Hanging at home
First things first – the good news! I am now officially a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Suriname. We were sworn in on Friday morning.
It’s the tail end of the rainy season here in Suriname and I am starting to figure out when the rain is coming (other than the obvious clue, the clouds). The temperature cools down a bit, and the wind starts. It actually feels really nice. Then the rain comes – sometimes in sprinkles, and sometimes in sheets. I was talking to the woman who also lives in these apartments when the rain started, and I stood there in it. She asked if I wanted to come in, and I was just fine – while it was only rain. Torrential rain, not so much. It brought back some memories of when I liked to be out in the summer rains as a kid, and would seek out a mud puddle to squish my toes through the mud. She said it was the first time she had seen anyone not running from the rain. Apparently a lot of people here do, even though it rains a lot. Of course, the neighbors probably thought I was a fool for hanging out in the rain.
The good thing about the cooling down is I can open up all my windows and the top of my “Dutch door” and get a nice cross breeze. The downside? Oh my, I cannot say how many mosquitoes bit me – I was in misery with all of the itching! I don’t feel them biting but man, do I feel the aftereffects. I wonder if my body will at some point just get used to all of the biting…probably not.
Today she (the same young woman in the same apartments as me) showed me where the big food market was located downtown. Now, I was told a few days ago that it is mango season right now, so I was surprised that mangoes were $2 Suriname each. I thought that a bit much, especially considering the fact that I bought them a few days ago for $1 Suriname each. I guess I’ll go back to the other location and see if those have gone up.
Of course, I saw, and bought, a number of things of which I have no idea what they are, but they are dark leafy green vegetables, which are meant to be cooked, and looked pretty good. I also decided to try a second variety of passion fruit and a thing that looks like a huge, skinny, light colored zucchini, which I swore the guy called a “poo”.
It looks like I won’t be eating a lot of meat, which is fine with me – in the next few days I hope to find some tofu (today’s outing was bus only because my bike has a problem and I need to get it fixed). However, some chicken now and then would be good too…have to try to budget though!
What did I do with all the things I got? Put them in a pot – in two rounds! The first round I used masala curry and hot sauce to season it, and the second I used a peanut sauce (add water – not sure I did it correctly so I also added “hot” peanut butter). Definitely enough to last me the week, and I even had some of the leafy greens left over!
Because I have a tile floor, and am not the neatest person in the world, I made a bit of a mess so today ended up being cleaning day as well. But I did get to see some proverbial fruits of my labor and won’t be going hungry or relying on restaurants this week!
I had to check out the currency on http://www.xe.com:
1.00 SRD = 0.307692 USD
So one Suriname dollar is currently a little less than 31 cents.
Mmmmmm . . . mangoes (as long as someone else peels them for me).
Yum–you’re such a good cook. Enjoy the rain–I always liked being out in it myself. But beware those malarian mosquitoes.
Your concoction looks delicious – made my mouth water!