Oh Canada!

On Friday night I helped work the Canada booth at the International Bazaar. Hosted at the Venezuela Embassy, the event has been taking place for the past 13 years. It’s an opportunity for all the countries who have embassies or consuls in Suriname to share a little something from home. Most booths sell food and small souvenirs. The Canada booth sold beer & ice cream. The beer presumably because we’re heavy beer drinkers in Canada and the ice cream presumably because it’s cold in Canada and ice cream is the best way to represent that. I don’t have words about these things being chosen to represent Canada, but I sure enjoyed the beer!!! The Consul kept giving me bottles and since it’s rude not to accept food here I of course had to accept every bottle!! It was lots of fun actually and I had delicious foods from Venezuela, France, Isreal – even the burger from the American stall tasted good and the home-made brownies even better.

Our booth was manned by the Consul, his family and of course Julie and I. The Consul is a really sweet man and his family is lovely. We had a lot of fun with them. Even better I found out that the Consul’s daughter recently opened an English-only bookstore here in Paramaribo. I got so excited. I can’t wait to check it out. English books are a bit hard to find here and the ones you do find are not good and VERY expensive. Though Corina (the latest Canadian Crossroader to arrive) and I did manage to find some English books at a used Book Market last weekend. I got two books – Love in the Time of Cholera and The Cider House Rules. We even found some Canadian Authors.

Here is Corina showing the Canadian books we found...that Anne of Green Gables, she sure gets around!


Serving up beer at the Canadian Booth at the International Bazaar.


Serving up ice cream...I noticed the beer was a lot more popular! Especially with those of us working the booth.


The Canadian Consul and his wife.


Whatever weight I've lost, I think I gained it all back in one night with beer, but oh, it was worth it. Canadian beer, soo goood.


On Saturday night I made up for all the beer consumption. I went to a club with some coworkers and we danced ALL night. So, I think I wore off all the beer from Friday dancing around like a maniac. Here we are cutting it up on the dancefloor.

Me and Firoz (my coworker)


At the club in Suriname you can buy the whole bottle. Then you get a bucket full of ice and some soft and you are ready to party. Here's Gio with his bucket.