thirty-degree grade stood in our path. The water was only a few inches deep, and even with the boat unloaded and the help of an Amerindian, we could not pull the Pilot up the rocks. We made camp, therefore, on an island at the base of the rapids.

We fished that evening, catching a peacock bass and an anumara (an-nu-mara). The peacock bass is one of the premier sporting fishes in the world. They fight hard and seem to possess uncanny intelligence, often darting in between rocks to dislodge a lure. I am by no means a fisherman, for I did not know even how to cast before last year, but I have caught one peacock. Anumara, like peacock bass, fight hard. They like to dive to the bottom and stay still when hooked, making the angler think the lure is stuck. Anumara can grow up to forty pounds and love deep water close to the shore. The anumara that Taylor caught that second night, after being brought on shore, literally spit the lure at Taylor, lodging two treble hooks in his forearm. We ate the fish for revenge. They are not one of the better tasting Amazon fish, but we needed to catch enough fish for dinner before becoming too picky. We had to eat the fish the next day, unfortunately, because a heavy storm forced us to retreat to our hammocks before they were finished cooking. We waited for a while under our tarpaulin tents, but the rain persisted and we went to bed.

In the morning, a chief from Apetina took us to his village. Ted knew some of the villagers, and I was surprised to find that some of the Amerindians listen to me on the radio. When we returned to camp, and our Ndjuka friends had preceded us back to Diitabiki in the Pilot, we packed, loaded the three canoes and began our journey home.

*For a trailer of the documentary of our journey, see this video.

The Great Adventure: Part I Preparations

In a week I will depart on perhaps the greatest adventure of my time in the Amazon Rainforest. A crew of six is gearing up for a two-week dugout canoe trip deep into the jungle and back. Two Ndjuka friends of ours will bring us and three dugout canoes to an Amerindian village called Apetina. From there we will canoe over sixty-five miles without a guide through almost entirely uninhabited jungle and deadly rapids back home to Diitabiki. We will bring very little food with us, for piranha and peacock bass will be our fare. Tents are unnecessary; we will build frames covered by tarps for our hammocks every night, clearing our own campsites from the forest. Our Ndjuka friends believe us to be insane, which may be true, but our thirst for adventure knows no bounds.

Charles Shriley, an American IMB missionary who lives across the river from Diitabiki has organized the event. Two short-term missionaries in Charles’ organization, Ryan Rindels, who rode with me in the Endurance, and Taylor Ivester, who rode with Charles will come as well. Ted Jantz, a media professional who grew up among the Amerindians in the south, and his son Raphael, who also was raised in Suriname, completes our team of six Americans. All of us have experience living in the bush and are proficient in the local language. Where we are going, however, we are unlikely to see many people.

Charles and Taylor have improved their canoe by adding backrests for their seats and racks for fishing rods and coolah sticks, which are used for poling through rapids. They will be laughed at, and the rest of us will hide the inevitable soreness of our backs on the second week of the trip. The Endurance, however, is not to be outdone. She will be cleaned, sanded, and re-varnished, and her slow leak in the bow will be stopped.

To prepare for the challenges of the trip, I have been taking the Endurance to the swift waters downriver and teaching myself to pole down…and up rapids, standing up of course. As you can imagine, standing in dugout canoe is like balancing on a floating log. The rapids steadily are being conquered, but it is good to practice far away, so stories of spectacular tumbles will be limited. When I referred to the excursion as a “camping trip,” Charles admonished me, “this is no camping trip; this is an adventure.”

Scrambling for Mangos

Mango season can be frightening when one lives under a mango tree. In the still of night, dozing to the hum of cicadas and chirps of vampire bats, a crash from a falling mango landing on my tin roof can make me wide awake instantly. Flashlights and hushed voices of children at five in the morning wake me up again as the harvesters gleam the precious fruit from around my house.

Early in the season, when bunches of green mangos tempt the hungry, one must make an effort to find ripe fruit. When a ripe mango falls during the day, all work or conversation instantly stops and everyone scrambles for the prize as in a game of spoons. The victor holds the fruit aloft as the other walk sulkily away.

Mango season provided an opportunity to explain basic business economics in my radio show. With scarce resources, those who have a greater desire for mangoes must make a greater effort to obtain them. This (partially) is why prices are higher when there are fewer goods than the people who want them. Too many mangoes, however, will result in ripe fruit sitting uneaten under the tree, for when there is too much of a good, people will no longer pay enough to meet a seller’s costs, and eventually would not take any more even if it were offered for free. This ties into the law of diminishing returns, or as I explain on the air, “the fifth mango does not taste as good as the first.” This in turn leads into marginal analysis, or finding out exactly how many mangoes people want to buy before it is no longer profitable to sell mangoes. Sometimes people save mangoes for another day, because they know that the first mango they eat each day tastes the best. This is called delayed gratification.

Economics is human action. Any economic concept that does not describe what people do is mere mathematics. For this reason, any economic idea, despite complicated technical names, can be explained in any language to anyone, no matter where they live. In my radio show, specialization of labor occurred when two boys each had to decide whether they would hunt for tapir or fish for kumalu. A woman’s reluctance to by assai because she did not have qwak to eat it with showed that assai and qwak are complementary goods, they go together. In languages without extensive vocabulary, complex ideas may take a little time to explain, but it definitely can be done. Now it’s time for a mango.

Mahka!

I have had two thorns in my left hand for over a month now. Swimming through the dark river, I suddenly met with a spiny mahka frond. Fortunately I was able to dig most of the thorns out of my skin, but a few have remained. Mahka thorns are so sharp that they can pierce heavy rubber boot soles, yet so brittle that they tend to break into tiny pieces when one tries to extract them. After burning the fallen brush so that planting can begin, mahka are one of the first plants to begin growing again.

Mahka (literally, “thorn”) palms are the toughest trees in the Amazon. Thorns up to nine inches long cover their trunks, frond stalks, and even each individual leaf. Wasps love mahka palms because, they assume that no one disturbs a nest in a thorn tree. Clearing planning grounds with my friends, I have been stung several times by angry insects protesting the destruction of their thorny home.

When cutting a swath of forest to plant, cutting down mahka palms takes the most time. Dispatching a young stand of mahka requires holding each stalk with a forked stick to direct its fall as you chop it with a machete. Mature palms require a chainsaw, which can send fragments of thorns flying if the tree is not prepared correctly. Even then, the tough trunk of the mahka tree can ruin the chainsaw. Oh, and when a mahka tree falls, stand out of the way.

