Suriname diary, 1991

Saturday 13 April, 1991; YWCA Heerenstraadt, Parimaribo, 10.25pm (Suriname)

Taking the advice I'd received in Barbados, I buttonholed an Indonesian man (at least I think he was) who had been checking in at the same tiome as me with a 'fragile' box for Parimaribo. He advised me about the phones - to go to the Tourist desk to phone in Trinidad, and to ask to phone from the airport. On the plane, he was helpful in telling me not to declare all my US currency, otherwise you would have to account for it on the way out. He had offered that 'his driver' would take me to the YWCA, but he was a senior bank official and got through the nightmare of customs more easily (about 10 times quicker) than me. He was very dapper - small, beige linen trousers, ralph Lauren shirt and navy blazer. A Catholic, he wore a wedding ring and genuflected before take-off. Flight: one and quarter hours. Disembarkation takes for ever. Since I had checked in early I got the middle wing seat again and so was last off. An hour in a queue to register at entry, collect bags, change US$ to Sfl, then another queue for customs. The battle of small boys/young men to get taxis or carry bags to De Paarl buses. Our bus, though full, waited an age - others went before us, much to the annoyance of a woman, who remonstrated. The drive from the airport to the city is a long one. There were a few fires to be seen in the open, but on the whole the roads were well paved, the houses big and neat. There were beautiful mosques, lots of Roti shops, some busineses, supermarkets, Chinese shops, and occasional bars, lit with strings of coloured lights. There was an open air market, also with lights.

I had been booked in to the YWCA by the Honorary British Consul, Mr Healy - fortunately: two Trinidadian girls could not afford a hotel so came to the YWCA with me and it would not take them. No screening, so struggled with mosquito net (hair ribbon tied to lamp-shade and coat hanger). Bed not directly under the lamp shade so moved bed - heavy aluminium (?) and tore the lino. YWCA Sfl40 but I have not changed enough at the airport and tomorrow is Sunday and Monday an Islamic holiday. Arrived YWCA approx 10pm, having touched down at 6.40.

Sunday 14 April, YWCA Parimaribo, 7.20pm

Paramaribo is quite a beautiful city. The streets are wide, the buildings well back from the pavement and lined with trees, often mahogany which is not native to Suriname, but looks at home. The buildings in the old part of town, around Fort Zeelandia, are built in the "colonial style", often wooden slatted, painted white, with columns, balconies and slatted shutters. There are some very big houses in Parimaribo and on the road to the international airport, Zanderij, which according to the consul, is because the country is in such a mess; so unstable and with inflation rampant, investing in property is safer. There are also some pretty flashy cars on the streets, in comparison with Barbados, where everyone has their little Suzuki, seemingly irrespective of profession or income. The old town has some fine churches and the Sephardi synagogue, next to the YWCA. There is a big wooden Catholic 'cathedral' painted ochre with two tall spires at the front on the street, and opposite it, the presbytery, from where they let me phone Mr Healy. There is also a nice Dutch Reform Church nearby, beside the post office.

On the outskirts and the airport road are also large houses, interspersed with small ones, but built more recently. Most of the suburbs are post 1945. The city is built on the huge Suriname river and in order to keep the water from swamping the houses which are built on swampy land, there is a series of dykes and canals, as in Holland, to drain off the water. Healy calls us the lazy English, because we built Fort Zeelandia on the first available high ground and did not expand outwards as the Dutch were able to do with the polders, and we did not colonise far down the Suriname or Commerwijn rivers.

The square, formerly named after the House of Orange, is now Independence Square and stands on the rivers. It is a pleasant square, a grassy central area with a statue of a charismatic Surinamese leader, now dead - a fat jolly man with a top hat in his hand which makes him look overly comical for a national hero. The President's house is here, but in poor repair. The military have taken over the former club building and totally modernised it. They have also taken over the old Fort Zeelandia. Around the square and adjoining streets are government buildings, including one very Dutch-style red brick building with a beautiful clock tower in the centre in the baroque style. None of these can be photographed.

The military regained power in the 'telephone coup' of Christmas Eve 1990. The President and Bouterse had been on a trip together; the President had so annoyed Bouterse that when they got back Bouterse telephoned him and told him he was no longer fit to be President and should go. Previously the military had sanctioned elections, allowing them free and fair, but the government which was returned could not keep power because they were still under military control. The military allowed elections because they had made such a mess of things. They 'allowed' a vote to the Bush Negroes, though they could only establish polling booths where there was access, that is military stations, so these areas returned the eleven military-party members. Besides, apart from the odd one or two bush negroes, no-one would vote. The 'bush negro' maroons are the main party in arms against the military, but everyone opposes them, so there is only one opposition, an amalgam of several parties, all hotile to the military. At the height of the war, around '87, the bushnegroes got as far as towns near Parimaribo to the east, but the military has pushed them back. The new allies of the military are the Amerindians to the south-west. The campaign against the bushnegroes was vicious. Villages were machine-gunned, many killed and of the 50-60,000 bushnegroes, only perhaps 30,000 remain in east Suriname. About 10,000 have escaped to French Guiana, thought he military says it will allow them to vote. There are 20,000 Amerindians, so the military use them to balance the bushnegroes. They are also used for the transit of cocaine from Colombia to Parimaribo and out again to Europe, which is one way the military make money. There are junkies operating in the suburban side streets. Bauxite is still produced, but in not nearly the same quantities as before. Healy has diverse and vast business interests in shipping and pressed steel amongst others. This he claims is why he stays in Suriname: he also has a house and business interests on St Maarten. The elections are due to take place on 25 May. Healy's son, Chris, is part of the Organisation of American States, which is organising the elections, including the importation of fifteen four-wheel drive vehicles to establish polling stations in the interior. He was formerly an artist, then art-historian, now anthropologist. The elections are taking place due to surprising pressure from outside. Venezuela has taken exception to the coup of 24 December and the US and EC issued statements condemning it. It is thought that nothing will change, and the military will always lose by around 10 seats to 40, but retain real power.

