July 05 - Training

July 11, 2005

Well, I've been down here in Suriname for I guess a little over a week now. All is going very well.

I am in a town about 45 minutes from the capital city, Paramaribo, for training. I am here with 21 other Peace Corps volunteers from around the U.S., and everything is going great!

This is a picture taken by someone else of where I live in Suriname.

The long green stretch is the plane landing site within walking distance of me. On the left of the landing is the village of Nieuw Aurora (the Dutch name), or Tutu (in Saramaccan). Gunsi is the village below the cloud. The rest is forest and trees, and it's where I live.

The area is gorgeous. It rains right now quite a lot, up to 4 or 5 times a day on occasion, sometimes just once. The green is unbelievably green, and the flowers are vibrant yellows, purples, red, blues, whites, oranges.

The languages I hear around this area are Dutch and Sranan Tongo. I have learned a few phrases in Sranan Tongo, but that will not be my primary focus, as my site will eventually be deeper into the country. I will be about a 6 hour bus and boat ride from the capital, and I, as of tomorrow, will be learning Saramaccan, which is spelled a little like Portuguese (as I've been told) but I think will sound quite different. My site is almost the furthest into the country. There are really only two people that have a longer trip, and they will be living about a 15 minute walk from me.

I will be the first ever in my site, much like I was in Uzbekistan. I am really looking forward to that. I have a lot of training before then, as well as site visits.

We trainees have, besides going through training, been playing a lot of sports: ultimate frisbee, soccer, volleyball. We have also been dancing several times. Two days ago, we went to the ambassador's house for a 4th of July party (on the 9th). There, we ate, played volleyball, some went swimming, and some of us went out later to hang out with current volunteers.

The area is a real mix of people. Suriname is a Dutch colonized country that gained independence in 1975. As a result of the colonization, there is a contingent of decendants of enslaved Africans, decendants of Hindustani and Javanese people who were brought over
after slavery was abolished for cheap labor, Chinese (there is a China Town in Paramaribo), Dutch, etc.

We went on a historical tour of the town this past weekend where we saw an old fort, the presidential palace, rich and poor parts of town, etc. It was really great to get some sites in.