Jungle Camping

Diitabiki lies in the center of an archipelago known as Lon Wataa. Many of these islands have small villages, forming a greater Diitabiki community. Beyond Kisai, the last village of the archipelago, the Tapanahony River opens into a grand vista, the distant forest on the banks of either side appearing as a small green band between the twin expanses of air and water. This broad portion, Doo Wataa, seems more a long, bending lake, or a chain of lochs, rather than a river. The river winds around a few islands, curving gradually to the south and eventually narrowing at the village of Godolo, where up until last week I had never been beyond.

In October some friends and I took an excursion to Gaanboli, the farthest Ndjuka village, to retrieve a dugout canoe in its initial stages of construction. As I had never been past Godolo, I asked my friend Heni, rather than being invited to go on the trip. Beyond Godolo, the Tapanahony spreads into a series of taciturn streams and challenging rapids that proved particularly tricky, as the water stood unusually low, even for the dry season. After about an hour of careful navigation, the river opened up again. At one point, our pilot suddenly yelled, “Get my gun!” then, “cartridges, cartridges!” for a deer had come to drink at the riverbank. Simultaneously running the boat to shore and loading his gun, the pilot expressed distress at not having the cartridges in hand earlier. He and Heni plunged into the jungle, but the fortunate animal had disappeared.

Further on, beyond a bend, a mining town known as Pashtone rested at the base of a high hill. The settlement was exactly as a mining town should be expected: filthy, with sheds and small, but necessarily profitable shops scattered recklessly across the mud. We met with some friends of surprisingly unshady character and proceeded, in force, to the job.

Heni had found a suitable tree about a quarter mile into the jungle. Fortunately, he had cut a wide path and placed lengths of saplings, cut into rollers, so we could pull the new canoe to the river right away. Of course, we needed a rope first, so Kiikiman, the youngest of our crew, climbed a tree and cut a strong vine with a machete. The boat, so to speak, was at this point a large shell of a trunk. We tied the vine to the canoe, and the twelve or so of us heaved the fallen tree across the rollers to the river, stopping many times, often to cut the path wider or haul the boat over a large trunk. When we reached the river, we plunged it into the water, bailed, and tied the canoe to the shore to pick up the next day. The eight of us that had started out together, then continued to the campsite.

Ba Heni’s camp lies at a scenic bend in the river, just before an imposing rapid that guards the site of Gaanboli. A large flat rock with a few lagoons and sandbars was exposed at low water. Before climbing up to the camp, Heni’s son Mootie, Kiikiman, and I swam out to set fishing nets to catch our dinner and the next day’s breakfast. For the Ndjuka, meat tastes good around the clock.

By the time we had set the nets and tied up our hammocks, evening was approaching. We talked on the flat stones at the base of the camp, then cooked a late dinner, telling old hunting stories before falling asleep under the stars.

In the morning, we checked the nets again and found a large variety of fish. Piranha, a crab, pataka, waa-waa, a-gaan-koi, and dede-sama-con-dja (“dead people come here” is a type of fish) found their way into our snares. We cleaned the fish with machetes, cutting them in pieces Ndjuka style, rather than filleting them, and cooked a delicious mid-morning meal.

Before we set out, a young man from Gaanboli hailed us. The village’s short wave radio was not working correctly, and several of us took the short ride upriver to see if we could repair it. Heni and I tried changing a few settings, but it became clear that transmitter, which we could not fix, was the problem, so we began our journey home.

Since we had to tow the new boat, returning downriver took longer than coming up. When we met rapids, we unhitched the canoes and a couple of us would pole the new boat down. Not yet proficient in the art of poling, I rode in the new canoe while others directed the boat down the river. After carving out the trunk of a tree, the Ndjuka fire the wood upside-down, slowly stretching it with the heat over many days. This widens the boat and adds significant stability, as I discovered while riding in the unfinished canoe.

At one point on the return journey, the pilot, now equipped with cartages and balancing on the moving canoe, shot a kon-koni, a large, short-eared bush rabbit, and we carried our prey in the new boat.

As we approached Doo Wataa, the widest part of the river, we saw a huge cumulonimbus cloud gathering force and spreading a dark shadow over the course ahead. The cloud had forgotten that it was the dry season, and we had forgotten rain jackets. We plunged into a white curtain of water and discovered that rain jackets would not have made much difference. The rain flew hard in our faces and was indistinguishable from the spray of the turbulent water. Looking ahead was impossible, but on looking behind us I saw four-foot high waves, the largest I have yet seen on a river. The waves slammed into us head on, drenching those of us in the front and filling the canoes. We started bailing the boat with a five-gallon bucket as quickly as we could, switching off ever so often and barely keeping up with the waves. After about twenty minutes of fighting the storm, we anchored the new canoe on the shore to save both craft from sinking.

By the time we reached Lon Wataa, the storm had depleted itself. A small boat, carrying two large, bumbling men and too many barrels of oil passed in the opposite direction. A much shorter, dreadlocked pilot in a manner befitting the optimum of pirates, cursed the “incompetent dogs” who wearily greeted us as they attempted to pole the craft over rocks. The difference in temperature after the storm was remarkable, for while the air felt frigid, relatively, the river seemed nearly too hot to touch. When we finally reached Diitabiki Island, the warm water and a hot drink made the perfect ending to our adventure.

October the Tenth

The independence of the Ndjuka nation precedes that of Suriname. As a conglomeration of escaped slaves from West and Central Africa, the Ndjuka united to fight a war that decimated the punitive forces of naïve European adventurers who had greedily believed legends of El Dorado. The defeated Dutch grudgingly accepted the fait accompli of Ndjuka freedom in 1760, over a hundred years before the end of slavery in Dutch colonies, and over two hundred years before they gave up their Guiana possession completely.

It was ordained that I was to live in Diitabiki. The Ndjuka national holiday, the day they officially won their freedom from their Dutch slave masters, is my birthday. A series of competitions, a cooking extravaganza, and speeches by national leaders on the history of the Ndjuka people, made for quite a celebration. Women wore colorful embroidered skirts called pangies, and a friend lent me a traditional cross-stitch cloth to hang over my shoulder. People from the entire river, including Amerindians, came to celebrate. A six-on-six soccer tournament was the highlight of the event for many. The island brought in a shipment of government oil for the electricity generators for the occasion, and for a few weeks afterward, the lanterns were put away and the reggae reverberated throughout the village.

Great entertainment was had and exaggerated stories told for weeks when Diitabiki’s Peace Corps volunteer fell behind significantly in the canoe race. Losing was a given, for the Ndjuka seem to learn to paddle before they can walk, but to participate in the name of freedom, was well worth getting laughed at in light of Ndjuka canoeing proficiency.

