Adoption (almost)

For the past three and a half weeks, and soon for another three and a half weeks, I have been living with a Surinamese family in a town of about two hundred people, called Marshall Kreek. Humphrey and Rita have been the best of adoptive parents, giving me plenty of good food, helping me practice the Aucan language, and making sure that I bathe with a full bucket of water three times a day. They have four children, but still have enough space for me to have my own ten by twenty foot house, which is very nice. They also have a couple of green parrots that do not talk much but have excellent personalities nonetheless.

During this stage of training, I have language classes in the mornings with the two other volunteers in my homestay village, and I have technical training two afternoons a week. On Fridays, all of the volunteers meet in a central village for guest speakers and additional technical training. I also have a community-building assignment for which I teach English to about 25 kids in the village on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. In my free time I spend time with my host family and learn practical things like shaving cassava, planting vegetable gardens, and clipping the wings of parrots so they can walk around outside their cages.

It is not difficult for me to adapt to a new set of living routines, but at first, with my limited Aucan, it was quite a challenge to learn what those routines are. Since language was an issue for the first couple of weeks I had to observe and try to communicate in other ways. For instance, it took me a week to learn that I should use a full bucket of water when bathing, even though I washed three times a day.

In terms of adventure, I sleep in a hammock, and I have a collection of unwelcome visitors in my house such as cockroaches, bats, and a band of giant spiders larger than my fist. These have led to some exciting, and often very funny late night hunts and punitive expeditions within my house. After all this is South America.

A Government A.R.E. (Acronym Rich Environment)

You know you work for the government when you catch yourself using at least two acronyms in one sentence. All these acronyms naturally aid us in streamlining and simplifying government work for the greatest efficiency possible. The practice of using these abbreviated forms started out gradually at Staging in Miami, affectionately termed PDT (Pre-Departure Training). Once we arrived in-country, however, we would be PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) of the class SUR 14 (the fourteenth team to Suriname), engaging in PST (Pre-Service Training), and we would be expected to use as many acronyms as we could contrive. We even had to know acronyms in other languages. Our initial training facility was called NAKS (roughly “After Work Comes Sports” in Dutch).

At NAKS we met Ann, our CD (Country Director), Marlon, our SSC (Safety and Security Counselor), and “Doc,” our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer), as well as many first or second-year PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers). PST is divided into several segments including a week-long orientation, TOT (Training Of Trainers), CBT (Community Based Training), CPC’s (Counterpart Conferences), and future site visits. I have no clue why we do not have an acronym for future site visits, but I’m thinking of suggesting FSV’s). During CBT, we have HS (Homestay), when we stay with a HCN (Host-County National) family, have language classes with an LCF (I do not really know what this stands for, but it means language-teacher), and formulate a CDA (Community Development Activity) based on our conception of CED (Community Economic Development) in our respective HS sites. For our CDA we use PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action) tools such as FREEHOP and SWOT to assess what we should do before we do it.

During PC service, we have an EAP (Emergency Action Plan) in case anything goes wrong, but during training we have a PST EAP (Pre-Service Training Emergency Action Plan) specific to our locations. After we are sworn in, we have access to ICE (Information Collection and Exchange) resources, the IRC (In-country Resource Center), as well as IST (In-Service Training) to help us with ideas. IST is, in-turn, divided into EST, MST, and LST (Early-Service Training, Mid-Service Training, and Lat-Service Training). If we decide not to ET (Early Termination of Service) before our COS (Close Of Service) comes around, we have to submit a DOS (Description Of Service) or a DOW (Description Of Work), but I’m not sure what the difference is yet. There is still so much more to learn.

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.

A First Taste of South America

I arrived in Suriname very early on Saturday morning. As we walked off the plane, the heavy South American air hit us like a wave, and we could taste it. All twenty-five of us piled into a small bus for NAKS, the training site that will function as our base of operations for much of the next three months.

My fellow volunteers are both passionate and serious. The projects that we will be engaged in are practical, and the ways in which we are supposed to perform the projects are responsible and lasting. The approach to development is similar to my dad's approach to leadership, coming along side the people to function as a conduit and a catalyst for the people to fulfill their own needs. That being said, I am sure to learn a lot more about our actual effectiveness, and if I can learn something along those lines, I will consider my time useful.

We have had a lot of learing activities already. On our second day in-country, we went into the hinterland to see what the villages look like there. We swam in a river after lunch while a dog was chewing on a piranah head on the beach. That was a bit disconcerting, but we all made it back. The Ambassador to Suriname gave a presentation today and ate lunch with us. Sranan Tongo language training is going very well. In the first day we laerned greatings and simple conversation, numbers (Dutch ones too), time, locations and directions, days of the week, and started foods. We have been very busy.

We received our site assignments today. I am in one of the remotest places for volunteers in the interior. To get to my site I have to take a bus for about four hours than a canoe for about four or five more hours. There may be an airstrip built there soon, and that is actually one of my many potential projects. I will be able to communicate by SAT phone or HF radio, but I think it will only be for emergencies. Electricity will be available in the evenings if there is enough diesel for the generator. This will be a different way of life than I am used to, but I am confident that it will be good. I will be with a few other volunteers for all but the last hour or so to my site, but then, I am on my own. I will be the first volunteer in my village ever, and apparently the people are very excited about it.

Staging

The last two days have been a whirlwind of activity. I flew to Miami early on Wednesday, and within a couple hours of checking in at the hotel, I had already met most of my training class. There are twenty six of us flying to Suriname this afternoon, and even though we come from all over the States, we have many things in common. Our trainer said that we bonded surprisingly quickly (practically instantaneously).

Training took half a day on Wednesday and all day yesterday. It was very general, but I am glad that once we get to Suriname we can get started on country-specific training right away. We covered the mission and goals of the Peace Corps, which I have mentioned several times already. We also studied the Peace Corps approach to development, which focuses on providing for needs in a way that will last and working along-side the people rather than in a top-down manner. We also learned about many Peace Corps policies regarding safety, both physically and concerning reputation of the Peace Corps, the host country, and ourselves. Staging indeed was important, but it did seem long, and I am excited to actually arrive in-country.

Today we have nothing scheduled until the late morning, when we leave for the airport. We will arrive in Suriname tomorrow morning after a stop in Trinidad. When we arrive in Suriname we will be bussed from the capital to a training area where we will stay for two weeks with Peace Corps staff. The next time I write I will have left the States.