We should be somewhere between Toronto and Regina right now. But we're not! We are in Trinidad. We missed our connecting flight from Trinidad to Toronto because of things beyond our control. The agent booked our flights too close together. To top it off, because Suriname Airways said it was an 'illegal booking' we were on our own for hotel and food in Trinidad until Air Canada can get us on a stand-by flight (at least they are going to do that). Missed flight. Lots of sad faces. Pizza. There was a pizza place in the Trinidad telephone book. It was the only thing on our minds after several months of deprivation.

-steve

I'm sitting in our guest house in Arima, Trinidad pondering the events of the last five months of our lives. Even now, only 24 hours after our Suriname adventure came to an official close as we flew out of the Adolf Johan Pengel airport in Zanderij, Suriname, I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

Suriname...I smile and shake my head at the same time at the sound of the name. Our experience in the South American Caribbean nation was defined by many great moments littered with many more frustrations. Isn't it true though, that moments of true epiphany come at our lowest? Already we are looking back on those moments of sheer irritation and annoyance and throwing our heads back to laugh.

I'll laugh at how walking down the street was a virtual nightmare for any white, blonde, female. A very vocal percentage of Surinamese men find their social outlet hanging out in public places in the country, and these men of all shapes and sizes would make loud, dramatic kissing noises in my direction (or any Western woman walking by!) - all in an attempt to make the white girl look their way. Even when Steve was by my side, the machismo of those specific Surinamese men reared it's ugly head!

I think we'll also laugh at the often frustrating experiences we had living with a host family for four months. We'll leave this one vague and let our stories once we're home fill in the gaps. But let's just say we learned a lot about intercultural communication, the importance of hospitality, and how critical it is that married couples have a place of their own. We are looking forward to our independance once again!

The most striking experience in Suriname was the working atmosphere. You'd expect a crawling pace in any non-western culture, but somehow Suriname was the epitome. There, everything is about relationships - and relationships (and everything else in life) come before work, plain and simple. This lead me to my understanding of international development and our placement at local AIDS NGO. International development is a buzz word I've thrown around for awhile...I know I waltzed into Suriname hoping to somehow impact and change the country in some way. I've come out of the country knowing that international development is long, and tedious work. And...when it comes right down to it, the most effective international developpers are the people within the country themselves, who hold within them the power to change their nation and their future. Too much Western 'help' only hinders the process.

Suriname has a hefty history of oppression that it is coming to terms with over time - slavery, indentured labour, economic colonization, and now, the continued exploitation of their natural resources at their expense - continue to impact the country. It seems the entire international community has a piece of the Suriname pie. America and South Africa control its bauxite, Canada its gold, Holland its politics, etc., etc., etc. Foreign multinationals have a huge impact on the country - they are all-powerful and are a negative force in Suriname truly becoming independant. And so I wonder what international development is really about - helping the developing country, or lining the pockets of the developed world.

In the past five months, our understanding of the world has expanded and our understanding of the relationship between the developing and developed world has been opened. Aside from these thoughts of intensity, we have some fabulous memories from our experience as well!

Work presented some moments of sheer joy when the people we were training began to find the confidence they need to do things on their own and put into practice some of the skills we taugh them.

And of course, we met some fabulous friends whom we really connected with and hope to keep in contact with well into the future. It was with these people that we made pizza with gouda, biked to the coast, explored Brownsberg, watched videos, played Kohandle, discussed life and faith and everything in between, and really came to rely on during our stay. We thank them all for their encouragement and laughter, and great friendship.

-amie

Walking home from the house of some friends, the visibility was 20 meters or so. It looked a lot like fog but we knew too well that it was thick gunpowder smoke enveloping the whole city. 13 shipping containers were imported from China this year and that is a lot of explodable material. It started on the 22nd of December. Fireworks every night and sometimes all night, firecrackers blasting everywhere, and red paper remnants littering the streets. The climax of course, happened on the 31st. Surprisingly, yes, people still had fireworks left - and lots of them.

