16 AUGUST 2006
I’M IN…A BONIFIED PCV
Been a while…lots has happened since my last posting…the big news… I’m now an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Yep, Sworn in on August 3, 2006…and despite the fact that after 11 weeks of desperately trying to teach me Dutch and me not getting past the first 10 vocabulary words (forget grammar) …they did it anyway. On Friday August 4th I took up residence in my 500 sq.ft. apartment…home for the next two years. A living room, kitchen, bathroom (not exactly like an American type bathroom, the explanation would take to long) and an air-conditioned bedroom (which I don’t dare turn on for fear I would have to start tapping into my 401K to pay for it…I bought a fan). There is also a sink in my bedroom. (see why I don’t want to explain about the bathroom). The area I live in is in the Nord (north…one of the ten words I learned) part of Paramaribo. It’s the most up scale part of the city. You might want to call it the Beverly Hills of Suriname. The house up on the corner (op de bloc) looks like a house the former Sahara of Iran would have lived in. I guess the point is …this is a hell of a third world country. The city of Paramaribo is small but very active. It’s kind of like a shopper paradise; it’s a combination of Flatbush Ave., 14th Street and Madison Ave. squeezed into a sq. mile. You can buy everything from a George Forman Grill to a 36-inch flat screen TV. From Heinz catsup to Shake N Bake… but these will costs you. On the other hand a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue will only cost you $186 SRD. That’s about $ 62.00 USD. ($120USD in the states). Cloths are a good value too…had a pair of wash n wear slacks custom made for $23.00 USD. (haven’t washed them yet…I’ll keep you posted). Here’s something that really challenges me in Paramaribo…as a kid growing up in Brooklyn there was a game you played where you tired to walk all day without stepping on a crack (step on the crack…break your mothers back) I was pretty good at it. In fact, I was a champ at it…you played by yourself. Any way here in Paramaribo everybody would be a looser. The sidewalks are made of 8 x 8 inch odd shaped cement blocks…that is… where there is a sidewalk… sometimes there is just brown sand. The shoe salesman loves it and there are plenty of shoe stores. That’s right ladies… come on down. On Saturday the streets are jammed. Especially, the last Saturday of the month. Government employees get paid on the last Friday. (The government employs 60% of Suriname’s work force). Traffic is a bit crazy…they drive on the left side of the street and there are no speed laws in fact there are very few laws at all in Suriname …therefore there are very few lawyers…Suriname is truly a wonderful place.
I’m very excited about my Peace Corps assignment. It’s just perfect…I’ll be working with people in the rural communities and in the interior… helping them to create native food products, getting them produced, getting them packaged and getting them to market. I’ll be working in Powakka with pineapple growers and in Abenaston, with a ladies group, that wants to make and market a Casaba cracker. I’m also putting together a program to research Rain Forest products (herbs, teas, and flowers). Starting them is one thing …finishing them is another…based on what I read and see…it seems like it will take more time then I have. But…we’ll see…it’ll be fun.
SOME END OF TRAINING NOTES
Back on the roads of Leyldorp I found an old friend…well not really a friend …a feel at home place…Saran Fowru N.V…Suriname’s largest poultry processor, 2,800 birds a day. As I remember, back in my Shenandoah Valley poultry days, we did about that in an hour. But Peter van Dijke, the 5th generation Dutch owner is doing all the right things; he’s Suriname’s Frank Purdue. I just loved talking to him. Then there was the day before we left our host families…the PCT’s put on a party for all the families. They…all the other PCT’s… brought cookies, drinks, cheese, salami, crackers and ice cream…me… I stepped back in time and brought breaded onion rings, battered mushroom and fried egg plant. They were as good as anything I produced at Great American Breaded Vegetable Co. and that’s saying something, being that I had to prepare them outdoors in a wok over a wood burning fire…no it wasn’t a wood burning stove…it was a fire… with a couple of bricks around it.
Well that’s it for now…life in the Peace Corps is good…life in Suriname…perfect..
Writers note: the ij in van Dijke …should be a y with two dots over it. Took me awhile…could never figure out how they pronounce ij.
