Marooned in the City

We’ve been in Paramaribo for 10 days which has been both a blessing and a curse. After swearing-in, we thought we would be heading out to site – after shopping for all the gear, furniture, tools, etc. we’ll need for setting up our household – the 1st of August. Peace Corps gave us more time than in previous years to buy all the stuff we’d need (we’d been in the city a few days before swear-in). This was a very good thing since some of our transactions didn’t work out the way several of us intended (paying for stuff that wasn’t delivered, getting delivery on stuff we didn’t order, etc), and this gave us time to resolve these issues (which we were able to do). But we didn’t leave on the first because we have no money for food. We get a quarterly stipend for food purchases (supposed to get) which apparently got lost in the mail on the way from Washington DC. At any rate, there’s no food money so there keeping us in town until at least Wednesday the 5th.
Paramaribo is a nice city so it’s not a tremendous hardship. Food and beer are good, people are generally friendly and accommodations are comfortable. It’s also fairly easy to get a good internet connection. The problem again is money. It’s not an expensive place by U.S. standards but our PC per diem is pretty meager. It’s enough for 3 meals a day (if you’re careful) but if you do happen to have a beer, or god forbid two, it’s bread and water for a day…so David has definitely lost a little weight. Also, we’re pretty anxious to get out to our site. The little bit of language we have is getting rusty already. The language of the business community is Dutch so most businesses expect people (especially white people) to speak Dutch. The street language is fairly close to the Okanisi we’ve been learning but there are definitely differences. David bought chairs today from a woman who spoke no English and they have four legs and a place to put your rear so he must have been talking ok.

Photos posted

After a joint effort and much patience, we believe we have successfully posted pictures to this web blog. If you're on facebook with Christine, you've already seen these pictures.

As for updated news, we're official Peace Corps volunteers. For our swearing in ceremony, Christine served as the presenter for all the volunteers learning Okanisi (also called Aucan). In this extremely diverse country, volunteers were split into three - a bridge language for all the different groups. Anyway, Christine prepared her speech with the assistance of her language teacher while still in training. Then, when we arrived in the city, the director informed all the presentors that we needed to lengthen our presentations.

Christine typing: So I added some simple transition lines and expanded my thank you to all the villagers in the training region. This made for a very memorable speech as I added a line stating that I love to sew, so my host family taught me to sew blah, blah. blah. I declared with gusto that I love to sew and everyone laughed. I was puzzled and racking my brain. I knew I pronounced everything correctly as it is a simple sentence. Then, I suddenly remembered - the word for sew, 'nai' is also the word for sex. To recover, I said it again and emphasized the sewing part by gesturing as if I was using a needle to sew on material. Not very effective, but again, very funny. I then added that I love to nai - both types - and went on. As a little side note, several reporters, including the local TV news station, were there to capture this moment. On the bright side, no one remembers all the mispronouncations or english words I accidently spit out while talking and everyone liked my speech.

We're in the capital city until Wednesday am and will be checking email and our blog until we leave. Then we're off the grid again for three months or so. Hope you are all well and enjoying the miracle of refridgeration.