Rachel Josina Lindsay Smit

Our adorable host mom finally gave birth to a beautiful little girl! In case you haven't figured it out from this post title, if nothing else, I will be leaving behind a namesake in this mysterious and beautiful country. I am, of course, thrilled! Ryan and I have been extremely blessed to live with such a wonderfully kind family for our home-stay experience. Do not get me wrong, the numerous children have been more than challenging at times, but I have felt safe and welcomed here, especially by our host mom, who always gets a kick out of me. Rachel is pronounced “Raquel”, Josina is pronounced “Yoseena” and Lindsay is, of course, Lindsay. :) Our household is now perfectly even: 6 boys/men and 6 girls/women.

My Husband is Turning Black

Some of you might find that title slightly abrasive. However, being a bi-racial couple, Ryan and I are becoming more and more blunt with what color we are. I would say that is mostly a result of other people's reactions to us, rather than who we inherently are. Some of you might be thinking, “wait, isn't Ryan already black?” I should start writing down a list of all the ethnicities that random people assume Ryan is. Talk about entertainment. I will leave that question to him. Anyways, here is a picture of Ryan in California before we left and here is a recent picture of him. It is truly amazing to me how quickly he tans. After just a few short hours in the sun, he moves like 5 shades down the color scale.

In case any of you are wondering, I am developing a nice, golden tan at a much slower rate with a bazillion new freckles. Sunscreen (next to bug repellent) is my constant companion.

Oh Yeah... And We Freed A Sloth

So, on the second day of our visit with a veteran PC volunteer in Suriname, we were walking back from canoeing on the river when one of the women of the village called us over excitedly. We walk up to find her poking at the most depressed looking sloth I have ever seen (ok, you caught me, it's the first one I've seen up close), trying to drag itself to freedom in painful slow motion. They had found this unfortunate creature in the jungle and were minutes away from starting to prepare him for dinner. In my experience so far, it seems as if the Saramaacan people will eat any kind of animal they find in the jungle- iguana, alligator, tapir, sloth, monkey, wild boar, etc. This is not surprising considering the Maroon peoples were once living in the bush in hiding as escaped slaves from the Dutch plantation owners. They hunted to survive and ate whatever they could. The Peace Corps volunteer we were visiting asked the woman for what price she would be willing to sell the silo (“sloth” in Saramaacan). She asked if he knew how to cook it and he assured her that he did and that silo was suuuuuuuuuuuuuuti (“delicious”, commonly said in a sing-song voice). She stated $30 SRD and looked ready to defend that price but it was quickly agreed to. The PCV handed over the money and informed Ryan that he was responsible for carrying the sloth to freedom. The woman handed Ryan her 2x4 previously used for torture and, for $10 USD, Ryan carried the insanely lucky sloth on the edge of the wood back to the PC house. After taking some “I'm joining the Peace Corps and living in the jungle”-worthy pictures, we hiked into the Amazon jungle behind the village and set the sloth free. We did not hear of anyone else eating sloth and rice while we were there, so here is to hoping the little guy had sense enough not to wander back onto any hunting paths.

In case anyone is wondering, even though his fur looks super thick and scratchy, it is actually extremely soft. I was also surprised to discover how strong this little guy was. And yes, those claws are
not to be reckoned with. Hence the 2x4.

Welcome to Suriname

If any of you have checked out Suriname on Wikipedia, one of the country's major claims to fame is having a broad mixture of ethnic groups and languages. This aspect of Suriname has already completely fascinated me. I thoroughly enjoy sociology, general people watching, and cross cultural experiences. Sooooo...Ryan and I visited a PC volunteer who has already been here for 2 years last week. He was a gracious host and we had a relaxing, mostly kid-free stint. The third day there, however, my ear started to hurt, so I gave the PC doctor a call. He said that he had a good contact at the nearby medical mission, so I should go there to get it checked out. We show up and the Doc's contact was very excited to tell us that he had two doctors in that day, so he would have them look at my ear. The two doctors walk out. One is about 6'7” and from Holland while the other is about 5'5” and from Cuba. Apparently Cuba sends healthcare providers to many nearby nations in need and I am told they are very good. Holland is Suriname's biggest investor, charitable partner and, of course, former colonial power. Apparently, they send an array of skilled individuals (largely in the medical field) to Suriname for field experience.