I’M IN…A BONIFIED PCV
Been a while…lots has happened since my last posting…the big news… I’m now an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Yep, Sworn in on August 3, 2006…and despite the fact that after 11 weeks of desperately trying to teach me Dutch and me not getting past the first 10 vocabulary words (forget grammar) …they did it anyway. On Friday August 4th I took up residence in my 500 sq.ft. apartment…home for the next two years. A living room, kitchen, bathroom (not exactly like an American type bathroom, the explanation would take to long) and an air-conditioned bedroom (which I don’t dare turn on for fear I would have to start tapping into my 401K to pay for it…I bought a fan). There is also a sink in my bedroom. (see why I don’t want to explain about the bathroom). The area I live in is in the Nord (north…one of the ten words I learned) part of Paramaribo. It’s the most up scale part of the city. You might want to call it the Beverly Hills of Suriname. The house up on the corner (op de bloc) looks like a house the former Sahara of Iran would have lived in. I guess the point is …this is a hell of a third world country. The city of Paramaribo is small but very active. It’s kind of like a shopper paradise; it’s a combination of Flatbush Ave., 14th Street and Madison Ave. squeezed into a sq. mile. You can buy everything from a George Forman Grill to a 36-inch flat screen TV. From Heinz catsup to Shake N Bake… but these will costs you. On the other hand a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue will only cost you $186 SRD. That’s about $ 62.00 USD. ($120USD in the states). Cloths are a good value too…had a pair of wash n wear slacks custom made for $23.00 USD. (haven’t washed them yet…I’ll keep you posted). Here’s something that really challenges me in Paramaribo…as a kid growing up in Brooklyn there was a game you played where you tired to walk all day without stepping on a crack (step on the crack…break your mothers back) I was pretty good at it. In fact, I was a champ at it…you played by yourself. Any way here in Paramaribo everybody would be a looser. The sidewalks are made of 8 x 8 inch odd shaped cement blocks…that is… where there is a sidewalk… sometimes there is just brown sand. The shoe salesman loves it and there are plenty of shoe stores. That’s right ladies… come on down. On Saturday the streets are jammed. Especially, the last Saturday of the month. Government employees get paid on the last Friday. (The government employs 60% of Suriname’s work force). Traffic is a bit crazy…they drive on the left side of the street and there are no speed laws in fact there are very few laws at all in Suriname …therefore there are very few lawyers…Suriname is truly a wonderful place.
I’m very excited about my Peace Corps assignment. It’s just perfect…I’ll be working with people in the rural communities and in the interior… helping them to create native food products, getting them produced, getting them packaged and getting them to market. I’ll be working in Powakka with pineapple growers and in Abenaston, with a ladies group, that wants to make and market a Casaba cracker. I’m also putting together a program to research Rain Forest products (herbs, teas, and flowers). Starting them is one thing …finishing them is another…based on what I read and see…it seems like it will take more time then I have. But…we’ll see…it’ll be fun.
SOME END OF TRAINING NOTES
Back on the roads of Leyldorp I found an old friend…well not really a friend …a feel at home place…Saran Fowru N.V…Suriname’s largest poultry processor, 2,800 birds a day. As I remember, back in my Shenandoah Valley poultry days, we did about that in an hour. But Peter van Dijke, the 5th generation Dutch owner is doing all the right things; he’s Suriname’s Frank Purdue. I just loved talking to him. Then there was the day before we left our host families…the PCT’s put on a party for all the families. They…all the other PCT’s… brought cookies, drinks, cheese, salami, crackers and ice cream…me… I stepped back in time and brought breaded onion rings, battered mushroom and fried egg plant. They were as good as anything I produced at Great American Breaded Vegetable Co. and that’s saying something, being that I had to prepare them outdoors in a wok over a wood burning fire…no it wasn’t a wood burning stove…it was a fire… with a couple of bricks around it.
Well that’s it for now…life in the Peace Corps is good…life in Suriname…perfect..
Writers note: the ij in van Dijke …should be a y with two dots over it. Took me awhile…could never figure out how they pronounce ij.
posted by Robert B. at 5:29 AM
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