A Visit from Dad

Leaving members of one’s family to their own devices in a foreign country is considered generally impolite…but that depends on where that family has traveled. My father, on the way to a couple of missions leadership conferences in Senegal and Ghana, chose to fly to Africa via a river island in the Amazon Rainforest.

My Peace Corps colleagues thought I was crazy when I told them I had planned simply to give my father instructions, and reward him, should he successfully make it upriver, by meeting him at the Diitabiki airstrip. My dad has traveled so often that I probably did not even need to give him any instructions for him to appear in my village, but flying to the city was well worth spending an extra day with him. In the city, we went to the Paramaribo Zoo, so that if he missed an anaconda, capybara, or giant anteater in the jungle, he would be able to say he had seen one in Suriname.

On Wednesday, we flew a hundred miles into the jungle in a Cessna Caravan. In flight, I pointed out the magnificent spread of hilly Guiana forest that inspired Green Mansions, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World, though nymphs and dinosaurs remained unseen on our journey. Upon landing we paddled the Endurance from the airstrip to Diitabiki Island and dropped off our backpacks at Jungle Hall. We then took an invitation from my neighbor, Stephen, to go bow-fishing. That first evening, we caught thirty-six Waa-waa, bottom-feeding fish, and cooked them over a wood fire on a stone by the riverside. After a card game by candlelight, reminiscent of the nights without electricity during my childhood in Ethiopia, my father and I tied up our hammocks. Though he did not swear off beds as I have, my dad slept soundly his first night in a hammock.

On Thursday we encountered Ndjuka culture. I gave my father a crash course on protocol before our audience with the paramount chief, who was ecstatic to meet my dad. In fact, I had never seen him so animated. Gaanman Garzon thought it magnificent that my father could experience part of my life in Diitabiki, gave a discourse on the meaning of family, and chuckled over the fact that my parents had produced a mere two children. Later, while walking through the village, we sat in a traditional community meeting discussing the upcoming Ndjuka holiday. The meeting included formal debate over settled matters for the purpose of heightening public interest in the event and contained a long circular discussion before reaching the true purpose of the conference: the appointing of a logistics committee for the celebration.

We went fishing again in the evening, and my dad got a strike by, what I believe was a large peacock bass, which followed his lure before it saw us and swam away. It started raining heavily while we fought to regain the fish’s attention. That night, my dad watched me dispatch a huge tarantula that had tried to use my house as shelter from the rain.

The next morning, we rose with the sun and paddled the Endurance around the island, as I usually do several times a week. We finally completed our tour of the village in the morning, for adventure had delayed us in every previous attempt.

On Saturday, we had a relaxing morning. In keeping with tradition we cooked pancakes and made Ethiopian coffee. The plane came a little early. As we were walking to the canoe to make our way to the airstrip, we heard the Cessna land. We paddled across quickly and jogged to the plane, but thankfully, it took a few minutes to unload the arriving plane before I bid my father farewell.

Jungle Hall

When I arrived last August, my house had not been lived in for some time. We needed to build a platform for my water tank, dig a pit and build an outhouse over it, make a washhouse, replace the walls and the back of my house, cement the floor, make a window, place screening to keep bats out, nail boards over large gaps in the front, wire the house for the few nights a month that we have electricity, install locks and door handles, and finally, replace a single rafter that had been eaten to paper by termites. All this had been scheduled to be complete three months previously, in May, but while all this materialized, Peace Corps made arrangements for me to stay in the office of the local non-profit organization, which functions as a guesthouse. I asked a village chief whether I would be in the guesthouse for as long as two weeks, and he told me no, probably one week.

Now, after thirteen and a half months, finally, I have moved into my house. During the final week of training, last July, I was told that I could not go to my assigned site of Goninimofo because the Peace Corps house had not yet been built. Ironically, David, from this year’s class of volunteers moved into his house in Goninimofo before I could move in to mine here in Diitabiki.

We were very productive that first month, August 2008, until my counterpart and I both caught Dengue fever. After I came back, it was nearing planting season and everyone understandably was busy. The work I could accomplish on my own, I did right away. The help that I needed became an avenue for forming relationships. Jopie, the grandson of the paramount chief, helped me replace the back of my house and build a window. Heni donated eight planks and, along with Barka, helped me cement the floor. I cut a swath of forest for my friend’s planting ground and gave computer lessons to the village electrician, and when the time came, they helped me in return. Eventually, the only remaining work that I needed help with was the termite-destroyed rafter.

After a few months of distractions and slow going, I told my counterparts that as soon as my house was complete, I would move in, but that I needed to begin the projects for which I had come to Drietabiki. Having completed what I could do on my own, I told my counterparts that whenever they were ready to help me, I would put whatever projects I was doing on hold, working with them until the house was finished.

Living in the guesthouse, I did my best to manage and clean the place for the organization and their occasional guests. I negotiated for the organization when multiple prices had been communicated and advertised the guesthouse when Peace Corps or other organizations needed to come to Diitabiki. This, unfortunately, led to a status quo, and after more months, it occurred to me that I might never live in my house. I began to develop close friendships with the people in that part of the village, Adiise Konday.

Just before my most recent trip to the city, I found that the infamous rafter had been cut by one of my friends. The day after I came back to Diitabiki, a Thursday, we put it in. The same day, I cleaned the grime out of my water tank that had sat, full of water, for a year. The next day, Heni’s kids, Sephra and Shekila helped me scrub down the interior of my house with soap and water. For three days, starting last Monday, I attacked the house with primer, white paint, and finished it off with green trim. It was a difficult battle, and my sandals, watch, and hair were casualties of war from friendly fire. On Thursday I laid a hardwood floor…well, linoleum that looks like a hardwood floor and I must say, it looked pretty fine. On Friday I packed. I enjoyed one last weekend in my home for over a year and moved on Monday. As I know everyone in Adiise Konday, and my best friends live there, I was sorry to leave that part of the village. One of my friends offered to let me stay in their house while they were gone for a couple weeks, but of course, after a couple of weeks, I would have had to move anyway.

Jungle Hall, as I call it, is a single, twelve by eighteen foot room, but with two-foot-high walls, it is essentially an A-frame with 120 square feet of living space, when you are standing up. It actually looks quite big and open, but then again I do not have many things with which to fill the space. My neighbors are surprised that I have no bed, but it would take up half the house, and a hammock suits me just as well. Untying ropes are easier than making a bed in the morning. Having lived without running water or refrigeration, and having washed my clothes in a basin for over a year, only a few living adjustments have to be made at Jungle Hall.

