Switi Suriname
Switi Suriname
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The Isuzu mini bus approaching the stop is lime green and purple, pinstriped and airbrushed with an Asian comic-book heroine, and elaborate lettering in English, "The Thrill is Back." The driver's personal collection of digital/disco/reggae/rap music is so amplified that you feel the boom of the bass before you see the bus coming. How fares are accounted for is a mystery; the driver casually throws the paper currency of Suriname guilders into a pile onto the sun-heated dashboard. This is the public transportation system in Paramaribo, the capital of the Republic of Suriname, South America.
A Saramakan Maroon cultural presentation in the lobby of the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Paramaribo.
Switi is Sranan Tongo for anything good. Although Dutch is the official language of business and education, Sranan Tongo is the common language between different ethnic groups in Suriname (Dutch Guiana until 1975). A simple language of limited vocabulary, in the 17th century Sranan was no more than a contact language between the first English colonists, African slaves and native Amerindians. Sranan words are therefore English-based. Luckily you needn't learn Dutch or Sranan Tongo to get around Paramaribo easily. All shopkeepers, merchants and medical people speak passable English; it's a required course in high schools.
"This is a country of tremendous variety," says a former American Ambassador to Suriname, Dennis Hays. "A country with a future. It has a small, well-educated population."
In 1667 the English traded Suriname with the Dutch for the island of New York (the Dutch are still kicking themselves for what they see in retrospect as a bad trade). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Suriname flourished as a plantation colony, exporting sugar, coffee and hardwoods to Europe via the Netherlands. When slavery was abolished in 1863, indentured workers were imported from India, and later from Indonesia.
Today, the predominant culture is East Indian/Hindustani, with smaller percentages of Dutch, Javanese, native Amerindians and Maroons, the descendents of African slaves. Most people live in the coastal capital of Paramaribo. A small city of only a few hundred thousand people, the population prides itself on the fact that the synagogue is so close to the mosque that the two share a parking lot.
In the heyday of Dutch colonialism, the streets were paved with crushed shells and lined with fragrant orange and tamarind trees. Today, streets are a mixture of cobblestones, tiles, and cement broken by the roots of towering, hundred-year-old mahogany trees. They are protected because of the Maroon belief that if one old, nearly-dead tree is cut down, its spirit will go about in the night creating bad luck. Unfortunately this same belief doesn't seem to apply to commercial logging in the rainforest - even tree spirits have their price.
The open air Centrale Markt sells sweet potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, potatoes, avocados, bananas, plantain, pineapples, and pumpkin. Pamplemoes, a football-sized pink grapefruit, is my favorite. Easy to peel, its big buds of sweet juice are fun to pick apart. Local vegetables people eat are amsoi, bitawiri, sopropo, and kowsbanti, a green bean that grows to two feet. A lot of chicken is sold in the capital, but in the interior people eat tapir, caiman, bush pig, paca, deer, monkeys and toucans.
When not drinking kasiri (homemade cassava beer), Surinamers like rum, cognac and the locally-produced Parbo beer. French wines are prevalent and cheap. Everyone drinks Coca-Cola and Stroop, a sugary syrup in different flavors to which water is added, not unlike Kool-Aid.
The Suriname infrastructure, badly damaged in the interior wars of the mid-80s, has never fully recovered. Its signs are everywhere: rural power lines that no longer function, rusted generators, paved roads that disappear into the jungle. A local businessman tells me that the per capita income was $4,000 annually before independence in 1975, and approximately $800 annually today.
"In many ways Suriname is frozen in time, but that's part of its charm," says Ambassador Hays.
Historic Paramaribo has been designated by UNESCO as one of the last remaining wooden structure cities in the world. According to the Suriname Tourism Development Assessment Guide, "Although many structures are under renovation, many other buildings, open spaces, and objects are now in decay. To date, the vision of urban conservation is site specific rather than holistic - a view that has proven to be detrimental to irreplaceable historic fabric. Strengthening the link between historic value and economic value will help ensure those historic structures and sites are cherished and preserved."
