Have you had your bread and rice today?

While I have grown to like the food from Suriname, there is one thing I CANNOT get used to. That is waking up to the smell of the day’s hot meal being cooked at 7 A.M. As far as I’m concerned the only cooking smells I enjoy at that time of day is coffee brewing and bacon frying. I definitely DO NOT like waking up to the smell of garlic and hot peppers frying with fish or whatever meat will be the main part of the day’s meal. I’ve gotten used to the fact that the meal is cooked first thing in the morning and left to sit on the stove all day to be eaten whenever you are hungry, but I hate the smell of it cooking when I wake up in the morning. It’s just overwhelming to smell garlic and hot peppers frying in oil on the stove.

The other mainstays are rice and bread. They aren’t kidding here when they ask have you had your bread and rice today. They are serious, it’s generally expected that you’ll eat bread and rice EVERY day. I generally have bread for breakfast and lunch and a hot meal at night that almost always includes rice. And when a Surinamer hasn’t had their rice, they notice it and at the end of the day will say, oh, I didn’t eat any rice today. I find this so funny because the other day I had potatoes for dinner (SHOCK!) and I found myself thinking, hey, I didn’t have any rice today.

One important thing to note when cooking and eating in Paramaribo, the capital city of Suriname. The water here is potable. I drink the water straight from the tap. So cooking and eating out is no problem.

Here are some photos of the foods I eat regularly here in Suriname.

Rice with fish and veggies

Nasi

Rice with beef and veggies

Saoto Soup (a Javanese dish that I generally eat minus the chicken feet or baby fingers as I like to call them)

Ooh, this was a new one. It’s also Javanese. It’s called Tahoe-lonton. It has shredded chicken, cubes of tofu and sticky rice (of course), bean sprouts and shredded cabbage and it’s topped with a hot pepper sauce. It was delicious.

Many times I've snacked on these tasty little tidbits. I don't know what they are called. They are Javanese. They are made of rice and they are sort of sweet.

Each culture here has its own cuisine. Here’s a breakdown of the main dishes by ethnic group that I’ve had:

Javanese
Saoto soup: A chicken based soup (cooked with chicken feet) that you add shredded chicken, bean sprouts, shredded fried potatoes, finely chopped fried onions and garlic, a boiled egg and rice or noodles to. You put a layer of each in your bowl and then pour the soup over top.

Bami: A spaghetti type noodle fried in oil eaten with a hot pepper mixture called sambal.

Nasi: Nasi is basically the Indonesian equivalent of Chinese Fried Rice. The spices are different of course but everything else is pretty much the same. Generally here Nasi is only made with chicken, no shrimp, beef or other kind of meat.

Loempia: This is the Indonesian version of an eggroll, but it is bigger and filled with finely chopped beans (called cowsaband), bean sprouts and meat. Eaten with sweet and sour sauce yum!

Sate: A wooden stick with chicken, beef, or shrimp on it eaten with a spicy peanut sauce. (My mom’s sate and peanut sauce is still the best I’ve had in the ENTIRE world…and I’ve now tried sate on four Continents…beat that!)

East Indian Cuisine
Roti: Roti here is a little different than the Caribbean version. Here you get a large, round flat bread dough which you tear into pieces and use to eat a mixture of curried chicken, duck or lamb (one the bone of course), potatoes, and yard-long beans (cowsaband). You eat with your hands, it’s messy, but delicious!

Traditional Suriname Dishes
Pastei: This is kind of like chicken-pot-pie. There is dough on the bottom of the casserole. The filling is shredded chicken (yay, no bones), carrots, peas, crushed tomatoes and spices. Top it with dough and then bake it in the oven.

Pom: Pom is a root that is grated into a mush and mixed into a casserole with chicken and baked in the oven. It is best eaten with rice but you can eat it on its own too. The best Pom I’ve had in Suriname is from this little stand by the river called Uncle Re’s. No other has compared.