After moving in, I killed a few resident tarantulas and mounted my machete on the back wall, painting above it, virtus tentemente gaudet, strength rejoices in the challenge. It is unoriginal, the motto of my alma mater, but it is a good motto, and appropriate to Peace Corps service in the jungle.

Crossing Over

Peace Corps volunteers, or at least my colleagues and I, see the grass as greener on whatever side of the fence we happen to be on at the moment. In the city, basking in running water, electricity, and food we do not have to cook, we always feel a little apprehension the day before we head back to the jungle, even after a year of having lived there. As soon as we arrive in our villages, however, we never want to leave. The faces of friends lighting up as they see us makes it all worth it. The glassy, dark river flowing through the rain forest, the constant songs of exotic birds, and the smell of jasmine in the cool of the morning more than make up for air conditioning and fast food.

Having assimilated into a new environment, the complexity of life and the comforts we have in the States are so different than what I am used to in Suriname that it is disorienting even to think about returning next year. Crossing over into another way of life, whether two hundred or two thousand miles away, is always difficult, and I have been doing it since I was six months old.

We get accustomed to what we know, but it is surprising how quickly people can adapt to new situations. Enjoying where we live and approaching challenges with resourcefulness is the key. An optimist sees the glass as half full, a pessimist sees the glass as half empty, and a Peace Corps volunteer sees the glass and thinks, “hey I could take a bath in that!”

In Memoriam

On an expedition in the Endurance to circumnavigate Diitabiki Island, I noticed a giant bird of paradise flower near the water. The leaves of this plant looked like a banana’s, but in the center rose a stem about fifteen feet high with perhaps seven pods about a foot in length each. The color of the pods was a light green, and the flowers inside were a dark yellow. This morning I rose early to take a picture. I placed my camera and its case in a new Ziploc bag and started out. I took several pictures of the bird of paradise and a few of Kumalu Nyan-nyan for the article below. I also saw some huge brown seedpods on a tree and took a few pictures of them.

You may be wondering why this article does not have a picture of the giant bird of paradise. As I placed my camera on my lap to paddle to a better position to capture the tree with the brown seedpods, the string caught on something, and my camera flew out of the boat, sinking to the murky depths. At once I thought of diving for it, but this would have required that I leave my canoe. My paddle could not reach the bottom, and already the current had carried me so that I was no longer sure where my camera had fallen.

The camera was a little old, but it had served me well through college in Michigan, during ski trips in Montana, Idaho, and Colorado, studies abroad in Italy and Turkey, and travels through Bulgaria, Hawaii, China, Minnesota, California, Ethiopia, North Carolina, Trinidad, and Suriname. Several times crises occurred in the life of my camera. While skiing in Montana, my dad, a few days after he had given me the camera, dropped it in wet snow. It survived. In Suriname a little over a year ago, I lost it in its black case in the forest, during a long hike, but I was fortunate enough to find it again. This morning, however, I bid farewell to a faithful companion that I had accidentally sent to a watery grave.

Crabbing

The dry season has begun. As the river descends, food becomes easier to catch. Gideon, my neighbor’s eleven-year-old son and I sought crabs yesterday. We took the Endurance over to a large rock in the middle of the river, where we looked under the water plants in the shallows for hiding crustaceans. Gideon found the first one and taught me how to catch them by the pincers and break them off to render the creatures harmless. I found one too on the first rock, but it was too small to eat, so I told Gideon we would catch it another day. After about an hour Gideon and I had captured enough crabs to make a tasty snack.

On the Tapanahony, crabs like to crawl on rocks that have water plants for them to hide under. Kumalu nyan-nyan (Kumalu is a type of fish, and nyan-nyan is food) grows all over the place when rocks begin to rise above the water. Kumalu nyan-nyan has stiff leaves, sometimes with spines, which remain submerged. Purple flowers on stalks rise above the water. Gideon and I lifted up the leaves of these plants and found a few crabs. Holes in the rocks are also prime crab hideouts, though they are more difficult to extricate.

Making Kwak

Kwak is the Grape Nuts of the Amazon. It is made from bitter cassava, a poisonous variety of the staple food on the Tapanahony River. With these seven easy steps, you too can make your own crunchy yellow goodness for an essential part of your complete breakfast.

Planting: Cassava is a soil-intensive crop and, given thousands of years of dense growth, planting in the Amazon Rainforest requires extensive fertilization or slashing and burning a new farm every year for decent cassava. After planting, set your timer for a year, and the cassava is ready to harvest.

Peeling: Cassava is a root, and it should be pealed before soaking. With a large batch, this takes little effort and a lot of time. Group storytelling or singing can relieve the monotony.

Soaking: To soften the cassava, and partially to dilute the poison, the tubers should be soaked in water for a couple of days until slightly mushy. This can either be done by placing tubers in an old burlap rice sack and depositing them in your local river, or by placing directly in a gigantic basin.

Milling: While traditionally cassava is grated with flattened pieces of metal punched with holes and nailed to a board, this step is much easier with a cassava mill. Simply grate as with cheese, or drop tubers into the cassava mill and watch it work. Caution: cassava mills are like wood chippers; they grind to bits any object or bodily appendage placed inside.

Draining: Bitter cassava is poisonous, or at least the liquid inside it is. After milling the cassava into a fine mush, it should be packed into a mahtape, a long, thin basket that when stretched presses the water from the cassava. Cassava presses have been invented, of course, but they are just as much work, louder, and not nearly as pleasant to the eye as a good mahtape.

Roasting: After being drained, the cassava has been naturally compressed into large chunks. Place chunks onto a large metal surface heated by a wood fire, as shown in the picture, and stir with small light hoes until the kwak breaks down into tiny Grape Nut-sized pieces. With a large batch of cassava, roasting can last all day. When you get tired, convince young children that stirring kwak is fun and let them work for you.

Enjoy: A bowlful of yellow goodness can be enjoyed with water and bushmeat for lunch or with milk, as I often eat it, for a tasty breakfast. Another healthy option is to mix it with fresh podong (called assai in Brazil and the States). Kwak should never be eaten dry or it will absorb your body fluids and give you a nasty stomachache. In fact, Kwak is so absorbent that within a few years it will be used to keep everything from shoes to greeting cards waterproof.

