So I have 15 minutes for this blog. I will be quick.
Last week I spent a week staying in Hermansdorp with my host mother, Elsje. She has a daughter who lives in Paramaribo to go to school. (If you want any education in Suriname, you have to move to the city. It's a big problem for people living in the interior.) Elsje has no husband but was acting as mother to Ifna, a 13 year old who was somehow related to Elje, but relations are so confusing in this culture, I'll never figure out how.
Hermansdorp is a religious town, which is rather developed, for what I was expecting. I had a bed, a flush toilet, indoor plumbing and electricity. People here often have unlimited access to groundwater, so they just waste water like there is no such thing as drought in California. If you walk down the only road for like 40 minutes, you hit a place that is completely opposite to hermansdorp. The houses are scattered around with no roads, everyone has the same front yard, the houses are only for sleeping and there are outhouses and you wash at the river or in a wash house.
My mother was not very religious (though the rest of the town goes to church 2-3 times a week)and she had had so many previous volunteers that she knew exactly what to expect to have to teach me. I learned that real saramaccan women do not squat when doing yardwork, they bend at the hips. I cleaned her yard for about 3 hours like that. She worked at the B.O. which is the government office, and was thus busy until 3 pm daily. I did, however, get her delicious cooking when she came home at noon to cook for me. Saramaccan cooking utilizes 2-3 cubes of maggi, MSG in powder form, AND salt. We almost died. And this all despite our doctor warning these women that PC volunteers can't eat too much salt and MSG.
I had my rough moments this week. I was pretty overwhelmed with my 3 weeks of language experience and living at someone else's house. But, I survived, and I feel much more prepared now that I've been through it.
This next week I will be visiting a current volunteer at their site, and then my OWN future site!!!! I am very excited to get a chance to see where I will be living for the next two years. After that, I'll be back at the training facility for 2 weeks. I'l lbe able to give a more detailed update then.
that's it for now!
