Six Months in Suriname

Things have been going well out at site. Some days are full of nothing; some days are full, full, full. Most days start of reading in my hammock and then take me wherever my villagers invite me. This has included cutting rice, making cassava bread, breaking palm fruit seeds for oil, going to the health clinic, and being introduced to people.




One of the interesting things that happened since I have been out at site was the visit from some American missionaries in the village next to me. They brought out a doctor and a dentist to treat people and they asked me to help translate for the dentist. It was really interesting to see my villagers interact with other American’s and here some of the questions that they had about them. It also helped me meet people from some of the neighboring villages and talk to them about Peace Corps. It was a little intense with some of the evangelization, but the group was only there on a two-week tour treating people, pulling teeth, and building a house for the couple that was moving out. They now live there (which has been great) and it’s nice to have someone to go talk to and take a little break from Saramaccan.

Another fun thing was working with the radio station in a nearby village. The station, Radio Maife, has been up for about 10 years and was established by the government. They have a really nice setup there and I got to go talk about the Peace Corps and our HIV awareness activities that are going on. Granted my language skills were a little subpar, but it at least had my villagers starting to ask me a few questions.







It's hard to believe six months has already gone by. When I think about how many more months I have left it's not quite as significant, but it still seems crazy. December looks to be a busy month. I am helping out in Semoisie (another village on the river about 15 minutes away on boat) celebrating World AIDS Day December 1st. Then December 11-14 the Peace Corps volunteers on our river will be hosting Camp GLOW (Girl Leading Our World). And to add to the craziness, my parents and my two six-foot tall brothers are going to be visiting me for Christmas! I cannot express how excited I am to show them my life here in Suriname and to meet my entire village.

I made it to Gaan Seei!

I have been out at my site for five weeks now, making a trip into the city to restock on food, skype and refuel. My move out to my village was really great. Everyone was really receptive to me, but at the same time giving me some time to get settled in. Unlocking and stepping into my house for the first time was a really exciting feeling because it was the very first moment where I was on my own out in my village, where I was going to have more control and input and interaction. Then I realized every mouse, cockroach and bat had been partying for the past month because no one had been living there. Luckily a quick sweep and bleach soak took care of that.

My house is a wood cabin that’s probably about 10ft x 20ft, with a front porch that extends off my house another 10ft. In the back of my house I have my wash house/latrine dual and my rain catch durotank (which is where I get all the water to put through my water filter).
Right next door to me is a family with two sisters who live with their kids (including eight-month old twins Tete and Boto). In Maroon villages the houses are very close together so I have had a little bit of adjustment realizing that sometimes when I think people are on my porch talking to me they are really just talking to each other… in their own houses. Everyone comes by in the morning to see how I slept and say good morning. The one day I was sick everyone came by my bedroom window to tell me that I have to get better.

The biggest task right now has been trying to learn everyone’s name. I’m doing pretty well with that so far, the only problem is that everyone has at least two names, a school name/birth name and then what everyone in the village calls them. So I will be asked if I know someone and I will tell them no, only to find out we are talking about the same people. So far I think I have gotten about 50% of them down, most importantly all of my neighbors and all of the leaders in the community. I have started giving English classes in the village, so that has helped out A LOT because I made everyone learn to say “My name is______” and it helped me avoid asking people over and over their names… instead they are just practicing their English. Pretty sure they’ve caught on.

Other than that I fill my time with washing my clothes/dishes in the river, walking around the village, reading, cross-stitching, going out to grounds, and hanging out with the kids. I have been trying to exercise… there’s an overgrown path that I have run on a few times, I jump rope, and I play soccer. Honestly the walks around the village greeting everyone makes me sweat just as much from the burning sun.
The first three months of my time at site I am not really supposed to concentrate on beginning any projects, but rather on strengthening my language and introducing myself as a member of Gaan seei. Everyone there has helped me so much with learning new foods, new words, new names, new sites, new everything. Sometimes I worry that they will see my inability to hand wash clothes on a stone or cook a bush-meat soup as incompetence, but they never seem to judge me like that…plus they are just happy that I am there and wanting to learn how they do things. Nothing too crazy has happened during my first month …although I have added parrot to my list of foods tried.

Being in the city has been nice because I got to see all the other volunteers who have been out at site and see what they have been up to (and I got to eat ice cream, eat burgers and sleep in airconditioning), but it was a little stressful making sure I got everything taken care. Tomorrow marks eight hour long trip back to site (which I am not excited about) but I can’t wait to get back to my new home.

Contact Info

Just in case my monthly internet access doesn't satisfy you, there are other means of getting a hold of me :)

Cell: 011 597 719 1670

Jessica Schmitt
Peace Corps/Suriname
P.O. Box 9500
Franchepanestraat 12-14 Zorg & Hoop
Paramaribo, Suriname
South America

Happy Fourth of July!

We are in the city for the fourth of July, which we will l all be celebrating at the ambassador's house. Right now I am sitting in the hotel lobby trying to soak up all of the provided internet time. A couple of weeks ago I actually got to go see my future site that I will living at, and visit the volunteer who lives there. Making the trip to get out there was an experience. We had about a 3-4 hours drive, most of which was unpaved...which you can only imagine how a bumpy dirt road feels after while.

The boat ride made up for the time spent on ohe bus. We dropped everyone off at their different sites and since I am the last one one the Upper Suriname I got to see where everyone lived.
Riding down the river in the middle of the jungle is an incredibly breathtaking experience. There is nothing but sheets of green all around you.

Arriving at Gaan Seei was a little overwhelming to go meet a big group of people who all really want to meet you, but it was definitely encouraging that everyone was very open to having a Peace Corps Volunteer there. The village itself is pretty small, but there are a lot of villages located nearby, which make the area pretty densely populated.