At one point, the Surinamese contact was taking to the PC doctor on the phone in Dutch with probably a mix of Saramaccan and Sranan Tongo, then the Surinamese guy would tell the Dutch kid what the doc said in Dutch, who in turn told the Cuban doctor what was said in English and they both tried to tell me in English. I then turned to the Cuban guy and spoke to him in Spanish. It was a very entertaining experience.

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!

We've arrived in Suriname and are doing well!

We were greeted at the airport by Peace Corps (PC) staff giving us beautiful flowers. We were then welcomed to the Peace Corps training camp by many current Peace Corps volunteers who traveled into the city just for us (okay, probably also for food and to speak English). Each current volunteer put a pangi around us (which I can use later as a skirt, it is just a bright piece of fabric) and helped carry our luggage to our rooms where there were welcome baskets full of fruit, our medical kits, things to wash our clothes, prepared beds complete with mosquito nets, etc. That was around 1am Thursday morning. Since then, we have been in orientation sessions most of the time, getting to know the PC staff and other trainees (we are not PC volunteers until we swear in around July 20th), and trying to get used to the heat.

Ryan with his pangi showing you our room with our double bed mosquito net. There have not been many mosquitos though!

It is HOT here. It is during the rainy season so it drizzles throughout the day (and sometimes pours), which is a relief from the sun...until the moisture just makes it even more humid. Supposedly, this is the cool time of the year, though, so we'll see how much hotter we can stand it.

Our two welcome baskets and two buckets and scrub basins to handwash our clothes! We have not attempted this yet...

We've been able to get to town just a couple quick times to use the nice (and air conditioned!) internet cafe. It is strange to not know ANY of the language. Even when I was in Argentina and I did not know any of the Argentine slang or understand the accent, I still knew some Spanish. So I could get my point across, read most of the signs and understand a word or two. Most people start to speak to us in Dutch (at least I am assuming that is what it is). Some people know English, like the guy who works at the internet cafe (thank goodness!).

The sun setting behind our training camp

The PC staff is kind and the food has been very good, although repetitive. There is A LOT of chicken and rice in our future, which, luckily, we both like. We are supposed to find out which village we will be permanently placed in and get our cell phones on Monday. However, we're having trouble buying a SIM card for the phone as the little phone store cannot handle the demand of all 24 trainees. Hopefully it will be sorted soon.

I miss everyone back home and look forward to hearing from all of you. We've only been here for about 3 days, but it feels like a lot longer! We will be at the training site until Thursday, then move in with our host family and the real adventure begins!

2 Days 'Til I Leave the Country!

I absolutely cannot believe it. Ryan and I started the Peace Corps process so long ago and every step of the way has been so….unsure... that I do not really believe we are actually starting our adventure in 2 days. Well, 1 day really, as our adventure starts in Miami tomorrow (5/4). I don’t think it will sink in until after we have been in Suriname for awhile.

Our LONG “to do” list is finally checked off and we have been enjoying time with family and friends. We are SO thankful for all the love and support that we have been shown and realize how lucky we are. We have loved every minute of our send-off from CA to MS.

A few days with the Joiner Fam in San Jacinto, CA:

In San Diego for Mexican food and Mulvaney's (my country bar):

A few days in Austin, TX with the BIL & SIL:

Yes, Anne and I rented a giant swan. Be jealous.

And finally a few days in Gulfport, MS and New Orleans, LA with the rest of the Dapremont Fam:

Hmmm warm beignets while we escape the thunderstorm!

My first crawfish boil at the Havers!

I'm just missing pics of the 3 generations of Dapremont men from when we visited Gramps with Doctor Dapremont! Doc or Moks, please send!

Prayers for safe travels are appreciated! Love y'all.