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.