During the day of New Years Eve we went downtown where they had several city blocks sectioned off and closed. Thousands of people gathered for music, drinking and celebration. That is until someone started to light the city block long strands of fireworks. People scattered out of the way and plugged their ears watching for 10 minutes at times until the explosions reached the end of the line and blew up the payload. It is really hard to describe. You had to be there. It was so loud and grand that maybe the pictures will say more. Anyway, when the smoke cleared after 2 constant hours of explosion, people were ankle deep in red post-explosion paper. That mixed with the normal post-party refuse left quite the clean up job for the next day.

In the evening it was payback time for the sleepless nights and annoying neighborhood kids - we had purchased a sizeable amount of fireworks ourselves. It took a couple hours to light them off and despite our valiant efforts, we were again, horrendously outdone by the rest of the city. We were a drop in the bucket - our explosions were barely seen or heard over the constant detonation and smoke. Eventually the new year came and the champagne, cigars, and snacks were passed around. No breaks in the action though - the fireworks continued until the early morning. They are still continuing now and will every evening for the next week until everyone uses their stock.

-steve-

The eastern-most border city of Albina, Suriname is about the last place you would want to spend the day. Many locals are drunk, lounging around whistling at girls, or trying to forcefully sell you some transportation up-river. After a day in Albina, it was time to cross the Maroni river into France. I am serious when I say French Guiana is France. It is an official department of France, governed by the French government. People are French citizens, they vote in French Elections, use the Euro and send graduated kids to further education in Europe. It is so expensive in French Guiana because of the import costs. Many people have told us that prices are 40% more expensive than France itself. I would now agree with that after paroozing in some of the stores and checking transportation costs.

Not the most low budget place to spend the day but Amie and I brought our lunch from Suriname so it was all good. We didn't realize until reaching the border that we actually needed a VISA to get into French Guiana. It is part of the Europian union but I guess there are so many problems with people crossing the border that they want some paperwork done first. We talked about this with the owner of our Albina guesthouse telling her that we didn't have a VISA but she told us that it is ok if you are white and only stay the day. All you do is take a small boat across and without going through customs. So that's what we did!

We left the hole of the Surinamese coast looking back over our shoulder at the hundreds of people shoving for buisiness prospects and headed across the river. Soon after reaching the French side, we started to notice many differences. We shouted them out one afte another to eachother in disbelief - no street dogs!, upkept buildings!, French signs everywhere!, no people hounding you for money! and no garbage everywhere! wow. I nearly even got sideswiped by a car driving on the opposite side of the road from that of Suriname.

-steve

Mostly what we did yesterday was walk around St. Laurent-du-Moroni and gasp at the prices of things. What would normally be 7SRD (roughly 3.50 CDN) was priced at 7 Euros (roughly 14 CDN). We'd heard from other travellers that French Guiana is a replica of the Metropolis right down to baguettes, espresso and French wine. The rumors proved to be true and we feasted on fresh brewed coffee and a baguette sandwich at a French bakery mid-day! The similarities with France were abundant (from what I remember from five years ago anyway)! French signage everywhere, drivers of Peugeots and Renaults keeping to the right side of the road, people speaking French in coffee shops and on sidewalks, and of course wine and baguettes.

French Guiana began as a penal colony when all other attempts at colonizing the country failed. So France's worst prisoners were brought to the Guianas on a doubled sentence. They served their sentence in jail or working, and then during their doubled sentence took up residence in French Guyana and started colonizing it. So...French Guiana is officially made up of the riff-raff of France. French Guiana as a penal colony officially ended in the early 1940s after human rights organizations started commenting on the poor treatment of prisoners.

We checked out the former prison in St. Laurent - a gloomy place with huge high walls and communal living quarters. The compound at St. Laurent held the most prisoners, but it along with its counterpart Devil's Island on the north coast of French Guiana and a leper colony further up the Maroni river, housed over 70,000 prisoners in its 100 years of operation. Even the infamous Papillon lived in the St. Laurent prison and eventually Devil's Island and the movie was filmed on location in French Guyana years ago.

-amie

*Disclaimer* for this to make sense read confluence.org or my confluence page. Suriname confluences are no easy conquer. All of them are either just off the coast in the ocean or deep in the Amazon jungle. Nevertheless, I (steve) have had my eye on this point since Amie and I started working in Suriname 3 months ago. From the GPS map and the maps available in the capital city (Paramaribo), it looked as though the confluence would be less than a kilometer off the main road near the town of Afobaka.

