Walking around the shops of downtown Paramaribo, you see a LOT of bootlegged stuff. It was impossible to buy the real thing, but you could get a decent knock off for a reasonable price. My favorite were the bootleg tapes. They would get a legitimate tape, pop in a blank and copy it, and as an added bonus, slap on a blank label with cheesy black and white generic lettering. Good times. I don’t think it was possible to buy the original. Tupac was big there at the time. I’m pretty sure Nike would still be pissed even if you spell it Nikel and the swoosh goes down.
It’s like New Delhi, only Zoo Deli. One day, my friends and I took a field trip and visited the Paramaribo Zoo. It was really cool. They had a Scarlet Ibis. Some Spider Monkeys. There was a Tapir. The Anaconda cage had a BIG hole in it, which was not very comforting. One of the workers told us that there used to be more animals, but the natives came to town and ate all of them. I can understand. Monkeys are delicious. As is Tapir.
That same day, as we were walking home, a guy in a white van offered us a ride. My friends had to ride in the back. For a moment, I was pretty sure we were all about to become a person suit after rubbing lotion on our skin for a week in a dark cellar. But that’s ridiculous. They don’t have cellars on the equator. Van was creepy.
A week or two into my language training in Tiriyo, I saw my teacher pour a liquid (some astringent) into a rag, and then huff it. No wonder I had no idea what the hell she was saying; she was high! Later, I found out that “this is my husband” was actually “this is my penis.” Meh, close enough. She was skinny and had Don King’s haircut.
When you put the letters M and P together, it’s really difficult to distinguish between that combination and N and P. Mp sounds damn close to Np. Then, add to that the difference between E and Ë. Finally, do all of that while whispering. That’s what it’s like to learn Tiriyo. So, what I heard was “mmpa.” Nope. Not that. Npa means “Let’s go.” Ënpa means “teach.” Enpa means something to do with teaching….It was all very hard to understand. But, I found my way and got along fair enough. While I was in the village, I wrote a children’s book. When I got home, I wrote a grammar book. I tried to share it with the Peace Corps, but I don’t think it ever found it’s way back to Suriname.
I do speak a bunch of languages. In fact, I always found it really weird that the Government sent me, having a degree in Spanish, to a country in South America that speaks ZERO Spanish. I’m not sure why I was slated for the indigenous villages. For whatever reason, they decided to put me in the Amer-Indian group instead of the Maroons. I took to the languages of Suriname very quickly: Dutch, Sranan Tongo, and even some of the languages from my fellow volunteers. So, they decided I would be well suited for Tiriyo, and the village of Peleleutepu (Tepu for short). They were concerned about my ability to handle a remote location. I wonder why….
But, I was very excited that I got to learn the really hard language.
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