Suriname

Making food from Indonesia, celebrating an important milestone for India, and hearing a language from Ghana were not the things I expected to do in this South American country. Fortunately, with friends more than ready to honor Suriname’s diversity, we started cooking at 5, ate at 9, and continued talking until midnight. The food was delicious and the company even better. Here are the recipes:

· Raquel and I made the Pom (chicken casserole): https://www.internationalcuisine.com/pom/

· Juba made the salad: https://www.food.com/recipe/goedangan-suriname-salad-455126

· Anne Berit, Juba, and Aimable made the filling and wrapped the loempia, then I fried them: https://www.internationalcuisine.com/surinamese-spring-rolls/

· Gus made the bakabana (battered fried plantains) and the spicy peanut sauce: https://www.internationalcuisine.com/bakabana/

Once Gus had made the bakabana according to the recipe, which was good, he started to innovate using Raquel’s spices, which was even better. I lost track of how many versions we tried. These experiments might have contributed to how late we stayed, but the conversation was the most important part of the evening. Gus knows how to tell a story. His first one was about the white woman next to him on a plane who asked where he was from. Everyone hearing the story cringed a little and expected a bad ending. Then it turned out that she was from Africa and was hoping to find something in common. Gus crafted the evening to help us all think differently and more inclusively.

The people of Suriname also go out of their way to honor their diversity and their love for their country. This is illustrated in the first film to come out of Suriname after independence, Wan Pipel (One People): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkYwt7xY8YE

There is so much great and diverse music from Suriname that I particularly looked for artists when they were representing or honoring their country and their ancestry. These include:

· Kenny B & Jeffrey Spalburg – Paramaribo-o-o: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcdVyUtDlOA

· Damaru – Suriname: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PYzEYSZyLI

· Nisha Madaran – “Vaishnav Jan To” (look for the India connection here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2oLhLBYGYQ

· Tekisha Abel – Suriname: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FuHkyv646k

· Kayente – Kirikhaibana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NumRnEUQsow&t=11s

Everything I’ve seen for Suriname just adds to the diversity. I binge watched Narco-Saints on Netflix this week. It’s the story of a Korean businessman who gets caught up with a drug lord in Suriname. It is apparently based on a real incident from twenty years ago, but they might have exaggerated the prevalence of crime. The Suriname government threatened to sue Netflix for their portrayal of the country. Nevertheless, I was engaged through the entire six episodes.

With all this diversity, we can’t leave out the original inhabitants of Suriname. They are represented in this UNICEF documentary on the lives of four young people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qyAP8KZh6U

If you want to sit down and do some reading, Cynthia McLeod is one of the most famous writers from Suriname. Besides her books, she gave a TED Talk on her research about a black woman millionaire in Suriname three hundred years ago. I appreciate her way of telling the story and her great humor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxlzMuVP02c

For an engaging travel narrative that includes a trip through Suriname, read Wild Coast by John Gimlette. I downloaded it through the Los Angeles Public Library (which is different than the LA County Library).

I saved one of my favorite things from Suriname for last. Many of the people who were enslaved and taken to Suriname were from Ghana. When they escaped into the jungle to achieve their freedom, they became known as the Maroons. Watch to the end of this video when a man from Ghana speaks with a Maroon man in the language they both learned from their ancestors: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=376792556569304

There are so many wonderful things to do in Suriname. Some are listed here: https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-places-visit-suriname/ and yes, I would love to go! I look forward to that time when we can travel broadly again. In the meantime, I’m hoping we all survive, thrive, recognize our mutual humanity, learn to deal with our conflicts, and allow peace, health, and safety to flourish in Suriname and throughout the world.

Photo Credit: Vincent van Zalinge https://unsplash.com/photos/a92n-yQtbJc