Pindasoep, bakabana and baithak gana.. teking a walk in Surinam
The cashier at the roti shop said she thought I was from India. I wished I knew enough Dutch to say that we both were from India a long time ago in a kind of a way.
There was a strange feeling being in Surinam.. connected through some shared histories but also disconnected through separate histories of colonization.
Ferry crossing
Travelling by bus and boat is long, but you get to hear so much stories. I am fas' and I listen to conversations. I watched the woman smoking and tried to listen in on the French Kweyol.
There was a Brazillian man, a musician, who spoke to me in Portanol. He was coming from 'Batchica (Bartica)' where he played for miners and was on his way to another mining camp in French Guiana. His wife was also playing different places and they were going to meet up in Surinam. (yes, I know enough portuguese and spanish to get this).
Then there was 56 yr old Baba.. the seaman heading to a fishing boat in French Guiana.. cigarette in mouth, cigarette behind his ear and beer in hand (at 830am). He was gaffing up a lady about his age. I kept my eyes on Langston Hughes' The Big Sea while hearing him tell her that he lived with a woman who had an 80 year old husband. He helped look after the busband (meh nah min' .. me bathe am an suh, clean he shit an all).. his marrid wife lef him and deh wid somebody in New York, and he also had a woman in French. He asked the lady if she did not want somebody to play with her hair. He said "me ting does still stan up and me nah guh nasty house".. and he asked me if 'meh na right son?"; I told him "I listenin' an' larnin' ".
On the ferry, a lot of people need help with the immigration forms. You get to find out people's business. I try to be polite like asking the Customs questions.. do you have any food you are taking in.. the carpenter man who has his lady in Surinam said nah, he just has his suitcase, and a bag of pastries from Guyana
Southdrain to Paramaribo
The officers say people over 60 years and mothers with small children. 56 year old Baba is in front of the 60 year old line.
Nobody is checked by customs really. The bus park is a mix of English and Dutch and Taki taki and other languages. The drivers move from English to Taki Taki effortlessly. I join a car.. me , carpenter, two miners, a quiet lady at the back and a pastor. The pastor and the miners dominate the conversation. They know the route and where to stop.. asking the driver for cool ones.
We all remark, especially the pastor and me how the place is clean. Yep.. Surinam is clean.. we stop to buy food and to eat in the car and nobody throws anything out of the window. We use the bags to keep the rubbish.
Except when we stop and the Guyanese miner in front throw out his box. I got mad.. said is no wonder dey shoot Guyanese.. I wished I had a whip to smack the hands of the litterer.. my only whip fantasy is to have some whip which lashes at the hand of every persons who throws rubbish around. The man said.. "they already had one box there" The Gandhian thing I guess to do would have been to pick up the box, and give him back and invoke the Pastor and Jesus and say let us find somewhere to throw this out... but anger though clouds these potential moments of nobility.
A friend and I talked.. yeah Surinam had bad history of governance and so on.. but it clean still.. even though their President son get hold for drugs. They have sweeping machines in the night, and nuff rubbish bins and so on.
Pastor and me talk about Church in between dozing and looking at the churches and wooden buildings and the clean yards.. clean parapets with flower plants on them. Plenty tall jhandi bamboo.
Paramaribo reach.. and we get dropped off. Rain plenty. The place is gray and I wonder how I am going to walk around and see the place without ketchin cold.
Walking in the rain in old clothes..
I check in at the Guesthouse. There is no net. The receptionist assures me that there will not be any mosquitoes, she does not like them either.
I put on some old clothes and go and walk in the rain to see the place..No umbrella is available. This is a real holiday.. I end up eating at the Waterkant .. bakabana, satay, loempia, nasi and I ask the lady for extra pinda sauce and peppa.. the peppa taste burns long after. A man asks me for money.. first in Taki Taki, then in Dutch I think and then in English. It is difficult to eat while a man asks for money so I gave him some. I should probably have enrolled him in a class for IT training so he could get a job and earn a sustainable livelihood.
The Diwali Nagar is opening and they are putting up their tents and so on in the rain. I manage to change into some not so old clothes and fortunately miss some of the speeches. There is a stall with nice cakes and there is an excellent performance of music. A young group, doing the bhajans in Baithak Gana style which we do not have much of in Guyana. Here is a sample
I see a lady with large beautiful eyes and an aristocratic nose.
Are you from Suriname she asks in nice Indian English accent?
I say no, from Guyana and we start chatting.
She is of Zoroastrian origins and doing Bahai service.
She has been to Guyana. Guyanese are nice she said. She knows people here. It is funny.. in terms of how anonymous I might be.. of how there are connections established.
One of her feeling she says, is that we who were colonised by the Brits seem to be more easy to laughing and relaxing than those who were colonised by the Dutch - they are very serious she says . The people around us though are laughing and talking.
