Dee Maku (Mosquitoes) and Bucket Baths (written 6/7/10)

Our home stay Peace Corps adventure has begun. At the time that I am writing this, we've been living with a local family in the Surinamese jungle for almost three weeks. A different way of life is what we signed up for and that is what we got. We live in a small village that consists of one paved road (recently paved) running through the center with about 30 small, rudimentary houses on either side, one church, and two small convenience-like stores (although one our family does not want us to go to as they do not like the owner, so we're down to one).  That's it. There are two other Peace Corps volunteers staying with other families in our village, which is nice. Also, we can walk to two other nearby villages. One of the villages houses two more PC volunteers and the other is more of a “business center” where the PC rents a room to have our weekly group meetings with all 24 volunteers. 

Before I go any further, I want to say thank you for everyone who prayed for a good home stay family. In comparing stories with other PC volunteers here, we really lucked out. They are genuinely kind people and really seem interested in what we are doing. Our host parents are 32 and 37 and there are 7 kids living in the house with us. Yep, 7. I'm not going to lie, having 7 hands and eyes all over you most of the time is starting to wear on us, but we've realized that in comparison to many other kids here, ours are some of the more well behaved. They range in age from 1 to 15. Four are our host parents' kids and  three are relatives that they have taken in. Have I mentioned that our host mom is almost nine months pregnant? She is due in just two weeks so that means by the time you are reading this, the baby has hopefully arrived. That should be an interesting addition to our experience. I mention the pregnancy as a side note because that seems to be how it is treated here. Our host mom has been working from dawn to dust since we've been here, cooking, cleaning, taking care of her children, taking care of the bakaa (white people), sewing, etc. Not to mention it is freaking HOT here. I cannot imagine caring around a child inside of me on top of all of that. Women in this country are tough.

Ryan and I have language classes with the two other PC volunteers in our villages four hours a day, five days a week. Our teacher is from this village but lives in the capitol city now. Most days we have separate technical training as well, as Ryan is a business volunteer and I am a health volunteer. So far, I have learned that the biggest health challenges this country faces are non-communicable diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and anemia. Furthermore, these issues are directly correlated to the diet, which consists of starch, starch, starch, sodium, sodium, sugar, and a tiny bit of protein. Being a health volunteer should prove to be especially challenging here.

Life here in Suriname is TOUGH. We are blessed that our family has running water, electricity AND a flush toilet. Many other PC volunteers are battling latrines, pee pots and head lamps already. All of those things will be awaiting us at our permanent site in about a month and a half. For now we are adapting to ants, mosquitoes, bucket baths, mosquitoes, bugs, 7 children wanting our attention, everyone asking us where we've been and where we're going, not understanding anyone talking a new language to us, mosquitoes and trying to stay clean for more than 30 seconds.

New things/feelings that are now a part of our lives here:

·        Chickens and roosters wandering around all the time, crowing every 7 minutes, 24 hours a day. Ryan has had to convince me that killing all the roosters in the village would be a bad way to impress the neighbors. At 3 in the morning I don't really care.

·         Chicken feet soup

·        Everyone calling us bakaa (it just means any white person, originally intended for Dutch people)

·        Geckos are now on our top 3 favorite animals list as they eat insects. We welcome them into our house and bedroom.

·        Mosquitos and fire ants are our top 2 most hated creatures. Every single person reading this that lives in California, stop right now and take a moment to be thankful for that beautiful, mostly insect free state.

·        Rain at least once every day (usually 2-3 times). We love the rain here. For one, it cools everything down and secondly, I've just always loved rain. It'll start pouring in an instant and then get sunny and cloudless within 15 minutes. The best is when it rains at bedtime and lulls us to sleep or when it rains in the morning, so the freaking roosters are taking cover somewhere besides standing directly outside of my window crowing.

·        Wrapping plaid pieces of cloth around my waist as a skirt everyday.

·        Not looking in mirrors. After about a week, I realized that I had not looked in a mirror once since coming to home-stay. Think about it. How many times have you looked in the mirror just today? There just aren't mirrors in homes here. In fact, physical things are very minimal...except for the huge amount of tupperware, pots and pans in our kitchen that are seemingly unused.

·        Eating everything with spoons, including chicken on the bone. In fact, I've only seen 2 forks in our house and no butter knives. Everyone uses spoons to eat everything.

·        Bathing by bucket bath. We have a wash room in our house and running water, which is unusual. So, Ryan and I have our own bucket,we fill it with cold water, then splash it on ourselves with a cup to wash. It is so hot here that the cold water usually feels good...but I do miss clean American bathrooms and brushing my teeth in a sink instead of spitting down the drain hole while trying to fight off mosquitoes. At our permanent site we'll have a wash shanty outside, so that will be the next level.

·        Eating chicken and rice for lunch and dinner at least 5 days a week. And our family cooks more variety than a lot of other host families.

I have come to discover that there is Peace Corps and there is Peace Corps Suriname. From what we've heard from current and returned PC volunteers who have served in other countries, Suriname is much more intense and … less modern than most PC locations. We are definitely getting our taste of Africa in this strange South American country. I have traveled through five other countries in South America, so I can say firsthand that Suriname does not in any way belong in a category with them. From my experience so far, I would say it is mostly Africa, with a little bit of Caribbean mixed in. In fact, it's hard to believe that I am on the same continent as Buenos Aires. It seems like I am worlds and decades away...

Special thanks to my wonderful mother, my cool pops, my awesome friend Jody, my sweet grandpa, my amazing sister and her adorable 5^th graders and my rockin' father-in-law for sending us your love via mail and care packages!! Your time and effort really means a lot to us and it is very exciting to get mail!! We love you all a ton and miss you!

P.S. I tried to upload pictures, but this internet connection isn't strong enough. :( Hopefully I'll have time to try another connection, but I don't know. Huge bummer!