Downhill Slope

The days have been long but the months have been short. It is hard to believe that we only have about five months left of our Peace Corps service. Half of our villagers talk as if we are leaving tomorrow and the other half insist that we have become so Saramaccan that we cannot possible go back and live in America. Though I appreciate the integration compliment, let me assure everyone back home that there is no doubt that we will be returning to the states this summer.  ;)

Like much of our time in this extreme, cultural challenge, emotions are high. One moment volunteers in my training group are exhausted from almost 2 years of washing clothes in the river and just want to go home now. The next they are close to tears at the thought of not waking up next to neighbors they have come to love. My heart is also being pulled in two directions.

What I WILL miss about my life in Suriname:

·         Our neighbor girl, Lefurny. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to leave her. L

·         Simplicity.

·         The richness of spreading information to people who have not heard it before.

·         Being able to wear flip flops and tank tops every day.

·         Having it literally not matter what I wear because the person next to me is wearing a lady’s see through nightie as a daytime outfit.

·         The creek by my house.

·         Green everywhere.

·         The amazing and strong women here. If I start to think about all of them and the work we have done together, I will be a blubbering mess.

·         Being so close to nature.

·         My porch!

·         Getting to hang out with my hubby so much!

·         Learning firsthand about the realities and challenges of development work.

·         Being able to learn new things about Saramaccan culture in my everyday life.

·         Not having to constantly rush from one thing to the next.

·         Not having to pay rent, water, electricity, and phone bills. Eek!

      My fellow Peace Corps Volunteer friends. They are the only ones who truly understand what I've experienced here.

What I WON’T miss about my life in Suriname:

·         Putting on a headlamp and grabbing an umbrella before crawling out of my 3 foot tall back door into the pouring rain and pitch blackness of 2am to walk out to my latrine and pee in my pee pot.

·         Vegetable, meat and fruit deficiencies. I will be doing a joyful dance every time I set foot in an American grocery store from here on out.

·         Sweating all the time.

·         Mosquitoes, biting flies, and creepy insects.

·         Walking in dirt and/or mud all the time.

·         Lack of privacy (do your neighbors know exactly what time you go to bed, when you wash, if you brushed your teeth, how many times you peed, etc. because all those things are done outside of your house and your neighbor is always outside, too?)

·         Being asked invasive and creepy questions by men I don’t know on a daily basis.

·         Being the only young married American couple in the freakin’ country.

·         Washing my clothes in the river or creek. I CANNOT believe I ever complained about having to push a button on a washing machine. Ridiculous.

·         Very defined gender roles.

·         Crowded, stifling hot public transportation. I day dream about driving alone in my own car going directly to wherever I want with a cool breeze blowing while I sing my heart out to the radio because no one’s listening. Literally daydream.

Like all things in life, this experience has neither been completely positive or completely negative. With the good comes the bad. It is just up to the individual person to decide which good things she is willing to sacrifice and which bad things she can put up with. Many people have asked me if, knowing all that I know now, would I still have joined the Peace Corps? Yes.  Peace Corps is not a perfect organization, by far. However, it offers a valuable, unique perspective that, I think, is extremely difficult to find anywhere else. International organizations are challenging. It is impossible to make one mold and expect it to prosper in various cultures. International development is hard. Period. The Protestant work ethic is an American value. Demanding efficiency is an American norm. “Beggars can’t be choosers” is an American saying. In order to be effective in a country outside of the U.S., development workers cannot bring an American mindset on the plane. High expectations can be good. However, expecting someone to reach “Z” when they are starting at “A” is not realistic. Progress is progress. If that person who starts at “A” reaches “F”, then that is an accomplishment. Although many western minds tend to disagree, success does not only come in huge numbers or impressive statistics.

Case in point: For the last couple of weeks I have been working with the 5-year-old who lives next door to me. After she gets home from Kindergarten, we sit on my porch and I make up activities for her, such as tracing shapes, coloring, cutting and gluing. My sister (a 3^rd grade teacher in America) explained that these skills are important for young children to learn because they improve their fine motor skills, which will later set them up to write well for the rest of their lives. Is this time and effort going to show up as large numbers on my official Peace Corps trimester report? No. Is it changing the world on a grand scale? No. But I hope and pray that it will change her world. That it will encourage her to do well in school because without an education her future is dim.

I guess my point with all this is to say do not judge people until you have walked in their shoes. Development work is slow. Don’t judge development workers. Some people complain about how difficult it is for certain demographics to get ahead in America. I agree. We should not stop working to change this. Just know that in some countries, it is difficult for ANYONE to get ahead. There are smart, hardworking people who are never given any opportunity to improve their status. Don’t judge countries that just cannot seem to get it together. If you were born and raised there, would you be able to get it together? Easy to say “yes”…until you have actually experienced that life (and for longer than a tourist).

Hygiene!

Your favorite blogger is now 27 years old. What did I do for my birthday you ask? I continued with a series of hygiene trainings, of course! The life of a Peace Corps volunteer. :) More on my birthday celebrations later...

A while back the U.S. military came to Suriname to provide cost free medical procedures and construction projects. They brought hundreds of toiletry packets that they gave to Peace Corps that included a hand towel, wash cloth, tooth brush, tooth paste, comb, brush, band-aids, etc. I requested some for our village. Instead of simply giving handouts, I thought this was a great opportunity to hold a training. As a health volunteer I have done a lot with HIV/AIDS but not a lot with hygiene and sanitation (at least, not officially). I showed the packs to my polic clinic nurse Lenda and asked what she thought. She currently has two nursing interns doing their field work here. Part of their requirements is to hold a community training. Perfect! Lenda and I met with the student to go over the information that should be covered. I also provided visual aides and activity ideas. Lenda thought the demographic who would benefit the most from a hygiene training was pregnant women and mothers with babies. She invited women from my village and the two other villages that our poli clinic covers. Thirty-one women showed up. Two-thirds of them had to travel by boat to attend. It was very successful!

A young mother, Ornella, washing her hands at a Durotank at the end of the training

A young mother and Lenda showing everyone what was inside the hygiene packets provided by the U.S. military

Lenda also wanted to go into the schools with the hygiene lesson. The first lesson given to mothers was done in Saramaccan and Sranan Tongo, mixed. In the schools, the nurses must speak Dutch. We evaluated what went well and what did not go well with the first lesson and came up with another lesson plan, targeted towards youth. This second training went even smoother. The nursing student did a wonderful job and I look forward to her future work. Lenda is very strict about anything we do here in my village (healthwise) we must do in the other villages that the poli clinic is responsible for. So, next week we will be traveling to a nearby village to hold the same hygiene lesson in their school.

"Personal Hygiene: What is personal hygiene?" (in Dutch)

Discussing when it is necessary to wash one's hands with soap

Click here to see more pictures.

Christmas Cleaning!

A "good Saramaccan woman" washes her house before New Years Day every year. It is just like the American spring cleaning tradition. Well, our hut was getting pretty gross, so Ryan and I pulled EVERYTHING out of the front room and scrubbed down the walls and floor. Talk about a dirty job. I am glad we did it, though. We organized and got rid of a lot of stuff. Less work to do in 5 months when we move back to the states!

Of course, Lefurny wanted to help. Here she is scrubbing down a shelf.