Party, party, party
Trip Start
Sep 15, 2005
1
5
11
Trip End
Nov 11, 2005
Paramaribo,
Suriname
Monday, September 26, 2005
Brenda with Icing
. we left for an all night Voodoo Party. This is spiritual dancing for the African-Surinamese people to keep in touch with their African roots. Although they are mainly Christian now, they still practice some old traditions - much like the Aboriginal people in Canada. So people would dance in a circle to drumming and singing until someone would go into a trance and dance wildly representing one of the parts of nature - like the snake or the bush etc. People would go to them and hug and hold them for a few seconds to give them a break from the frantic dancing and then when let go they would continue on. It is said that they were really not the ones dancing but the spirit of the snake or the spirit of the bush or other entity in nature. It was very interesting to watch and I joined in the circle dancing. We got home from the Voodoo party at 5:30 in the morning. So the week was very fun filled for sure.Work was also interesting. We toured Claudia A and Paarl House as well as having a meeting with The Department for Funds for the Interior. The two ASO's were very interesting but a bit emotional as well as they both house children who are HIV+. Paarl House has 12 children who are positive from five months to seven years of age. These are all children that could not be placed with family, and so Annie who manages the place is committed to raising them at Paarl House. They have plans to expand and build hopefully by January because there is a demand to take more children but they have no more room
Community Center
. They have funds for the building from Holland but are short $7500 US for the land. They identified the only need for me to help them with as fund development as they have a strategic plan in place already. All the children have access to HIV medication and so this is a good thing. Claudia A also has children who are HIV+ but they try to place them back with family member. They have some children who are not positive but there parents are HIV+, and are not well enough to care for them properly. If there is no family members to take them, and all avenues have been exhausted on this front, they will work with the government to place them. Claudia A also supports adults who are positive and does prevention work in the community. Norma identified that she needs help with some board development and strategic planning. We will set up a meeting next week to meet with her and some board members. One board member, Edith, was there when we toured and was welcoming.
We also met with Sjachnaz from SMNP and will go over the work that she has done with Sherry on Monday morning.
We still need to meet with Pepsur and Maxi Linder next week to identify their needs.
So I have been in Suriname for one of my eight weeks and things are going well so far. We have run into some communications problems here and there and has not had a meeting on time yet but other than that, I think all is "goede".
Dutch lessons start next week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and so I think that will help to communicate with people a bit more, or at least eavesdrop a little. Roci, Donavan's 17 year old cousin who has been staying with us for a few days, laughs at my attempts to speak and understand Dutch! There is much room for improvement.
Until the next update....
Brenda
Comments
Week 1
Great update Brenda. I think you have been to a couple of those all night parties. Little did you know you were preparing for real life.
Look forward to your next update, good luck on your next 7.
Gil.