She asks me if I would be become Bahai.. I said I am Hindu.. so all good. She quotes from the Gita.. yada yada he dharmasya.. and gives me a Bahai prayer in Hindi
I should have gone back the next night since she was given permission to set up a table to share the literature.
I walk back , feeling safe, to the Guesthouse . I would not be walking around GT at the hour I am walking around Paramaribo.
Lazing around Paramaribo
It is self indulgent to lie in bed and watch the sun rise. The night was cool and the receptionist was right, no mosquitoes.
I look up at wooden beams from the 1800s. A little light comes through the curtains on one window. I lie in bed and try to get some pictures.
I need to learn to use the camera.
I can hear the street noises and there is something about liming on a balcony in your sleepwear and watching early morning traffic and taking pictures.
I go back determined not to wake up early and lie down and listen to people passing. It doesn't feel right somehow.. so eventually I get up and go for Breakfast at a Chinese shop. Instant koffee .. with fresh brood with zoute vis;' and then I had another one wid korie ei.
No English spoken here.. but lots of smiles and hand gestures and exchange of change and money.
There is this kind of trust in places.. as you stretch out your hand and give them the money and they give you back change and you have no idea whether you have been robbed or not.
Then back to the Guesthouse to laze on the balcony until the check out time since I like to make the most of my money. A Dutch traveller is also doing the same and we chat about names and language. Some of our Guyana names, she tells me - Onderneeming means 'enterprising', Uitivlugt means 'escape or a way out' Beterverwagting means 'Better expectations'
Goedverwagting means 'Good expectations' and Vlissengen sounds like 'Flushinggg '
And so I walk around the place.. eat a roti in the roti shop. I visit the market.. buy some bananas for cheap.. Surinam has banana plantations.
This is luxury, though even with time to kill, it is going too fast. I find a square - Kerkplein - with a bench to sit down. There is a lady who has on a nice colourful dress and is sniffing from a bottle of something.
I smile at her and she looks away. I read and look up and I make sure that I keep a smile on my face in case she changed her mind and would smile back.
The rain came. I packed up .. and left the lady still not looking in my direction with her serious face, sheltering under her umbrella.
The Burger King was there for shelter.
There was a young lovey dovey couple in a table in front of me. The table behind me though.. was an old lovely dovey couple.. and this seemed a nice kind of lovely dovieness in that they sat opposite each other.. eating and talking in short stops.. and looking this way and that.. but you know.. the kind of 'should we, shouldn't we' kind of conversation.. and gestures they look at each other and they look away.
And I stop reading and turn my head round to read the signs on the doors because this kind of love is so much sweeter than young lovey dovey stuff.. and Langston Hughes at this time is not as gripping and I am on vacation. I do not mind people's business when I am not on vacation.
Travelling with a partner
I like to travel alone. The Universe however said try something different. Another traveller I met in Guyana told me , come come come and share the hotel room at the Marriot.
Yep.. we know in Guyana the Marriot is troublesome and I thought to myself about the irony.
I was anxious about how this would work out. I am like the man Frank Sinatra sings about when I am travelling. But it was good. The next couple of days, it was easy to share the time and be a voyeur too of how people interact with a place.
We did some God seeking (unintentionally). There was the second night of the Diwali Nagar.
I did not have my camera to record the Hanuman flying in front of the stage (with the help of a crane).. nor did I have my recorder to record the saxophone opening notes for Jai Laxmi Mata. Sometimes moments are to be enjoyed and not be captured forever.
We also walked a long way to see the Arya Dewakar.
On the way , I went into a DVD store to ask the directions. A man in dreadlocks was in a bed in a room and looked behind the door and said he did not know where the Arya Dewakar was. The shop had a picture of Sam Hinds. I went outside.. and as we looked at the map, I heard the man calling.. he stood in the doorway with towel wrapped around said .. yeah yeah.. the Arya Dewakar was further down.
We walked to the synagogue and mosque. My partner is of Jewish descent. There was something in my head about migrations and connections as I watched him take the pictures.
Pindasoep
Food.. yep.. you cross the border and the food changes. They eat a lot of bora there. And I love the pinda sauce. My partner had some tips on places to eat. The Pindasoep at De gaadri was good.. and what was even better was sitting there and watching the rain approaching and falling on the Paramaribo River. I had the camera and used it.
It was good to eat all the Javanese, Indian and mixed kinds of dishes in Paramaribo.
The Chinese food is not like ours here... but then again, one of the smartest things about the Chinese is that every country has its own version of 'Chinese' food.
The pepper.. the pepper was different.. I coughed when eating it with some saoto soep another night, but still put more.
Bakabana .. banana fried and served with the hot peanut sauce.. Dahwet.. drink made with coconut milk, lemongrass, sugar and corn starch bits..