For more pictures of the Kwak-making process, see my Suriname album at: http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.brannagan/Suriname

Halfway In

This week is my halfway point in Diitabiki. When I first arrived, about a year ago, I was struck with the beauty of this place, but I felt isolated. Though I’m normally independent, being surrounded by people of a new culture, none of whom I had known two weeks before, made me quite lonely. I had to learn how to cook, sometimes ending up with embarrassing failures as using salt instead of sugar in my pancakes. Dengue fever forced me to come to the city after only three weeks in Diitabiki, but this was a good thing, as I had lost about twenty-five pounds, and needed to eat and rest.

Because of various Peace Corps and Red Cross trainings and other important events in the city, I never spent more than three weeks at a time at home before January. People in Diitabiki started calling me “city man.” My major project in 2008 was a food security assessment for Red Cross and the subsequent distribution of planting materials, which provided many adventures all along the river.

My parents came to Suriname for Christmas, and we flew to Trinidad for about a week. At seven months, this set the record for the longest time I had not seen my family. That record has now been broken again, as I have not seen them since. Our week in Trinidad will probably be the only time I leave the Guiana’s until my close of service. From January until April, I stayed down country, grew my Peace Corps beard (every male Peace Corps volunteer should grow a beard once during their service), and probably set the Suriname record for the longest time at site. Fishing for piranha became a new hobby for me. I encountered some fascinating cultural experiences, including accompanying a special delegation to protest poor development practices. Within the last few months, my work with the radio station has occupied me with projects I both enjoy and consider beneficial. I have made new friendships and developed those I have had for some time.

While I have learned some fascinating things about myself, for the most part, I do not feel that I have changed as much as I expected before I came. It is impossible to tell, however, until I return to the States and have some frame of reference with friends from the past. I do know that I have become more flexible and resourceful, though I still may not enjoy disruptions from everyday life. I now consider air conditioning, refrigeration, and washing machines as luxuries. I have not felt hot tap water for over seven months, and since I bathe in the river, I have not had a shower for over two. I paddle my dugout canoe just about every day but have not driven a car in well over a year. With a Caribbean climate of constant heat and nearly 100% humidity, winter sounds like wonderful reprieve. When I arrived in Diitabiki I wrote that I wanted to grow to love the place as home, and yet be ready and excited to return to the States when the time came. At this point, I do love and consider Diitabiki my home, but I have a lot more to do and learn before I can leave.

Endurance

I am, officially, in love. She is beautiful and elegant with a few minor flaws that serve only to endear her to those who know her peculiarities. She seems to glide through every movement, and is deliberate in every course of action. I was introduced to the object of my affections yesterday in Godolo and stared in disbelief that she could be mine. I took her home with me to Diitabiki after only a few hours together.

Here is a picture:

Her name is Endurance, and this morning we had our first disagreement. She wanted to go in a direction that I was not comfortable with, and she would not respond to my gentle prodding. After going around in circles a few times we compromised and ended the discussion at the bank. I’m going to have to work on her. Then again, the fault could lie entirely with me.

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a dugout canoe, and it feels like getting my first bike all over again. In March I started exploring the possibility of getting a boat. A friend of mine asked the Godolo craftsman, Baya, to make the canoe. About a month afterward, expecting the boat to be well under way, I discovered that Baya had not begun and that the price was above my range, so I went to Godolo to negotiate. I was successful, but I later learned that in other villages, boats can be found for a little less. By this time it was May, and the boat maker said it would take a couple of weeks before he completed the canoe. True to Suriname timing, the Endurance was finished on schedule about a week ago.

It’s a very nice boat. It is not, however, simply a bow and a stern and crossbeams and planks; that’s what a dugout canoe needs. But what a dugout canoe is, what the Endurance is…is freedom. Now I can explore the river whenever I want, paddle my own way to the airfield, and visit friends on other islands.

I had originally wanted to paddle from Godolo to Diitabiki, a five-hour voyage downstream, but my protective neighbors adamantly opposed this. Where is the sense of adventure these days? Fortunately for them, another friend offered to take me to Godolo and bring the canoe back with us in his larger, motorized canoe. I am now finding that paddling a hollowed-out tree trunk upstream through rapids is a great workout, and while I did not travel solo through vast stretches of virgin rainforest for the Endurance’s maiden voyage, there are plenty of challenges to conquer in the Diitabiki archipelago.

Paddle-making Part II

After our expedition into the bush to cut a piece of the boogu-boogu tree, I had just begun to make my paddle. Fortunately for me, a master craftsman named Jimmy from the village of Chon-Chon came to visit my neighbors, the Ajambias, the same week. Jimmy helped me shape the paddle with a machete, first by filing the blade until a full half-inch shone razor-sharp, then by carving the general shape using only the machete blade to guide his measurements. Since the wood twisted, we carved it light and thin to straighten it as much as possible while maintaining the height of a Manningae or “manly man’s” paddle. Jimmy helped me carve in a couple hours what would have taken me days to chip away.

Next, the wood needed to be planed and sanded and shaped more finely with a small knife. Heni helped me plane the paddle, and Seephra and Elizabeth, Heni’s nine-year-old twin daughters, helped me sand it. As keeping with Ndjuka tradition, I rounded the head and shaped the base with a knife.

My paddle is now functional. My last step is to paint it, and for that I’m taking lessons. An elderly man named Da Medae is teaching me the artwork and symbolism of timbae, an ancient Ndjuka method of woodcarving and painting. I have taken several lessons from Medae already, but to go deeper will require time. I’ve taken pictures of about twenty-five paddles, and having studied them, it is rare that I find a layout, motif, or color sequence that I have not seen before. Medae assures me that some of the shapes and colors that I have seen repeatedly, are mere copies of what the artist has seen elsewhere or follows the sequence of what looks good (light blue, dark blue, or green background with a clearly distinguishable interior design of usually red and white). I feel my teacher is somewhat hesitant to teach me the significance of all the symbols at once, and I need to demonstrate my commitment to learn. After some time, I plan to paint my paddle with a combination of Ndjuka art and my own design. This will be the last stage.

An Ndjuka Funeral

Saturday morning is my favorite time in Diitabiki. I rise early, wash in the river, and make pancakes (or, as I call them, “mancakes”) while listening to the music I grew up with. Last Saturday, however, on my way to the river, I met Captain Baya, who glumly reported, “everyone is dying again.” Da Sawtu, whom I did not know, had passed away in the night.

To begin the Ndjuka funeral ceremonies, the chiefs formally announced the passing at the mortuary, and at the first mention of the name of the deceased, the women started to wail. In the next few days, visitors appeared to attend the ceremonies, which continuing with grave digging.

