As I mentioned before, I took a very short trip to Suriname
for New Years. We took a ferry across
the Coretyne River and found ourselves in a completely different country. The landscape looked pretty much the same,
but language, supermarkets, cars, houses were pretty different. When the boat reached Suriname, there was a
mad sprint to get off the boat. I had never
seen Guyanese move with such speed! All
of a sudden I heard something that sounded like gunshots and saw uniformed
officers up ahead. I froze and tried to
make sense of what was going on. Then I
heard cheering and realized the Surinamese border patrol lit off fireworks to
celebrate New Year’s and to play a prank on the normal passengers who sprint to
get a good spot in the customs line.
Of course we thought we outsmarted everyone. We took our time coming off the boat and went
directly into the duty free shop to view some of the very inexpensive spirits
for purchase. We were amazed by small
cups of wine and meandered around the selection for a while. We probably entertained ourselves for a good
30 minutes and then decided to go through customs. Much to our dismay, the line was still
incredibly long! It barely moved and it
seemed like our plan completely backfired.
The only good thing is that we did have our mini solo wine cups, so we,
being the very end of the line decided to have a seat and enjoy a glass of
wine. Only in Suriname would this be
possible. An hour and a half later, we
were officially cleared to enter the country.
We hopped on a bus and spent 4 hours viewing the scenery or
catching a nap while the bus zoomed along towards the capital city,
Paramaribo. We were completely amazed
when we reached. The city was very
organized, clean, and reflected its colonial past. It seemed like we had teleported to one of
the historic districts in Boston. Our
hotel was also super nice. We were dressed
for travel, with large packs and t-shirts, not like the swanky patrons of the
hotel. A few of us tried to blend in /
disappear because we were cramming about 6 into our two person room, PC
style. We were excited to take a hot
shower, check out the hotel casino, and ring in the New Year. A few volunteers and I decided to forage for
some food out in the city. This is when
danger struck. Normally, I don’t carry
much with me walking around in Guyana, or anywhere if I don’t have to. Since we had just arrived, I had yet to empty
my wallet of important items, such as my passport or camera. We got some chicken and chips and I was on a
busy, fairly well lit road a few steps from the entrance of our hotel.
I feel like I was a bystander witnessing the whole thing, if
only that were the case. Some teenage
boy yanked my purse off of my wrist and took off running. I was really angry
but decided it was a lost cause. My
fellow volunteer on the other hand took off running, so I followed the
pursuit. When I caught up to him, he had
a boy by the arm, but he was not the one with my things. Luckily there was a police station nearby so
I went in and filed a report. I was more
annoyed than anything else, but was determined not to let it get me down. We joined everyone else back at the hotel and
relayed the story to them. My friends
pointed out that I still had the box of chicken and chips I had purchased. I hadn't even realize that I had been
chasing bandits with one hand holding up my tube dress and the other clutching
a bag of chicken and chips! Clearly I
have my priorities straight.
We ended up ringing in the New Year on the roof top of our
hotel watching the whole city erupt in colorful fireworks. One display was right in front of us so the
fireworks were bursting at our eye level.
It was really just mesmerizing.
After we went out and danced til 5am.
Overall, it was a fun night and a perfect way to ring in the New
Year. We slept until almost 2pm and then
were craving food. Unfortunately, being a
holiday NOTHING was open! This was also
bad for me because I was looking into getting a replacement passport so I could
go back to Guyana the next morning.
Somehow we found out McDonalds was the only food place opening at
4pm. I haven’t been to a McDonalds since
High School, but we were SO hungry, anything would do at that point. It was like a scene out of a zombie horror
film. Hoards of hungry tourists were
descending upon the only open food place in the city. We happily ate our food and I was quickly
reminded why I've stayed away from the place for so long, but at least we were
full.
When I got back to
the hotel, I witnessed a New Year’s miracle.
An officer was there with ALL of my things! Camera, passport, phone, everything! I couldn’t believe it. I had to go down to the station to make a
statement that my stuff had returned but it was all there. I could have hugged all the officers at the
station. We spent the rest of the night
watching movies and drank wine in our comfy hotel room and then headed out the
next morning for the bus and ferry back to Guyana. It was a short trip, a very eventful one at
that, but thankfully it all ended well.
I now have about a week until our Close of Service
conference (COS), seven weeks left in Guyana, and 3 months until I return to
the U.S. I am going crazy figuring out
everything for this move while still trying to enjoy and do work like
normal. It isn’t easy! I also accidentally spent out most of my
money in Suriname so have about $10 to live on for the next 10 days. That is about $1 a day, which is about the
world poverty level. $1 a day can go
pretty far here in Guyana, but only in terms of feeding one person. Bills, rent, gas, traveling would never allow
you to make it on that. I think it is
good that Peace Corps tries to get you as close to what it is really like to be
an average host country national but it will never be the real thing. I can live on $1 a day and say I’m doing an
experiment, but that is all it is. I can
maybe “feel” what it is like to live on that level, it can be a “challenge” for
me but the key word is experiment. It is
much different to know you have nothing, no one is coming to save you, and you
can’t just go back somewhere and work or ask a friend of family member for an extra
few dollars. When you are living in
poverty, these options have already been exhausted and you are where you
are. Sure you can try to understand, but
you will never really know unless you are in that situation. In Peace
Corps, we might complain about things,
how hard it is to get things done, whatever whatever, but at the end of the
day, we are going back to a very different place. Sure we have to deal with things for the two
years we are here, but people that live here have to deal with these things
their whole lives.
Alright probably only a few more updates left from
Guyana. I’ll keep you posted!
-KB