Vast tracts of rainforest wilderness veined with large, pristine river systems attract adventure travelers, birdwatchers, and scientists from all over the world. Popular destinations are the Brownsberg Nature Park, Central Suriname Nature Reserve and Galibi Nature Reserve, all managed by STINASU, the Foundation for Nature Conservation in Suriname.
Visitors to Brownsberg, a plateau overlooking the Van Blommenstein lake created by the construction of the hydro-electric Afobaka dam, are often awakened by the eerie "hooooos" of howler monkeys. Even though you know they're monkeys, the sound can be so deafening if they are close that it will raise the hair on the back of your neck.
Fungu Island, in the middle of the Coppename River - best reached by a twin-engine bush plane - is headquarters to the Central Suriname Nature Reserve, designated a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2000. The island, surrounded by the Raleigh waterfalls complex, is known as the largest bird bonanza of South America. Dr. Jim Thorsell (who has reviewed World Heritage Natural Site nominations for IUCN since 1985 and has visited 600 parks in over 100 countries), describes the CSNR as "the most pristine tropical protected area in the world."
The beach at Galibi Nature Reserve, a rich coastal habitat, is a nesting ground for five species of endangered sea turtles. Environmentalists and marine turtle biologists frequently visit the research station at Babunsanti. Luckily - for the turtles - this beautiful Atlantic beach is only accessible by boat and too far from the capital to be a viable vacation spot.
Traveling a few hours up the Suriname River from Paramaribo, you can visit Jodensavanne, the site of the remains of the new world's only autonomous Jewish agrarian community. In the late 1600s Sephardic Jews migrated to Dutch Guiana to escape the Inquisition. A Dutch-influenced geometrical town plan surrounded by sugar plantations included open roads to the synagogue from all four sides, surprising in a time of peril from rival European powers, runaway slaves and Amerindians. The central brick ruin is of the synagogue itself, Bracha veShalom.
In the mid-1700s, local political upheaval and the decrease in value of cane sugar caused Jodensavanne's decline and eventual abandonment. Two overgrown cemeteries remain, each containing hundreds of European-made bluestone marble grave markers, some elaborately illustrated despite prohibition by Jewish law. A third "freeholder's cemetery" of hand-crafted wood with African sankofa symbols and concrete grave markers is rapidly decaying.
In the past four years, Jodensavanne has joined such notable locations as Machu Picchu on the World Heritage list of "One Hundred Most Endangered Sites."
Yes, there are malarial mosquitoes in the interior (not in Paramaribo), but long-sleeved shirts, bug repellent and a good malaria prophylactic will provide protection. There are exceptionally few reported cases of malaria among visitors to Suriname.
Suriname is located on the coast of South America between Guyana and French Guiana, and above Brazil. On the edge of the vast Amazon basin, Suriname is a country with a combination of remoteness, history, and relative inaccessibility that has left this nation with both the highest percentage of rainforest cover and one of the lowest population densities on Earth. Diverse culture, historic attractions, pristine rainforest, and a spicy, Asian-influenced cuisine will delight the traveler who makes the effort to visit Suriname. - Read the Jetsetters Magazine feature on Guyana Ecotourism. - Read the Jetsetters Magazine Feature on Guyana's new jungle preserve.
A steady stream of leaf-cutter ants crosses our path as we climb steps carved into the side of the hill from the Suriname River to Jodensavanne. We are in the broad savanna that separates the northeast corner of the Amazon basin from the coastal plain of the Guyana Shield..
The Suriname River snakes through the rainforest of Suriname to the Atlantic Ocean. Several kilometers upriver from the capital of Paramaribo lie the ruins of Jodensavanne, near the Cassipoera Creek. For years, the voracious jungle has crowded the brick ruins of Jodensavanne's Jewish synagogue, Bracha veShalom (Blessing and Peace), constructed in 1685. In 1999 Jodensavanne was added to the world monuments list of "100 Most Endangered Sites" by World Monuments Watch, a global program launched four years earlier to call attention to critically imperiled cultural heritage sites and direct financial support to their preservation. Other notable sites on the list are Peru's Machu Picchu and Ancient Pompeii in Naples, Italy.
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By Carolyn Proctor - Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent - at www.jetsettersmagazine.com
About the Author
CArlyn Proctor Jetsetters Magazine. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com