A Parbo in Parbo

Well why should my adventure start out without a hitch? Monday morning as I awoke early to head to Georgetown (I was staying by another PCV for the weekend) for Mash (Mashramani), my head was pounding, I had a full body rash, fever, got super dizzy/nauseous/weak when I stood up, and as the minutes progressed my muscles began to hurt more and more (it felt like I lifted a ton of weights in the gym the night before). Now those of you who get email updates from the CDC know that those symptoms are A) pretty generic for most ailments B) also sound pretty darn close to the symptoms for dengue/malaria/chikugunya/ebola. So needless to say my mash took a different turn than planned. I ended up going to the PC office to relax and see the PCMO (peace corps medical officer). Since Monday was a holiday I had to wait until tomorrow to go get blood work taken. So that left me to drink (water) in the office and sleep, while my friends went to "mash up d place." To put this in a context closer to home, imagine you're staying in an office on Royale St. while you're friends go off to Mardi Gras on Bourbon. It was a tough decision to stay in, but I think in the long run it was the right one. As on Wednesday after pleanty of fluids and rest, I was feeling much better and began my trip out to Suriname. 

The only real highlight of the journey to Paramaribo (parbo) was getting to cut the extremely long line at customs after the ferry, saving me about 2 hours of waiting time because I was taking a Bus filled with Guyanese who had already gone through first and didn't want to wait for me. 

After about 12 hours, and a really pretty drive through the Surinamese countryside, I arrived in Parbo and met up with the person that I will be staying with. He's a fun quirky guy, originally from the Philippines  working as a nurse, who is so kind to open his abode to me (and another surfer) and helped to cook dinner that night. 

Later on we met up with a pair of brazilians, Americans, and a Dutchman, and while they had Dutch pancakes (think crepes), I shared a "djogo" of Parbo with my host (a litre bottle of beer). 

Today I explored the city by myself going to the synogogue, the market, Fort Zeelandia, walking through old colonial streets enjoying more beer and street food, and am now sitting in the shade of a benab in the Palmentuin, a densly planted park filled with royal palms, writing this post. So the next time I can get to wifi I can upload this through my phone. 

I've been in Suriname 24 hours now and I already love this trip. It's definitely washing out the bad taste in my mouth from the last time I visited. I'm looking to see if I can rent a bike and visit some old plantations across the river, take a day trip to Brownsberg (a rainforest preserve in the interior), and maybe Shabbat services at shul? We'll see what I get into...

"Donkey-well"