They probably had salads and so on available.. but I did not look for them. I have a date with some delicious looking cakes and other vegetables which I did not get to try.
I have put in dates on the calendar for another trip.
There was a strange feeling being in Surinam.. connected through some shared histories but also disconnected through separate histories of colonization.
Ferry crossing
Travelling by bus and boat is long, but you get to hear so much stories. I am fas' and I listen to conversations. I watched the woman smoking and tried to listen in on the French Kweyol.
There was a Brazillian man, a musician, who spoke to me in Portanol. He was coming from 'Batchica (Bartica)' where he played for miners and was on his way to another mining camp in French Guiana. His wife was also playing different places and they were going to meet up in Surinam. (yes, I know enough portuguese and spanish to get this).
Then there was 56 yr old Baba.. the seaman heading to a fishing boat in French Guiana.. cigarette in mouth, cigarette behind his ear and beer in hand (at 830am). He was gaffing up a lady about his age. I kept my eyes on Langston Hughes' The Big Sea while hearing him tell her that he lived with a woman who had an 80 year old husband. He helped look after the busband (meh nah min' .. me bathe am an suh, clean he shit an all).. his marrid wife lef him and deh wid somebody in New York, and he also had a woman in French. He asked the lady if she did not want somebody to play with her hair. He said "me ting does still stan up and me nah guh nasty house".. and he asked me if 'meh na right son?"; I told him "I listenin' an' larnin' ".
On the ferry, a lot of people need help with the immigration forms. You get to find out people's business. I try to be polite like asking the Customs questions.. do you have any food you are taking in.. the carpenter man who has his lady in Surinam said nah, he just has his suitcase, and a bag of pastries from Guyana
Southdrain to Paramaribo
The officers say people over 60 years and mothers with small children. 56 year old Baba is in front of the 60 year old line.
Nobody is checked by customs really. The bus park is a mix of English and Dutch and Taki taki and other languages. The drivers move from English to Taki Taki effortlessly. I join a car.. me , carpenter, two miners, a quiet lady at the back and a pastor. The pastor and the miners dominate the conversation. They know the route and where to stop.. asking the driver for cool ones.
We all remark, especially the pastor and me how the place is clean. Yep.. Surinam is clean.. we stop to buy food and to eat in the car and nobody throws anything out of the window. We use the bags to keep the rubbish.
Except when we stop and the Guyanese miner in front throw out his box. I got mad.. said is no wonder dey shoot Guyanese.. I wished I had a whip to smack the hands of the litterer.. my only whip fantasy is to have some whip which lashes at the hand of every persons who throws rubbish around. The man said.. "they already had one box there" The Gandhian thing I guess to do would have been to pick up the box, and give him back and invoke the Pastor and Jesus and say let us find somewhere to throw this out... but anger though clouds these potential moments of nobility.
A friend and I talked.. yeah Surinam had bad history of governance and so on.. but it clean still.. even though their President son get hold for drugs. They have sweeping machines in the night, and nuff rubbish bins and so on.
Pastor and me talk about Church in between dozing and looking at the churches and wooden buildings and the clean yards.. clean parapets with flower plants on them. Plenty tall jhandi bamboo.
Paramaribo reach.. and we get dropped off. Rain plenty. The place is gray and I wonder how I am going to walk around and see the place without ketchin cold.
Walking in the rain in old clothes..
I check in at the Guesthouse. There is no net. The receptionist assures me that there will not be any mosquitoes, she does not like them either.
I put on some old clothes and go and walk in the rain to see the place..No umbrella is available. This is a real holiday.. I end up eating at the Waterkant .. bakabana, satay, loempia, nasi and I ask the lady for extra pinda sauce and peppa.. the peppa taste burns long after. A man asks me for money.. first in Taki Taki, then in Dutch I think and then in English. It is difficult to eat while a man asks for money so I gave him some. I should probably have enrolled him in a class for IT training so he could get a job and earn a sustainable livelihood.
The Diwali Nagar is opening and they are putting up their tents and so on in the rain. I manage to change into some not so old clothes and fortunately miss some of the speeches. There is a stall with nice cakes and there is an excellent performance of music. A young group, doing the bhajans in Baithak Gana style which we do not have much of in Guyana. Here is a sample
I see a lady with large beautiful eyes and an aristocratic nose.
Are you from Suriname she asks in nice Indian English accent?
I say no, from Guyana and we start chatting.
She is of Zoroastrian origins and doing Bahai service.
She has been to Guyana. Guyanese are nice she said. She knows people here. It is funny.. in terms of how anonymous I might be.. of how there are connections established.
One of her feeling she says, is that we who were colonised by the Brits seem to be more easy to laughing and relaxing than those who were colonised by the Dutch - they are very serious she says . The people around us though are laughing and talking.