Finally the free weekend came and we set out for the excursion. First of all, Just getting anywhere in Suriname is a pain in itself - everything is way overpriced and the efficiency of the transportation system is the worst I have ever seen. We caught a local bus to the place where long distance busses gather. We left the house an hour later than usual because we know how long some of the busses can take to fill up.

Still tough luck. It is hit and miss usually - either you are too late and the bus is already filled up and gone or you are too early and you wait for several hours for the bus to fill up. Our situation this time was the latter. So after our 2 hour wait we took off south towards Afobaka. Several kilometers later the pavement turned into laterite gravel road which is usually the case anywhere off the coast. From then on, passing trucks throw forth a mighty dust cloud that sticks to your skin and makes you wish you never left home. Anyway, we finally got to the town of Afobaka. Of course, the map data was all wrong and the confluence was 4 1/2 kilometers from the town. This was a huge problem because anything too far off ends up in impassible, dangerous jungle.

We set off anyway, heading west out of the town beside the looming man-made lake. We stopped for lunch on the Afobaka dam - probably the only reason for any road and town anyway. The dam was built in 1964 to generate hydroelectric power for the country. Unfortunately it resulted in the relocation of 5000 people and a river expanded into a 1560 square meter resevoir. Across the dam there was a little road up to the top of a hill. After the grueling climb we realized this was the end of the trip. The radio tower at the top of the hill was still a kilometer and a half from the confluence and between us and the goal was thick downhill jungle - impassible with our energy level and lack of machetes and snake repellant.

So we ended in failure but not all was lost. We hitch-hiked up the road to the town of Brokopondo and enjoyed the beach and the cheap accomodation. Good luck for anyone else interested in Suriname confluencing!

-steve-

Happy Birthday SURINAME!!! We celebrated Suriname's thirtieth anniversary of its independence from the Dutch this weekend alongside about 10,000 other people. Most of the day went as any normal birthday party for a country would go - parades (the military, police, military band, etc. etc. all marched by at least three times during the afternoon), music, singing of the national anthem, booths selling food and drinks, flags everywhere, national paraphernelia, and people milling around in gorgeous traditional costumes...

There were a few surprises too! Like the delegation from the French army there helping to celebrate the occasion, a contingent of Dutch marines, and a whole host of Venezuelan parachooters who dropped from the sky mid-afternoon on November 25.

What a party! Many Surinamese have more patriotism in their pinky fingers than the average Canadian. Then again there are Surinamese like our Dutch teacher, Sandra, who doesn't think Suriname is free (overrun by Holland, America and other nations) and refused to celebrate the occasion, opting instead to stay home all day.

Sandra did ask us if we (meaning us CCI volunteers) wanted to go to the presidential palace for an open air party in the afternoon. Of course we said yes! So Sandra took our passport numbers, got our names and gave us tickets a week later. Today, we dressed up, and headed with our CCI counterparts to the presidential palace. We are also very proud that we smuggled in Shane, Lindsey and Peter on our tickets (actually they weren't really caring who came in anyway). So we enjoyed an afternoon of food and drinks on Suriname's equivalent of the White House!

These Surinamese know how to throw a party! Food and drinks everywhere. Music. Dancing. People milling around 100% proud of their nation. You see, over half of Suriname's original population now lives in the Netherlands - they were given the option of Dutch nationality at Indenpendence and half the country picked up and left. But people are starting to return - now that the revolution is over and the country has had a peaceful life for the past 10 years or so. There were a lot of shirts today that said, "I may live in the Netherlands but I'm 100% Surinamese."

The party isn't done yet though, in fact it's just beginning. We're going out again tonight to witness Surinamese fireworks and how they celebrate at night.

-amie

I just had to add a quick note because Amie doesn't get nearly as excited about free food as I do. When we were approaching the celebration grounds, we were handed a can of energy drink. That pumped us up for the day. Later at the presidential palace, the reception consisted of a bunch of tables set up in a coartyard giving out cake, drinks, and Indonesian hors d'oeuvres. The best part was that all 8 or so tables were giving out the same things and you could get your food and then just line up at the next table. I think we lined up about 7 or 8 times.

-steve