Digging the grave can take up to three days. This is by no means contingent upon how many gravediggers participate, but rather on how much gasoline the family can afford to buy to transport the workers by motorized canoe to the burial ground. Indeed, about eighty men participated in digging, or at least in drinking for moral support as others dug, and for Da Sawtu, the work took the full three days. While the gravediggers dig, villagers are expected to cook for the workers, and the chiefs provide the essential rum. Upon return from a day of long, hard labor, the gravediggers came singing in canoes while women gathered by the river’s edge and beat the water with branches until the entourage reached the shore.

Upon arrival at the village, the gravediggers reported to the chiefs. They marched in a line, singing while drumming a large paddle and several machetes in rhythm. They circled the mortuary several times before announcing their progress. The head gravedigger, a rather important person in Ndjuka society, addressed the chiefs in typical formal conversation through an intermediary to inform them that while the party had labored intensely, the grave had not been completed and another day would be necessary. The chiefs responded that they had heard and kindly asked the gravediggers to continue the work the next morning.

After the second day of digging, the rum was gone. The head gravedigger requested that the chiefs “allot his men a box, not an empty box, mind you, but a full case, of rum to complete the work.” The chiefs replied that this was too much; the rum they had given was all they would provide for the gravediggers. Attempting to negotiate, the head gravedigger implored the chiefs twice more for a decreasing number of bottles to no avail. Finally the head gravedigger said that he would not trouble the chiefs any longer. They would settle for a single bottle. The crowd erupted with loud but nervous laughter, for the chiefs had already refused three times. Captain Baya expressed displeasure at the gravedigger’s audacity, but nonetheless bestowed six additional bottles upon the thirsty workers.

After another day of grave digging, Da Sawtu was buried. Three days later libations were poured in his honor, and after three months libations will be poured again. The day after the first libations, a food offering was prepared in the mortuary. Children surrounded the food until a signal was given and then ravenously fell upon the victuals piñata-style. Next January, Da Sawtu and the rest of those who have died in the past year will be honored with a Brokoday, but that is another story.

Paddle-making Part I

As we entered the forest Heni told me to watch for snakes. Rains had driven many creatures into the open that we would prefer to stay underground, and my neighbors had just killed a deadly ­­Anyoka snake near their house the day before. That Wednesday morning we sought a boogu-boogu, one of the trees used for making paddles. As my canoe was in the making, I needed a paddle soon or I would have been up the creek.

I had no idea what boogu-boogu looked like, but we stopped at a truly massive gray tree covered in waves of wrinkles. It looked like the leg of a very old elephant. The boogu-boogu tree had buttress roots similar to the tree shown in the picture. Heni and Barka, my two friends, inspected the buttress roots where the wrinkles extended near the base of the tree, but none of them proved promising for paddle construction, so we explored deeper. Eventually we found another boogu-boogu tree and cut a five-foot long portion. Since boogu-boogu buttress roots are thin, requiring less machete work, the Ndjuka have used this and similar trees to make paddles for centuries. An added advantage of this method is that only a small piece of the tree is harvested, allowing the tree to continue living and producing future paddles. As we walked back through the forest, I killed a small black snake on the path with my machete.

Since we were in the bush, Heni and Barka wanted to check an old plot of ground for second-year cassava. We crossed a few creeks and saw three more boogu-boogu trees with good potential roots for making paddles later on. When we arrived at the plot, we found it had been overgrown with nine foot high Kangayesi grass, which clings to just about everything and tears gashes in skin if removed too quickly. Barka carefully beat a path with a large branch until we confirmed that there was indeed cassava to be harvested. Our objectives complete, we returned home with boogu-boogu in hand.

Courage

A few days after I arrived in Diitabiki, I found myself listening in on a discussion of a micro-financing opportunity, which is generally an attempt by a non-profit organization to help get businesses started by lending a small amount of money at low interest. What disturbed me about the situation was the ridiculous seventeen percent interest rate. What disturbed my neighbors was the risky prospect of actually making monthly payments.

In my weekly radio program on basic business economics I am trying to stress the necessity of trying new things and risk-taking to economic growth. As I write and host the show in the Aucan language, a native speaker helps me revise and edit each episode I write. I had to ask what the word “risk” is in Aucan by describing a man in a dugout canoe heading toward dangerous rapids. To “take a risk” in Aucan is essentially to “take a thick heart, ” which implies something Americans tend to forget in regard to business enterprise—courage.

Alexis de Tocqueville, a young Frenchman who came to America in the nineteenth century to learn about our culture of democracy, used the clipper ship to illustrate American economic courage. He said that while clipper ships were extremely fast and had opened up a wave of new opportunities for international markets, they were also very dangerous. American sailors, however, would push their vessels to the limit to see how fast they could go. De Tocqueville claimed that this was because we considered engaging in risky enterprises a virtue. Nineteenth century Americans hailed as heroes those who risked their lives on the open seas to lower the cost of trade.

Today we still consider entrepreneurs an essential part of our economy, and rightly so. While people who take the risks of beginning something new wish to benefit from their ideas, they often stake their livelihood in hopes of making the lives of others better. Entrepreneurs can succeed only if what they produce helps people so much that buyers are willing to cover the high costs to get it to them. It is courageous to do what you believe is good for other people to your own potential detriment.

If we remembered that those who are wealthy from fair business practice have received their reward for providing people with things they need, we would also remember that economic risk-taking requires courage. Instead, it is fashionable to charge such people with some breed of extortion and attempt to correct income inequality by taxing rewards away from those who do well. Such practice discourages new ideas, and hence, new growth. Emphasis these days is on the consumer’s supposed responsibility to buy. What really needs to happen is for people to take risks to find things that others actually want to buy, rather than making them feel guilty for not spending enough to sustain the economy. For this to happen, however, we need to allow entrepreneurship to become courageous again.

Newbies

A year ago I stepped out of the plane and tasted the sweet, heavy air in Suriname. It was very exciting to breathe in South America for the first time, and the sage advice of the veteran volunteers made lasting impressions on all of us as we rapidly learned to live in a new environment.

A brand new batch of naïve Americans are flying in tonight. The obvious temptation for all of us who have lived here for a year is to lord our knowledge of our local cultures and life in the jungle over the new impressionables. Once again, a broader perspective could do some good.

My family lived in Ethiopia for eight years. After one year my parents felt that they knew something of the Ethiopian culture. After two years, we discovered that the year before we really had had no idea of the depth of the culture. After four years we felt less sure of our command of Ethiopian ways of life, and after eight years, still learning in our last few months, we had to admit that we had merely scratched the surface of all there was to discover.