Bruine bonen (or brown beans): Bruine bonen is kind of like a stew. You put the beans in a pot, add sausage, chicken and salt beef and let it cook all day. You eat it over rice or as a soup.

Pinda soep (or peanut soup): A soup with a base of crushed peanuts to which salt beef and chicken is added. Plantain dumplings are also often added. The soup is usually eaten over rice (of course), but you can eat it without the rice too.

Cassava: Cassava is like a potato. Here you can have cassava chips, cassava soup or you can get pieces of it fried and topped with veggies and salted fish. I’m not a fan of that dish, but I do like fried cassava eaten plain.

So there you go, there’s a quick rundown of some of the foods of Suriname. Are you hungry?

It Must be Monday

Someone tried to pickpocket me today. Unfortunately for him he chose the wrong day to try this. Last night I got some news that left me in tears. And so I’m mad at the world and all its injustices today. As I was walking in town today I felt someone bump against me and there was a tug on my bag. I looked at the guy who bumped me and gave him a dirty look. Like I said, I’m mad at the world today. He said “sorry, sorry hey”. But something seemed wrong. I felt the pockets of my bag and knew my change purse had been taken. I yelled “hey” at the guy who was now walking directly in front of me. He stopped. I said let me look in your bag. To my surprise, he obliged (I even rifled through it...apparently I have some nerve today!). It wasn’t there. I thought maybe I was wrong, but then I said “let me see your pockets”. Again to my surprise he lifted one side of his shirt. I said “the OTHER pocket too”. To my AMAZEMENT he obliged. And there tucked in his pocket was my change purse. I grabbed it from his pocket. He said “it was on the ground, I picked it up”. I said or rather yelled VERY loudly (so loud people stopped to see what was going on), “No it wasn’t. Do you think I didn’t feel that? If you’re going to pick pocket someone learn to do it properly”. I walked off in a huff. I never considered my actions might have been dangerous, I just wasn’t in the mood to take shit from anyone. I don’t even know where the nerve to confront the guy came from. And as I walked down the street the reality caught up with me I could feel my heart racing. I guess at the very least that guy won’t be trying to pickpocket anyone for a while, at least not angry-looking white girls anyway. And so this is how my week has started. Please God, let it get better from here on!

A Suriname Top Ten

This week marks 10 weeks until I leave Suriname. I don’t know where the time has gone. I thought it would be a good opportunity to make a top 10 list. So here are the top 10 things I like about Suriname and the top 10 things I miss from home.

Top 10 Things about Suriname
1) The people I’ve met. I have made some wonderful friends who I will miss dearly.
2) How friendly everyone is. Everyday as I walk to work people say hello to me. Makes you feel at home.
3) How all the ethnic groups here manage to maintain their own culture.
4) The chinese shops that sell a little bit of everything - one stop shopping has a whole new meaning in Suriname!
5) All the different languages…Dutch, Javanese, Hindustani, Portuguese, English, French, Spanish and of course, Taki Taki.
6) The warm breezes. I don’t love being sweaty, but the warm breezes wrap around you like a hug here.
7) All the different flowers and trees and birds – many I’ve never seen in my life before. I definitely will not miss the ants and cockroaches!
8) The public buses. They are as much fun as they are frustrating!
9) The children. They seem to need so little to make them happy. You see them playing in yards with nothing more than a skipping rope for an entire afternoon. When’s the last time you saw that in North America?
10) Laying in my hammock on a Sunday afternoon reading a book.