She asks me if I would be become Bahai.. I said I am Hindu.. so all good. She quotes from the Gita.. yada yada he dharmasya.. and gives me a Bahai prayer in Hindi
I should have gone back the next night since she was given permission to set up a table to share the literature.
I walk back , feeling safe, to the Guesthouse . I would not be walking around GT at the hour I am walking around Paramaribo.
Lazing around Paramaribo
It is self indulgent to lie in bed and watch the sun rise. The night was cool and the receptionist was right, no mosquitoes.
I look up at wooden beams from the 1800s. A little light comes through the curtains on one window. I lie in bed and try to get some pictures.
I need to learn to use the camera.
I can hear the street noises and there is something about liming on a balcony in your sleepwear and watching early morning traffic and taking pictures.
I I go back determined not to wake up early and lie down and listen to people passing. It doesn't feel right somehow.. so eventually I get up and go for Breakfast at a Chinese shop. Instant koffee .. with fresh brood with zoute vis;' and then I had another one wid korie ei.
No English spoken here.. but lots of smiles and hand gestures and exchange of change and money.
There is this kind of trust in places.. as you stretch out your hand and give them the money and they give you back change and you have no idea whether you have been robbed or not.
Then back to the Guesthouse to laze on the balcony until the check out time since I like to make the most of my money. A Dutch traveller is also doing the same and we chat about names and language. Some of our Guyana names, she tells me - Onderneeming means 'enterprising', Uitivlugt means 'escape or a way out' Beterverwagting means 'Better expectations'
Goedverwagting means 'Good expectations' and Vlissengen sounds like 'Flushinggg '
And so I walk around the place.. eat a roti in the roti shop. I visit the market.. buy some bananas for cheap.. Surinam has banana plantations.
This is luxury, though even with time to kill, it is going too fast. I find a square - Kerkplein - with a bench to sit down. There is a lady who has on a nice colourful dress and is sniffing from a bottle of something.
I smile at her and she looks away. I read and look up and I make sure that I keep a smile on my face in case she changed her mind and would smile back.
The rain came. I packed up .. and left the lady still not looking in my direction with her serious face, sheltering under her umbrella.
The Burger King was there for shelter.
There was a young lovey dovey couple in a table in front of me. The table behind me though.. was an old lovely dovey couple.. and this seemed a nice kind of lovely dovieness in that they sat opposite each other.. eating and talking in short stops.. and looking this way and that.. but you know.. the kind of 'should we, shouldn't we' kind of conversation.. and gestures they look at each other and they look away.
And I stop reading and turn my head round to read the signs on the doors because this kind of love is so much sweeter than young lovey dovey stuff.. and Langston Hughes at this time is not as gripping and I am on vacation. I do not mind people's business when I am not on vacation.
Travelling with a partner
I like to travel alone. The Universe however said try something different. Another traveller I met in Guyana told me , come come come and share the hotel room at the Marriot.
Yep.. we know in Guyana the Marriot is troublesome and I thought to myself about the irony.
I was anxious about how this would work out. I am like the man Frank Sinatra sings about when I am travelling. But it was good. The next couple of days, it was easy to share the time and be a voyeur too of how people interact with a place.
We did some God seeking (unintentionally). There was the second night of the Diwali Nagar.
I did not have my camera to record the Hanuman flying in front of the stage (with the help of a crane).. nor did I have my recorder to record the saxophone opening notes for Jai Laxmi Mata. Sometimes moments are to be enjoyed and not be captured forever.
We also walked a long way to see the Arya Dewakar.
On the way , I went into a DVD store to ask the directions. A man in dreadlocks was in a bed in a room and looked behind the door and said he did not know where the Arya Dewakar was. The shop had a picture of Sam Hinds. I went outside.. and as we looked at the map, I heard the man calling.. he stood in the doorway with towel wrapped around said .. yeah yeah.. the Arya Dewakar was further down.
We walked to the synagogue and mosque. My partner is of Jewish descent. There was something in my head about migrations and connections as I watched him take the pictures.
Pindasoep
Food.. yep.. you cross the border and the food changes. They eat a lot of bora there. And I love the pinda sauce. My partner had some tips on places to eat. The Pindasoep at De gaadri was good.. and what was even better was sitting there and watching the rain approaching and falling on the Paramaribo River. I had the camera and used it.
The Chinese food is not like ours here... but then again, one of the smartest things about the Chinese is that every country has its own version of 'Chinese' food.
The pepper.. the pepper was different.. I coughed when eating it with some saoto soep another night, but still put more.
Bakabana .. banana fried and served with the hot peanut sauce.. Dahwet.. drink made with coconut milk, lemongrass, sugar and corn starch bits..
They probably had salads and so on available.. but I did not look for them. I have a date with some delicious looking cakes and other vegetables which I did not get to try.
I have put in dates on the calendar for another trip.
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