There was a story we read on the last day of staging that veteran volunteers always seem to forget. A young woman from a culture in which everyone wore yellow tinted glasses went to live in a culture in which everyone wore blue tinted glasses. Through years of interaction and adoption of a new way of life, she successfully learned to see from the perspective of the new culture. Upon returning home, she explained the profound nature of her experience, concluding that while she was there she truly learned to see as they do, in green.

All the Peace Corps volunteers in Suriname are newbies, including those who have been here for two years. My advice to those arriving tonight is to take what other volunteers say with a grain of salt and to accept that when they leave they will still be learning.

Geography in the Jungle

The catchphrase of Diitabiki’s local FM station is “You are listening to Radio Pakaati, the only station there is!” It’s true; there is only one on the Tapanahony. Baa Yotie, who runs the station came to my house one day with English books on African history with hopes that I would help translate the stories to make a radio program. Fortunately, I know something of African history. Our search for the bigger picture drew us to maps and the encyclopedia that came on my computer. Here we made an important discovery.

The encyclopedia contains profiles for every country of the world (except Montenegro and Kosovo, as I bought my computer in 2004). Baa Yotie was amazed at the wealth of information, and since then we have worked two to three hours every day, often six days a week, on the countries of the world, their geography, their people, and their history.

Skimming articles in one language and simultaneously translating them into another is no easy task. After a bit of practice, I rarely need to pause to read sections in English before deciding what is most important and translating it into Aucan. After longer sessions I catch myself thinking in Aucan. That’s scary.

Baa Yotie has been struck by the pervasiveness of wars and calculated unjust acts by powerful leaders in nearly every country we have studied. When I offered to focus more on culture and less on history, Baa Yotie remarked that it is important to hear of the wars and evil actions that have occurred in history, for then people might think twice about committing the same mistakes. Sounds Hillsdalian to me.

Perspective is narrowed by isolation. This principle has encouraged me to maintain a long-term outlook during my Peace Corps service. The reverse, however, is also true. Exposure to a bigger picture provides a more accurate understanding of both the world and yourself.

About a week ago, Baa Yotie told me that another thing the Ndjuka need to learn is how, when you save up for something, you can use what money you have to make more. Fortunately I know something of economics.

Coffee

When I came to Suriname, I brought a coffee press, expecting that the bounty of the mountains of Columbia and the awful lot of coffee in Brazil would spill over to the neighboring countries. Imagine my profound disappointment when I learned that the only brew to be found came in the form of instant coffee (hereafter referred to as “mud”) imported from Europe. Imagine my delight when, after much searching, I discovered real Surinamese coffee and found to my amazement that it was cheaper than instant mud!

Though I know the difference between mud and coffee, I am by no means a connoisseur. The test of the quality of Surinamese brew came when my sister, who is very much a connoisseur, came to Suriname. She approved. To conserve funds and cooking gas, I limit coffee mornings to two days a week, but every Wednesday and Saturday I am religiously more hyper than normal.

The popularity of mud demonstrates an unfortunate point about Suriname. Obsession with the former colonial power often hurts the economy by reducing the demand for better, cheaper local products in favor of European things. While as an economist I admit that what you buy is a matter of personal choice, I stand on my soapbox twice a week and declare with mug aloft that real coffee tastes better. The only advantage of mud is the difficulty of finding a coffee maker for the interior, as we have no electricity most of the time. For the Surinamese, an objective step back and a larger perspective, perhaps over a good cup of coffee, could do some good.

The River Congress

During the past week, the Gaanman summoned the chiefs of the Tapanahony to a major conference on gold mining rights. The problems of illegal gold mining by Brazilians have escalated recently, including pollution of the river with mercury used in irresponsible but easy refining, and rampant murder in the gold bush. To make matters worse, some chiefs have been taking bribes to protect the illegal activities. The event, centered in my village, is headline national news, and the Minister of Regional Development came to express his commitment to expel the illegal miners by force. As a result of the four-day conference, several chiefs were punished on charges of corruption, and continuing deliberation on what to do next is the principle subject of conversation.

In an earlier generation, the Ndjuka would meet every year for a congress known as “the River” to discuss issues and problems affecting all the villages. This was a unifying concept, and all the traditional leaders were held accountable in decisions made by the River. The congress dissolved, as common issues became national issues or disappeared. Perhaps this minor crisis will reestablish an old tradition.

Uh Oh.

To balance out the rainy seasons from December to February and from April to June, the Surinamese rain forest experiences a short dry season during March. This year, however, rain continues to fall heavily every day, and the water level is the highest that I have ever seen…and it steadily is rising. Considering the devastating floods we have had in the last few years, this does not bode well.

To curb the effects of certain disaster, I appealed to Red Cross to help me do something to prepare the people for the coming deluge. Unfortunately, part of the city already had flooded and Red Cross headquarters was a meter under water.

The water has since receded, but the weather patterns do not look good for when the really heavy rains start falling next month.

Site Development

Deciding where new volunteers just out of the States will spend two very important years of their lives is heady work. As my river is a little hard to get to, Peace Corps has been using volunteers for future site development for our area. Peace Corps debated placing any volunteers on the Tapanahony, as it is expensive, but by using us instead of sending people from the city, we have been able to cut costs and improve the quality of future sites. If all goes well, four new volunteers will be assigned to the region in May.

Since we live out here and have first-hand knowledge of what makes a positive volunteer experience, we have balanced Peace Corps’s concerns of security and cost-effectiveness with volunteer priorities of good potential projects and a decent place to live. As a result of negotiation, two volunteers will go to a large village that has wanted volunteers for a long time, but that Peace Corps had not considered viable.

It has been a lot of work serving as a liaison between Peace Corps and the prospective villages. I have spent days at a time in the future sites, making a network of contacts, selecting houses for volunteers from a variety of options, taking notes to recommend what the new volunteers should consider purchasing, distributing building materials to the different villages, arranging for transportation of materials that went to the wrong villages, resolving cost concerns addressed by those transporting the material, and of course taking lots of pictures so the new volunteers can see where they will live. Plus, having accompanied staff on several site development trips, we now can make suggestions to improve the process throughout the country.

Knowing the multitude of challenges volunteers face in the uncertainty of a completely new environment, we are more than happy to spend some time ensuring a good experience for our future colleagues.

Being Prepared

Last Thursday another Peace Corps volunteer called me saying, “We need to go to Godolo, we’ll be there in five minutes, get a bag ready.” My response: “How many days?” Her response: “I don’t know.”

