Our Last Month at Site: Part 2

This year the men in our village surprised the women by cooking for them and buying them each a koosu for Mother's Day. The women quickly decided that they wanted to celebrate Father's Day in a similar fashion. In the same day, my local nurse and another woman in the village each came over to my house to tell me an idea they had. They wanted to raise money to bring a traditional song and dance group to our village to perform for the men. The group was supposed to come to an HIV/AIDS Celebration Day that the women in my 5 week HIV/AIDS training put on, but they were unable to attend due to an unexpected death of a co-wife. I was thrilled that they came up with this idea on their own and thought it was smart planning. The male attendance at the previous Celebration Day was low.

A few leaders proceeded to collect money from other women in the village to buy food, undershirts and underwear :) for all of the men. Additionally, they wrote a donation request letter that was typed up by a colleague in the city and distributed to numerous organizations to solicit money to bring the performance group to our village. The women mobilized themselves. In fact, I did not help organize anything.To be honest, theirs was a lofty goal. The performance group lives 3 hours upriver and renting a boat and paying for gasoline is very expensive. I thought that the chances were slim but I was already pleased that they had the idea. Anyways, Father's Day was three days before Ryan and I were leaving the village so I was busy getting ready to move.

In a Father's Day meeting, the women divided themselves into groups by neighborhoods and assigned who would cook what. Even though I live on the opposite side of the village as one of my best friends Helga, she informed me that I would be helping her make munga, the traditional Saramaccan cake. It was so fun! I have seen women make munga before but there were so many women helping (they do not make it often because it is a very involved process) that I didn't really get to do anything except take pictures. This time I was able to help with each step...including chopping wood for the fire. When Helga told me to come chop I informed her that I had no idea how. She informed me that I would learn. Four days out from leaving my village and there I was, learning new stuff.

At first I was I was really not good at it. Here are people watching me not knowing what I was doing (story of my life in Saramaka):

After some practice, though, I got the hang of it!

So, the process is more involved, but to summarize, munga is made from peanut and rice flour and grated coconut, pre-cooked in a pot over a wood burning fire, stuffed into sturdy jungle leaves wrapped into cones and tied off by natural jungle twine, then finished baking in a pot of boiling water. Check it out:

Stirring the batter when we first dropped it into the pot

Helga stuffing the leaf cones with cake batter

The leaf cones baking in the boiling water

Plus, more pics here.


Cut to later that day and one of my friends came over to tell me that they had raised all of the money to bring the performance group to our village. Medical mission and the local government both donated gasoline and the women negotiated with the boatman to accept gasoline instead of cash, etc. I was so proud!

On Father's Day, after church and in addition to cooking, five of the women who attended my HIV/AIDS training, presented the basics of HIV/AIDS education to over 100 men, women and young adults.

They all did a fabulous job, remembering all of the information that they gleaned nine months ago. International development mission of sustainability accomplished! Woot! When they were done, the visiting HIV/AIDS performance group performed:

After they were done performing, the women passed out all sorts of traditional Saramaccan food--apiti (fish and cassava soup), bami, cake, soda, beer, etc. After everyone had eaten, they called Ryan and me up to the front and my friend Helga talked about the different projects that we had done in the village and how well we lived with them. Then our captain said a few words on our behalf. He called two elders, one male and one female to come up and present us with traditional dress that they had made for us- a koosu for me and a bigi pangi for Ryan. They had them sewn with our village names on them. They are absolutely beautiful! Everyone came up and hugged us or thanked us for our work and took pictures with us with their cell phones. It was very sweet. Oh, and everyone told us that we needed to have children- lots of children-and bring them back to Suriname to show them. Not a shy culture. See more pictures here.

As if our goodbye at the school and on Father's Day was not enough, one of the village basias called everyone to one of our meeting houses the night before we left so that everyone could spend some last time with us, dance and say goodbye. We wore our new koosus, of course! Picture here.


This little guy was gettin' his groove on!

Ryan dancing with Mma

We left there around 10pm and by 6:30am the next day, our Saramaccan family was back at our house to be with us until our ride came at 10:30am. When the van pulled up in front of our house, the waterworks started for everyone, including us. We hugged everyone for the 5th time and got in the van. In true Saramaccan fashion, our villagers sang to us through their tears. The car pulled away and circled around to pass the back of the house. I looked out for one last time and saw some of my women running around the house towards us, waving goodbye. Ryan and I were overwhelmed and grateful for the wonderful week-long farewell that everyone gave us.

It was tough but the heartache tells me that we did well. The wonderful people of our village truly accepted us and let us into their hearts and unique culture. If you were to tell me, ten years ago, that I would become a beloved part of an African village in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, I would have laughed at the absurdity. It happened. I think by this time next week, it will seem like a dream...