Fish glue and the glories of backtrack

Water in the Corentyne River near the ferry one morning in August

The men said that the fish glue carries more money than the fish. They do not know why but the buyers wait on the shores in Suriname and French Guiana for when the boats come in.  I told the men that I had heard from an old woman who used to sell fish that the glue had something to do with cocaine but the men said they did not know.


One of the men was hustling up to go over to Suriname to stamp his passport legally and get this six months and then come back 'backtrack' because he had some work to do in the backdam before he go back to his fishing job in French Guiana. Another lady in the line said she fed up with the ferry crossing but only uses it when she needs to stamp her passport.. time like now she done reach.
The Guyana/Suriname border is an interesting one. The backtrack and the front track? seem to work side by side. Most of the regular travellers curse the front track for the long wait at the immigration, the hustle and the wait. But you could bring more things with back track and no questions asked.

A lady did say that the back track dangerous though, boats sometimes capsize.  But is same money now.. return trip front track and back track cost

There are a lot of languages at the ferry stelling  - English, Dutch and the other languages, French, Portuguese sometimes - and this time Chinese and a young man from India chanting Hare Krsna as he waited for the immigration to move.

The wait brings up the stories. One of the fishermen had a bullet wound - he had been shot when he went to tief crab in No 19  and the owner was there. The other guy said he never been shot. The other guy was born in 1993 and could not read or write - the new era of democracy had failed him . I asked him if he would learn so that people would not rob him, he said that he could count good even if he could not read and this trip was to make some money to send his father back to the Islands to do the construction work.

Languages.. the car going up had a woman from East Coast who spoke some Taki/Taki , French and creolese English with a French accent which she had learned from her mother who went to French Guiana years ago. The woman spoke Martinique and Guadelope Kweyol too. She and her French speaking husband were going back to France via back track - because you reach French Guiana by 6pm rather than just Paramaribo and she has her French passport so nobody will give them problems.

This and other things we know because in the early morning, sun rise heading up to the Ferry crossing or back track , the lady said quietly that she and her husband took turns to talk  so the driver would not fall asleep.
The driver was good, he encouraged the talking.
We talked about the Chinese invasion - she warned Guyanese that soon they will own nothing like what happened in French Guiana and she don't like to give her money to Chinese even though she knows that many things she buys from people who are not Chinese probably Made in China.  We talked about how Guyanese like to work and how Cayenne people lazy and don't like Guyanese for that reason. 

So she and her husband came off at the back track and there is something about how the transportation works to the ferry crossing, where the citizens have the options of going illegal/legal to the same destination.