So I threw my hammock and toothbrush in a bag, and we accompanied a specialist from IICA (Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture) for on-site training in planting and crop management for two days.

Opportunities on short notice are very typical for me. You can never tell what new experiences you can have by being prepared for anything. In Godolo we were able to do some Peace Corps site development work and make contact for potential transportation to a UNICEF-sponsored sanitation event next month. Plus we learned and helped teach how to plant stuff. As I like to say, “never complain about adventures.”

Brokoday!

The Ndjuka have a unique way of remembering those who have passed on. Memorials called Brokodays are times for bright colors and celebration, presumably of life. Brokoday literally means, “broken day,” suggesting a break from the norm, the all night party that ends at the break of dawn, or perhaps the irony that though death is a somber affair, they celebrate life through it.

For the past week, Diitabiki has been hosting a Brokoday for the people of the village that died during the past year. On the first day Captain Baja, my counterpart, send a boy to tell me to come to the other side of the village with a chair and a machete. We diced sugar cane into tiny pieces with our large knives. I steadily got faster and more precise with my work until I acquired three blisters and was ordered to stop. That afternoon, we crushed the chopped sugar cane to make juice in a long troth, dancing to traditional music as we rhythmically pounded the mortars. We then boiled the liquid, drank it, and enjoyed a meal.

The next day I was called to the meetinghouse, where great masses of smoked fish, cassava bread, rum, and soda had been gathered from villages throughout the Tapanahony. We sent a basket to the Gaanman and divided the rest among ourselves. Later, the young people took a flotilla of boats onto the river. One such boat carried at least sixty people and was equipped with a sound system and loudspeakers. We raced through the water in unconventional patterns, and some boats suffered minor collisions.

For the next few days we busily worked on finishing the stockpile of food. Even today, five days after the Borokoday started, we still have provisions left over. Brokodays can last up to a week depending on how long the food lasts.



Brokodays, as I have since learned, follow a specific format. The first day is called “mortar,” during which men cut sugar can into small pieces, and women pound the cane in a large trough to make sugar water. The second day is called “the wood has arrived,” during which everyone piles into dugout canoes, cuts wood and brings it to the village. In recent years, however, this tradition has changed. Now people load wood into boats, goes out on the river with food, music, and dancing, and brings the wood back again. The third day is called “distribute food,” during which food gathered for the Brokoday is cooked (theoretically with the wood gathered the day before) and taken to specific points throughout the village. The remaining days, which can be up to four depending on how much food they have, are called, “set the table,” during which the chiefs pour libations to those who have passed away and then everyone feasts.

The Emissary

Unexpected adventures arise when we make ourselves available. Shortly after getting back to Diitabiki in January, I unknowingly accepted an invitation to accompany a special envoy from the paramount chief of the Ndjuka people to the government development agency. While a relatively minor diplomatic event, the conference proved an extraordinary point in the dynamics of globalization and intercultural relations on a local scale.

Taking a trip with both of my counterparts to a development workshop sounded fun, but it soon became very interesting indeed. Captain Baja, my counterpart, came to pick us up in a large boat, which puzzled me until we started adding to our number. We paused at numerous villages on the river, generally picking up a single representative of each. Peculiarly enough, all these men were captains, the chiefs of the villages. At a certain point we mounted a full-size Surinamese flag to the boat, heightening our profile. As a good look later confirmed, the boat itself was owned and commissioned by the Gaanman. As I learned at the workshop, the Gaanman had sent his cabinet to confront the development organization on their failure to consult the traditional leadership before beginning their major project.

In the village of Stoleman’s Island, the hosts proposed a bold plan for a multi-structure development facility, taking into consideration future improvements such as a paved runway and inter-village transportation network in a village where dugout canoes function as the primary means of transportation. The plans seemed immense indeed. While providing a democratic open-forum and brainstorming session, the hosts seemed apologetic that the exercises were “white man things,” rather than the traditional meetings through which the people usually reach decisions. After the event degenerated into a series of complaints for previous ineffective projects, the emissary spoke. The chief claimed that the organization, by failing to convene with traditional leadership, elicited negative reactions to its attempts to help and closed doors to future projects by creating a legacy of unsuccessful initiatives.

Development projects often make a lasting but seldom positive impact when made without regard to the particularities of a people. Traditional authority and local culture, while treasured in the Ndjuka capital of Diitabiki, largely has eroded in its neighboring villages due to careless outside influence. The lack of a secondary school on the Tapanahony forces continuing students to board in the city, from which few return home. The emissary provided an important reminder that we must carefully consider our actions in a cultural context for our own success and the good of the people.

A Tropical Christmas

My family came to visit me for Christmas. They were to fly into the international airport after midnight on Christmas Eve, then travel about an hour to Paramaribo, where they would sleep for a few hours, catching a flight to my site in the morning …entirely on their own. My fellow volunteers thought I was crazy to put my parents through that, but my family knows how to travel. Besides, with all my meticulous planning, what could go wrong

Everything. A stewardess became ill just before their flight out of the States, delaying the plane for nearly two hours, long enough for them to miss their flight from Trinidad to Suriname by ten minutes. They called at 12:30 AM to tell me they were stranded for twenty-four hours. As they would no longer be able to get to my site, the next best option was for me to meet them in the city.

While this was not fun at all, it was one of my finer moments in terms of disaster management. I packed for our subsequent trip to Trinidad in the middle of the night, found a last-minute flight on Christmas eve to Paramaribo, spent all morning on the phone for accommodations, transportation, and a general rescheduling of our vacation, flew to the capital, bought food for Christmas dinner, booked my family on a tour to a rain forest adventure park, checked into our hotel, arranged wrapped presents for my family in the room, and found a taxi to take me to the airport to meet my parents and sister.

For all the ruin and disaster, Christmas came after all. After opening a few presents, mostly books as usual, I took my family on a tour of colonial Paramaribo. As I mentioned, we took an expedition into the interior consisting of hiking in the jungle, kayaking on the river, and flying through the canopy and the river on a zip-line course. On the river my sister hemmed my speeding kayak into the bush, forcing me to abandon ship to avoid some particularly nasty thorns. Wendy, naturally, would tell the story a different way. After climbing back into my kayak I overheard my dad tell some others, “He’s the one that lives here.”

We also spent a few days on Trinidad, where my parents lived for a year in their first overseas experience. My sister and I met some of their friends from twenty-five years ago, and now we can place the setting for many of our parents’ stories. Of course we also enjoyed the beach, and I was quite pleased to have warm, running water, a double bed, and plenty of food. I did not even need to wear a belt for a week or so back in Diitabiki.