Top 10 things I miss from home
1) My family and friends…hands down the #1 thing I miss.
2) Friday nights at Dawn & Dan’s; trash TV night with Lisa and Jen; Sunday brunch with Catherine, Marcy & JP followed by a matinee; hanging with Pam, Lorri & RodO.
3) I miss going to the movies. There is no movie theatre here. I’m dying to hit the cinema.
4) My bed and the general peacefulness of my neighbourhood. It’s loud here. The dogs bark ALL the time and it’s prompted me to ponder doggy murder…I wish I were kidding about that I really do.
5) Bacon….cooked by my dad on Sunday mornings. Seriously. I’ve heard it can be found here (obviously not cooked by my dad) but so far it has eluded me.
6) Good coffee. They live by instant here…it’s just wrong.
7) Veggies. There are tons of local greens here and I’ve grown to like them but I miss romaine lettuce, baby carrots, fresh mushrooms, cauliflower, yellow beans, snow peas….I could go on and on.
8) Condiments. I miss all the marinades and sauces and having 100 salad dressings to choose from. Luckily I’m learning how to make my own using local ingredients.
9) Being cold. I actually miss pulling on a nice warm sweater on a cool day. NOTE: I’m not talking about -33.
10) Going to the bookstore and loading up on books and magazines. Though a woman recently opened an English only bookstore – it’s a cute little shop in her home with just one wall of books, but the selection was surprisingly good.

That's all for now. Stay tuned, next week I've got some long-overdue installments of Suriname Quirks for you.

Kids will be kids

In between Christmas and New Years, at the suggestion of one of my fellow Canadians here in Suriname, instead of exchanging Christmas gifts with each other, we used the money to buy some much-needed supplies (diapers and underwear) for kids at a place called Claudia A. I was thrilled with the idea, having brought colouring books and paint sets and stickers with me from Canada with the intention of taking them to an orphanage here so this was perfect as far as I was concerned.

Claudia A is a home for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS and women whose families have rejected them upon discovering they were HIV positive. There are also a few women and orphans from the neighbourhood who are not HIV positive, but who simply cannot care for themselves or their children and have no place else to go.

Claudia A is named after a young drug-addicted HIV positive woman who dreamed of changing her life and improving the lives of others. She inspired the creation of Claudia A. Tragically she was killed in an accident before she could see her dream become a reality in 1999. Claudia A began as a drop-in centre where people with HIV/AIDS could come for support, a meal, a bath, and a place to come during the day when no one else wanted them. Eventually it evolved into a home for women and children impacted by HIV/AIDS. Today about 7 women and 24 children all of varying ages call Claudia A home.

Their home is a crowded one. As we walked through the house we saw rooms with six-beds to a room bunks that were stacked 3 high. And they say Claudia A is less crowded than most orphanages…I can’t imagine! After a quick walk through the house we were lead into the backyard to meet the kids. It was nothing more than a couple old swingsets and a gravel patch. And this is where some 20 children spend their day! If you saw it, you might cry, and I might have too if it weren’t for the kids. Because I know now that no matter where you go or what you have in life, kids will be kids no matter what.

These kids, they just wanted someone new to play with, to hug, to climb on and show off to…and yes, to bring them presents…we got asked a lot if we brought presents. So here are the kids of Claudia A. As usual, many thanks to Berwyn, our personal photographer for capturing the spirit of all these great kids.







This is where they play. An old swingset and a gravel yard.


This little monkey wouldn't leave me alone. And a monkey she was. She would climb to the top of the swingset and JUMP at me. I thought it was awefully trusting of her that I would catch her...thankfully every time I did! And she always gave me lots of hugs and kisses when I did.


All this little one wanted was for Corina to pick her up...as you can see she got her way!!


And this little one wouldn't leave Julie alone either! Note the laundry basket behind the other little girl...there's a baby in there. The newest addition to Claudia A. She and her mother had nowhere else to go.


When kids attack! I learned the hard way, if you get down on the ground, be prepared to get piled on. Notice that no matter where I go, kids want to play with my hair!


Despite what I thought was a sad, sad thing, these kids were all smiles. Perhaps it's because even though the place is crowded and the yard has no grass to play on, it's still better than where they were....hard to believe that is even possible.

Christmas & New Years in Suriname

Now that I have experienced the holidays in a warm climate I can tell you this. I prefer Christmas to have snow and will gladly spend New Years in the warm sun anytime.