Just call me Kapitay Mai

I’m finally here to report on how things have been going so far. So much has happened in the last two months, that it's impossible to hit on everything. I am finishing up my second month here in Suriname, two more weeks of homestay and I’ll be out on my own. I have been living in Asigron, a village in the Brokopondo area of Suriname in a small little house just behind my host mother’s house. It’s almost crazy to think about how I was pretty much dropped off here with no language skills. I remember first getting off the bus and being able to say “I weki no?” which you use in the morning to ask people how they slept, and “Mi ne da Jessica”…My name is Jessica. That doesn’t get you that far when you have dozens of small children running after you and women coming over to take a peek at the new Peace Corps volunteer. I was immediately dubbed with the name Kapitay Mai, which means captain’s wife. The kids here immediately took me on a parade through the village to show me where the other volunteers were living. They laughed at how I flipped dirt up all over my legs from my flip-flops, how I walked, and the fact that every time they touched my skin it would “light up.” They paraded us around and fought over who got to hold our hands. There were six of us living in two neighboring villages, so there were plenty hands to go around and plenty of turf to trek.

For training we have a small Saramaccan language group that means from 8-12pm 5 days a week. Asigron was definitely an adjustment. It gets dark here around 7pm, I go to bed around 9:30 (crazy I know), and then I get up at 6 or 6:30. Everyone here gets up between 6-7am and when I say get up that means blast Sinaid O’Connor/Savage Garden love mix or the latest rasta jams. That also coincides with the 4am wake-up call from my local chickens. They call the early morning “Gania Kanda” or chicken sings…which they do…a lot. A group of us go running in the morning before class, which has been made a lot easier since I am already up, might as well go for a jog.

I living under the careful eye of my host mother Yvonne. She has really been a blessing to me. She comes over and sits with me all the time and helps me stumble through my Saramaccan until we figure out what I mean to say. Her patience is amazing. She also has helped me key in on some of the different cultural practices...i.e. women's herbal tea washings, washing clothes in the river, and learning how to sew. I live in my own little house behind hers (the house in the picture). Yvonne, her manu Hans, and her 2-yr old son Meagynnio live just behind me. Meagynnio is my favorite, he runs around saying “Tay Mai” since he can’t say my whole name and will pull me by the hand and tell me to come sit down in his house. He and his cousin, Sino, who is just a little older, are always running around my house and I love it.


So I was asked by someone if I had eaten any weird foods, and the fact of the matter is that I have eaten a couple of new “delicacies.” One afternoon my friend Shannon and I were walking to local community center to work on one of our projects. On the way we saw the small rasta boy, Urlio, and an older girl, Rubica, walking with a wheel barrow down the street, she yells for me to come over and see what she caught. It was a sloth. Shannon and I are like “Awww! Cute!” and start walking over, sort of freaking out, because we have never seen a sloth in real life before, but after we had been talking to her for a few minutes we realize that she caught the sloth…to eat it. Taking a closer look I realize she has attempted to cut the sloth’s throat…and when I say attempt, I mean she did not even come close to succeeding. I tried telling her to kill it all the way and she told me it was as good as dead. We later found out it was to be another PCV's dinner. And yes, I did try it. Not bad.

Suriname so far

Hello Everyone! Here I am one week in to my Suriname adventures! Things have been really great so far. Our group of 24 volunteers flew into Paramaribo last Wednesday night and has been set up at NAKS, a facility in Lelydorp, for the last week. We have been sitting through a lot of orientations and talks about safety, medical, administrative things that need to be taken care of. Yesterday was a big day though; we got our village assignments and our cell phones! I tried calling my parents, but apparently they were too busy to talk to their daughter ;)
I will be located in Gran Slee, a Maroon Saramaccan village, located in Sipaliwini district along the Upper Suriname River. The site is a 3-4 hour bus ride, plus 4ish hours in a boat. Whoopee! Haha. But there are several volunteers located in the area, as well as another huge cluster not too far along the river. I will have generated power (when working) from 7-11pm each night, no running water which should be an indication that I won’t have internet. This means that if you are really missing me you’re going to have to call me That’s right I do have my cell phone so get those calling cards and load your skype accounts (0115977191670).
The site wasn’t one of my top choices, it was actually listed for a Community Health volunteer, but after taking a look at the health and exercise program they were working on implementing, it really looks like it will be a good fit. Thursday we are moving in host families in the Brokopondo region, I will be staying in a village with 2 of the other volunteers for about 5-6 weeks. We started language training today, I’ll be learning Saramaccan. So far there is nothing much to report. I have been feeling well and haven’t gotten sunburn. We have had a lot of time to adjust to the humidity, which definitely doesn’t hurt me. I hope to be posting pictures in a couple weeks, right now it’s harder working from an internet café.
I love you guys! Thanks for all your support so far!
Jes

Packing

Hello everyone!
I am sitting here in the dwindling hours before my departure and rather than figuring out if my bags weigh too much I decided to make my first post on my blog. I hope to periodically update here so that everyone can be "in the know." There's not too much to know so far, only that I will be traveling to Paramaribo, Suriname on Wednesday afternoon to begin my adventures as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Right now I am excited, nervous, anxious, sad, happy and probably not going to sleep tonight considering my flight to Miami is at 7:45am tomorrow morning.I am sad to say goodbye to all my friends and family, but ready for the experience that awaits me.

Thanks to everyone for coming out this last week to see me, I really, really enjoyed seeing everyone. It was a blast! Please follow up with me here, or send me an email (jschmitt22@gmail.com). Hope to hear from you all soon :)

Love you all,
Besos.

Jessica