The Good, the Bad, the Beautiful.

A short walk off one of four main roads going through Leyledrop the pavement stops and the roads look like you’re in a war zone. The pot holes every two or three feet and look like bomb creators. Some as big as a lake and around two feet deep. A drive on them can get you seasick. How the residents keep their cars running is a miracle. All the cars are from Japan…except maybe an occasional Chevy SUV (Drug Lord). And not one of them is newer then 1999. Walking the roads in sandals is an even bigger challenge. You sure don’t want to step in them. You just never know what’s hiding in them. But if you dare to look up while you walk you cannot help but enjoy the beauty of the tropics that surrounds you. The sky is a magnificent blue filled with white puffy clouds, which will soon turn gray, and the sky will fall. It’s rainy season and that means that everyday there is a down pour for an hour or so and then at night another one. But, anyway, as I walk around I see things that I have never seen before…banana trees with bananas as big as your foot or as small as your pinky. Mango, Papaya, pepper tress. Vines full of Pourmerah they tell me it make good juice. I wonder if it would make a good wine. There are red flowers, blue flowers yellow ones, white one and shades of each. And, everywhere you look there is another shade of green. As you walk along don’t worry about the barking dogs. They bark from behind a gate or a pack of them will greet you in the middle of the road. But, one quick move with your umbrella and off they run. Except for the one that bit me. (Don’t fret…I got my rabbis shot). The interesting thing about dogs in Suriname is that none of them are allowed in the house and by the looks of them …not feed very well. Nobody here walks a dog …but…they do walk their birds. It’s a strange country. There is no neighborhoods or class distinction. An old wooded shack can be next to a house that would sell for a million two in Scottsdale. All the houses have running water…never hot…there is a TV in every house but no sinks in the bathroom. Well, it not a bath room as such. There is a room with a shower and a room with a toilet.

The other day I visited the local commercial bread bakery. A mixer, a table, racks, an oven…no white smocks, no hair nets, no sparkling clean walls in fact there were no walls. It did have a roof. They make slice bread and rolls…Wonder Breads poor cousin.
They also make a cinnamon roll that won’t be sold on Americas worst roach coach.

So I also have a rash…and a few mosquito bits well scratched…but …that’s life in the jungle. But if you really want to know the truth…this is far from a jungle…life is good.

18 Days In

It’s now 18 days into my great adventure and so far so good. So much has gone on that my head and my heart are filled with feelings and thought that are hard to put down on paper…but, I’ll try.

As you know it started with what I call Peace Corps pre-training. Part summer camp, part medical school, part college studies in sociology. Our quarters were cabins with 4 twin beds (but we only had two to a room), bath room with separate shower (no hot water but who needs it), there’s a dinning hall, meeting rooms, basketball court, volleyball net and a near by off campus beer hall named Madonna. This was much better then I expected (an understatement) and a hell of a lot better then the Peace Corps stories on the Inter-net. If it weren’t for the health and safety lectures…. watch out for…poisonous snake, poisonous spiders, poisonous frogs, malaria, dengue, and a host of unknown rashes and other stuff…it would have been a great learning vacation.

Last week we moved out of camp and into the house of our Host Family. For me and 17 other PCT our families live in the second largest town in Suriname, Population about 15,000. The town isn’t much different then what we use to refer to as a one-horse town. A main road runs north to south thru the center of the town with 90% of the local business on each side of the road. The name of the town is Leyledrop. There are lots of little restaurants (more like snack bars) no real bar (you can get a beer any where) and believe it or not two Inter-net cafes. Both air conditioned ... That’s why this is a long posting. At a buck an hour it’s the best deal in town. There are plenty of Winkels (super markets but not exactly) you can buy almost anything in a Winkel, from corn flakes to underpants. And then there’s the “New City Plaza” (I ‘m not kidding kids) (inside joke). This is the local Wal Mart.

My Host family is made up of a Mom, a Dad, 2boys (19& 17) and a 14-year-old girl. The house is about 800 sq feet (maybe) It has two bedrooms …I sleep in one (about 8X8) the kids in the other and Mom & Dad on the floor in the livingdiningkitchen room. The mattress on my bed is as thick as my quilt at home the box spring is a piece of ply wood…but you know what… I sleep like a baby. That is when the dogs aren’t barking and the rooster is crowing. There’s a TV (got to watch the NBA play offs) and 3 dirt bikes on the pouch and a SUV in the driveway. And they are the most fun people I have been around in years. They’re smart, they’re good hearted and they watch out for me. Of course they think I’m a little nuts. (They never met a 70 year old Peace Corp guy). Any way if I didn’t have to go to language class… life would be perfectly acceptable.

Before I go let me tell you about the weather…it only takes two words…HOT, HUMID.
It rains every day and not just rain but buckets of water. But the sun comes out. It doesn’t dry the rain away it just brightens up the day.

Have a good day…I am.