As for spending the holidays in Suriname here goes…

Christmas Mass in Suriname
It never really felt like Christmas for me here in Suriname until I went to Christmas Eve mass. I wasn’t really surprised when things got off to a late start, but when I saw the person we were waiting for I couldn’t help but laugh. The front row was reserved for none other than the President and First Lady of Suriname. And I was sitting maybe 10 feet away in the pew behind. I can’t get within 100 feet of my own Prime Minister but in Suriname I can go to mass with the President! The mass itself was pretty much par for the course for any Catholic mass. What was different is there seems to be some universal agreement that people wear white and red to Christmas mass. It’s interesting how in Suriname people have colour schemes for their celebrations. I’ve been to a wedding where everyone was to wear white or green. I was invited to a birthday party where everyone was to wear red and another where everyone was to wear blue. And now I go to Christmas mass and I see the colour scheme is red and white. I wonder how this tradition started? Oh, I forgot to mention, most impressive was the beautiful music at mass. The choir could SING. And even more impressive, so could the priest. The guy sounded like one of the three tenors…seriously. Oh and the choir was accompanied by drums and maracas. O Come all Ye Faithful accompanied by drums…just lovely. And the priest with the terrific voice loved to sing…so much so that he absolutely BLEW me away when he sang the Gospel. Yes, you read that right. He SANG the gospel. And it sounded amazing.

Santa Sightings
In terms of all the stuff you expect to come along with Christmas in North America, well, let’s see…Christmas lights…yup, got those here. Music...yup, been playing holiday music and playing Christmas videos on TV since mid-November. Christmas trees…yup, though not everyone has them there are quite a few around in restaurants, in stores and in the malls. Santa…yup, seen him too.

Christmas lights on buildings along the waterfront.


First Christmas and Second Christmas
For the most part people don’t exchange gifts here. At least not like we do in North America. Here, the holidays for most people are focused on spending time with family. It’s really central to the celebrations. I spent Christmas day with my adopted Javanese family out in Commewijne sitting and eating and visiting with people….and watching the kids blow off fire crackers (more on the freaking fire crackers later!). Here instead of Christmas Day and Boxing Day, they have first day of Christmas and second day of Christmas. So on day one I was eating Javanese food and on day two I stayed home and I ate local dishes (that I helped make) like pom and pastille. Pom is sort of like a mushy sweet potatoe pie with bits of veggies and chicken in it. It’s very sweet, baked in the oven and tastes best eaten with rice. Pastille is sort of like chicken pot pie but less saucy. It’s a dish with pastry crust on the top and bottom with chicken, carrots and peas in the middle. For dessert there was pineapple cake and rum cake (heavy on the rum!). Delicious. So like Christmas in Canada, the eating at the holidays is all good.

Peggy and her husband - I went to Peggy's family's house for Christmas in Commewijne.


The kids blowing off fire crackers in the yard.



New Years Eve
New Years here is really a multi-day celebration. The street parties began on Thursday and continued until Monday night. On New Years Eve though something happened I’ve never seen before. You go out and party until 10 pm at which point, everything and I mean everything closes down and everyone goes home to celebrate the end of the old year and the start of the new year with friends and family. Like I said, everything is really family focused here. Imagine you’re on the street with thousands of people. At 10 pm the music shuts down, people start pouring out of bars and restaurants and start walking home. At home they have something to eat (of course!) and wait for midnight. All the while the skies are lit up with fireworks and firecrackers as every household sets off their own. Then, around 1 am everything opens up again and people start heading back to the street parties and bars to dance the night away. Unreal. I didn’t believe it when people told me that’s what happens here, but then I saw it for myself. At midnight Mvr. Kamperveen and I walked out to the street and wished all of the neighbours a Happy New Year. It was really, really nice. After four days of street parties I decided to pass on returning to the bar and instead wandered down to another neighbours house to celebrate the New Year with her and her daughters and a few other people. We set up chairs in the driveway and watched the kids in the neighbourhood set off fire crackers and enjoyed some bevies. All in all, a really nice New Years experience….or at least it was, because in my mind that meant the end of the firecrackers…..unfortunately I was wrong.......

