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Septembers Hot …the temperature... everyday... gets up into the high 90’s and at night it cools down to the low 90’s... the thing is... you don’t want to linger in the sun for to long...it’s HOT… September is the hottest month of the year in Suriname But…not only was it hot outside …the office activity heated up as well….July was packed with VIP’s from Costa Rica…here to celebrate 25 years of IICA service in Suriname and to install Mr. Cromwell Crawford our new Director. In August… we redid the budget… redefined our priorities…and set out some new objectives….this new guy is good. And then it’s September and we’re in cars and canoes… introducing Cromwell to the country and the people. It’s not much different for him…he comes from Guyana …next country over…and the IICA strategies throughout the hemisphere are the same…but…our projects are different …so off we went to give him a first hand look…so as we show Cromwell around… I’ll tell you what he found…should give you a pretty good idea of what I’m doing here…We’re on the best road in all of Suriname….heading east to Mongo…home of Suralcoa…Sur…short for Suriname…alcoa…short for …you got it… Aluminum Corp of America...at one time this was the garden spot of Suriname….Golf Course with a Club House over looking the River….today… like so many company towns in the U.S… it’s on a fast track to becoming a ghost town…they’ve been mining and processing Bauxite… baux[ite n.5Fr, after (Les) Baux, town near Arles, France6 the clay like ore, mainly hydrated aluminum oxide, from which aluminum is obtained…for over 100 years. It’s easy to mine…you find a Bauxite hill…burn down the forest… scrape off the top soil…dump the next layer of dirt into a truck … bring it to the processing plant. Do that for a 100 years and you got a problem when your done...that’s where IICA comes in….after they put the top soil back …what can they grow? How do they grow? …and what do they do with it after it grows? What we’ve got here is a rehabilitation and income generation project. And… I will tell you ALCOA will do the right thing. I doubt if I could have said that 20 years ago or even 10….We’ll call it a new Yuppie management. (concerned…would be a better word). Ok …now let’s go the other way…back to Nickerie…remember… that’s the furthest western town in Suriname…Here... rice is king…but only a few can wear its crown…the rest are small 1 to 3 hector paddy farmers who barely squeak out a living…here IICA is mandated by the Ministry of Agriculture to figure out how these farmers can get out of rice and into better income generating farming. Some of the farmers are learning about aquaculture while others are learning about Rijst/Vis ( rice/fish) farming. Here they put Tilapia or Kwikwi in the paddies and when they drain the paddy before harvesting, the fish follow the water flow into a fish pond where they are fattened up for market…two crops for the price of one…well almost…the good thing is that the fish eat the bugs…so no pesticides need to be used…Organic you ask…yes…the only problem is that the big guys spray their fields via airplanes…Nickierie has a nice breeze most of the time…so we have drift. A few entrepreneurial farmers and a women’s group are trying to get out of rice entirely ...ducks…chickens…hot peppers…and more...I’d like to see some corn…maybe… On the way back we stop in Wageninge…depressing…this was a company town too…a government run foundation managed the SML rice company…employed over 300 people…supplied the electric, water and medical services to the community …today much of the place is broken down, boarded up and bankrupt... But then the next town over brought a big smile to my face…first… the town was holding the Tour de Coronie….some great looking bikes doing 80.5 kilometer on a hot flat road… plenty of Water and Podosiri but no Clif Bars. Secondly… we meet with the Vriesde Brothers. ( Sister Letitia Vriesde was Suriname’s Olympic track star). The boys are back from Holland and taking over the family farm… which has almost been entirely take over by the jungle…but they have a vision and if they follow it… they’ll have the best fruit orchards in the country and maybe a fruit sectioning processing plant…they liked my idea. The next week we were back on the upper Suriname River…this time we were headed to the village of Goe aba. Goe aba is the largest village on the Upper Suriname...a permanent population of 1,200 to 1,400. It’s 2 rapids further up river then I have ever been …and… it just seems that the deeper into the rainforest you go… the prettier and more peaceful it gets….our purpose is to find out if the community… as a whole… is really behind the idea of planting Jatropha tress. This tree produces a seed that when squeezed… the oil it produces can go directly into a diesel engine…giving the village an opportunity to have 24 hour electric…that means freezers and refrigerators. IICA will provide advise on land preparation, planting, processing and marketing. I’ve been able to give some positive input…but…I do have some problems with this project…60 hectors of rainforest may have to be cut…we’ll call it progress….The last week of September had us back on the Red Road heading for Kajpaati and Banafo ukon de…in Kajpaati the two PCV’s and myself have developed “The Family Chicken Coop Project” that will get technical help from IICA and financial help from Peace Corps supporters (you’ll hear more about this in the near future). In Banafo ukon de, we are teaching the use of small mechanical tools…replacing the machete and the hoe with a chain saw and a rotor tiller…included is a stump puller….pulls out tree stumps…hopefully this will encourage permanent agriculture rather then shifting (slash and burn).In and around the city of Paramaribo…the districts... we’ve got lots going on…there’s the farmer training programs in Commowijnie and Brownsweg… and then there are my own secondary projects….Getting Podosiri (Acai)produced for export and working with The Chee Group…teaching customer service….what do I know about customer service??? A lot more then anybody in Suriname…so do you. The first week of October belonged to the Peace Corps… “Mid Service Conference”… yep…we’re on a down hill slope…277 days to go …BUT WHO’S COUNTING