Go West Young man
Wasn’t it Horace Greely who said…go west young man, go west. So… I did. I joined Hesdy Ormskerk in a two day trip to the furthest western city in Suriname …New Nickerie (no cowboys or hitching posts)…on the Corantijn river…next stop Guyana.. A few miles out of Paramaribo the traffic lightens up to about one passing car every 10 to 20 minutes. The road is the main through fare going east and west…It runs parallel to the Atlantic Ocean which is about 3 to 4 miles on your right… but…there is no way to get to it…just swamp and mud…no beaches. The road we travel looks like any back country road in South Carolina. You cross over the Coppenanme River and as you come into Saramaca… one of those towns that when I was a kid traveling with my dad on the road… he would identify a town and then …he’d say “we are now approaching the town, we are now in the town, we are now leaving the town, we are now out of town…and sure enough it was that fast…or should I say …the towns were that small. In Suriname some of the towns we passed through you only get to say ….”We’re in, we’re out”. At Wageningen the land open ups and as far as the eye can see its deserted scrub land. Once rich rice paddies that feed field rice to the State owned and operated SMLRice Milling Company… but now that’s all gone… the company went bankrupt. The physical appearance of the plant is that of a giant corrugated metal junk heap. The town is depressed and the area is depressing. There’s talk about reopening the mill…I’d question that decision. Why?
We continue to move quickly west and cross into the Nickerie district the fields turn a rich green color… the rice in the paddies is get ready for harvesting. In a few weeks the paddies will be drained… the rice will dry…. the combines will come…the field will be burnt…the rice will be planted …the paddies will be flooded…and the process goes on and on… as it has for 100 years or so. There’s lots and lots of rice here in Nickerie, feeding 3 or 4 big mills. That’s why I question the decision and that’s also why we are here. IICA is putting a diversification project together. The small rice farmers aren’t making it. Like in so many other places in the world …the rich get richer and the poor struggle.
For me the town of New Nickerie has a good feel to it. The farmers market is busy and the produce is plentiful and quality is as good as you’ll find in the best US Super markets produce section…I did my veg shopping….saved a lot of SRD. My accommodations in Nickerie??? Well I’d say it was a substantial upgrade from those in the interior or even in my own apartment….a bed with a real mattress…a real blanket…real air conditioning…and best of all… a real hot shower in the morning…life is good.
The biggest treat in New Nickerie was to climb up on the dijke and see the ocean. I love the ocean….but this was a little different then looking out over it from the beaches of Coney Island or Santa Monica….as I said…there are no beaches…I’m looking at the Atlantic Ocean and when I turned my head to the left I watched the sun go down over the shore line of Guyana…life is full of wonderments.

AND THEN THERE THIS OTHER PART OF SURINAME

Between Redi Doti and Caslporo there’s the fourth oldest Synagogue in the new world.
(the second and third are in Paramaribo). The area is called the Joden (Jewish) Savanna. The Synagogue was built in the 1700’s. The Sephardic Jews got to Suriname during the 1500’s and established their plantations on the Savannah. The synagogue is located on a high point over looking the Suriname River. Even then they were into real estate. Back behind the synagogue area is a not so well taken care of cemetery. The stones are all weathered… but… you can still make out some of the names and dates and of course you can recognize the Hebrew writing and the Star of David. The information signs around the grounds have information about the Jews that nobody ever bothered to teach me or any of my friends, a far as I know. The most interesting thing I read was that the sponsors of the Suriname Synagogue was a Synagogue in New York. The Jewish community in Suriname is the oldest Jewish community in the new world. Started in or around 1496.

The older I get and the more I travel the more I get to feel that there really is only 6 degrees of separation. How about this for a small world story….it‘s Saturday morning in Paramaribo and the senior PCV‘s are having their get together for coffee ritual ...Tony from Boston ( PCV Sur 11.. I‘m in Sur 12) and me are taking about our business careers…I tell him that mine started in the meat market in NYC…he asks me if I ever heard of Eastern Packing …I say “ Uncle Paul, Paul Steinberg“ ( he wasn‘t really my uncle but, in those days that’s what you called a very close friend of the family)…He says…”yea” I say how do you know him …he says…” I was married to his partner’s daughter”. How about this one…Juliet befriends an Asian lady in San Francisco….during a lunch she tell her that her boyfriend is in Suriname…and she says…” I’m from Suriname” …Her brother and sister run the best Chinese restaurant in Suriname, Chi Men. And, then there is this hydroponics farmer who told me he ran a Dutch bakery in town and that it was closed down a couple of years ago. A few days later we’re having a chat while the rain comes down. Out of the blue he says to me…“You know where I was on Sept. 11, 2001. And I say…Yea, you were in Las Vegas…”how’d you know” he says…“because I was at the Bakery Show too” We probably passed each other in aisle 2200... In Suriname there are no small world stores….here it is a small world and it seems like everybody already knows everybody. Till the next story… stay well….have fun…smile.