Jetty, Me and Mvr. Kamperveen enjoy some drinks on the patio on New Years Eve (or as it's called in Suriname, end of old year).


The crowds partying in the streets...before heading home to celebrate with family.


At Jetty's house having bevvies and watching the fireworks with Heraya (Jetty's daughter) and Gio.


Fire Cracker Hell
One day just short of a week before Christmas I was coming out of an office and I hear all this banging. I thought it was a marching band or something but when I walked out I saw red fire cracker paper all over the sidewalk across the street. It was a Thursday, two in the afternoon. So apparently someone had nothing better to do than set off a bunch of fire crackers. I thought it was odd, but I had no idea that it was only just the beginning of things to come. I’d heard that they brought in a dozen or so shipping containers of fire crackers for the holidays in Suriname in the past but I had no concept just how many fire crackers that was and I foolishly thought it was all for New Years Eve. I was wrong….SO WRONG!!! For the last 12 days or so fire crackers have been going off like bombs at random times all day every day. It’s 9 am lets set off some crackers. It’s 2 am on a Tuesday, you know what we should do, set off some fire crackers. I seriously feel like I’ve been living in a war zone. I have a whole new level of sympathy for people caught in war zones. I can’t even imagine (or maybe I can!). I all the banging makes me jump but at least I know it’s not bullets. That said, if you want to get away with shooting someone without raising suspicion, I have to say, Christmas time in Suriname no one will blink an eye if they hear a noise that sounds like a gun so go for it.

Aside from the noise, there are the hazards that come with this much fire cracker activity. For one I’ve been told by Mvr. Kamperveen to keep all the shutters closed on the house as stray fire crackers flying in can be a hazard. Stray fire crackers? I didn’t understand until I saw kids randomly tossing them into the streets. Cars, homes, people, no one is safe. As is evident from the fireworks safety commercial they have been running on TV. It shows actual photos of people missing fingers, with massive burns and one guy missing half his face…I remind you these are ACTUAL photos….so gross!

The constant fire cracker activity was building up to a few major fire cracker events. The first was on Friday afternoon when the offices around the city held staff parties and set off fire crackers.

Staff at Mamio Namen Project get ready to set off some fire crackers at the staff holiday party.


Then Saturday all of the retail businesses in Paramaribo set off fire crackers in one massive display up and down the streets in the center of the city. I can’t even begin to describe it. Thousands of people filling the streets in anticipation of the big event. Then around noon, the shop keepers started rolling out massive boxes of fire crackers and lining the streets with them….see for yourself…

People start lining the main street in Paramaribo in anticipation of the big event.


And here come the fireworks.




The firecrackers went on for a few hours. It’s so loud and smoky....note Corina demos how we watched the massive display.


In the end, the streets are covered in red fire cracker carnage.


On New Years Eve, the fire crackers continued throughout the day and got heavier and heavier as the day went on. Up to this point there had been very few fireworks, but on Sunday night, all bets were off and the skies throughout the city lit up for hours as people set off fire crackers and fireworks. I mean it, it went on for HOURS and HOURS. This was no 20 minute fireworks display at midnight. This was all day, all night, every household in Paramaribo setting off fireworks and fire crackers. Before long the streets were covered in a haze and all you can do is stand in the street and stare up at the sky in utter amazement. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my life and while I am DAMN tired of the fire crackers, I have to say I’m really glad to have seen New Years Eve in Suriname. Standing there in absolute awe Mvr. Kamperveen explained to me that people here believe in ending the year with a bang. If it was a bad year then it’s an opportunity to give it a big finish and then start fresh for 2007. If it’s a good year then it’s an opportunity to celebrate it. And that they do. End big with lots of celebration.

The massive fireworks as seen on my street.



The fireworks shots were taken by Berwyn (my fellow Crossroader)...note the smoke haze from the fireworks. (He's promised me more photos so I'll post them up when I can).