Monday 15 April, YWCA Parimaribo, 9.05am

Woke at 7.30 this morning to the sound of the faithful being called to prayer. Today is Eid, the moveable feast at the end of Ramadan, so it is a public holiday. However, since it is only announced whenever the mullahs have worked out the positions of the moon, etc., people only know when it will fall shortly before it takes place. Next door to the YWCA is the Ministry of Culture building and I believe the Islamic prayers and sermon have come from there. At 8.30 it was joined by the sound of hymns and at 9.00 by a church bell.

It is also the start of the rainy season in mid-April. It reaches its height in June, July, August, but this morning it is raining, cloudy and much cooler.

Monday 15 April, YWCA

Eid dawned pouring with rain. I was sad, miserable and very hungry. Nothing open. The man who lives at the YWCA said he was going to an Eid party and I could go along, but he drives a moped and I didn't fancy going on the back, so I rang the number of a contact given to me in Barbados, who had also given me three Sfl25 coins which enabled me to use the phone. Otto said he was going to see some friends out of town and I could join him and he'd call at 3.00. He drove up in his turquoise VW beetle; a man with quite good English and slightly goofy front teeth. He was educated in Holland. A pilot, he was one of only four people who can go to all the airstrips in the interior. He went out to Blomspont(?) to meet Stan and Petra Beems. They spoke in Dutch, but they were very helpful and friendly. We had coffee and beer and cheese and bread and cake: my first food for nearly a day and half. They had a number of jokes, with which Otto joined in - it would never happen in Britain. A neighbour, Hanka Waltersdorf, called round and then disappeared off again to fetch some books and Suralco magazines.

Otto and I left and went to look for a Korean restaurant (closed) and a Jarvanese (closed) so ended up in a Chinese. He paid, and told me about his quiet girlfriend who had stolen his things, embezzled Sfl19,000 from her workplace and was suspected of arson. Now doing eighteen months. Tired, so declined coffee and drink and went straight to bed.

Tuesday

Otto called at 7.30 and dropped me off at the 'museum' building as Parimaribo airstrip is nearby. The museum is a mess since the enforced move and there is only a small exhibition on the Javanese. I did get a facsimile of the 1667 map though.

Stan called around and lent me Sfl250. Jim called around and later had got me photocopies of the map. Did I want to go and see the Marten estate?

Took the mini buses to town. Bought a loaf and two orange juices and one cola, delivered in a plastic bag with straw sticking out (despite the bauxite, there is a shortage of cans, as there is of bottles, so one cannot buy bottles of Parbo beer to take back as souvenirs). Took them back to the YWCA, but couldn't keep the bags standing up, so the juice spilt all over the floor. I managed to get a cloth, but on bending over the mop it, my hair caught in the fan and it cut out. I had to go to the office with a giant fan attached to my head while three people opened the fan up and unwound the (very long) hair. This caused much mirth, particularly that I was a 'professor' and thus a person with no common sense in my head at all.

Set off for Jim's but lost my bearings. I was on my way back to the YWCA to ring him and he stopped me in the car. We met his driver, Guido, a Portuguese Jew, and he told us about the Jewish archives still in Suriname. Guido part-owns a gift shop with Jim's daughter-in-law. Jim and I drove out to Marten's plantation. It was all weeded over, but I could see the Para river. A Hindustani boat builder told us there were creole Martins living nearby, so we went looking for 'Mr Martin' and it turned out to be Martin Woldersdorff. Took some photos of the Para.

Otto rang and said did I want to do anything. I put up a poor show of self-denial because I couldn't afford to pay my way, so he paid again and we went to the Javanese (closed) and then Korean. Very good. Met Otto's friend Jose Seppe. He was obsessed with sex and with AIDS, and also thought he was God's gift. Then we went to a pub - called DePub - and had a Heineken and got a newspaper. This was a quiet bar, almost English (or Irish): the Heineken was imported and was Sfl7 for two. Then we went to a jazz club and drank quite a lot of Parbo beer with Ali Adam, a Senegalese Jew working for the Libyan government and Wilfred, an architect. The bar was run by a white Surinamese (Dutch?). I had to ungratiously extracate myself from Otto at the end of the night, which was a rather inadequate goodbye for all his generosity.

Wednesday 17 April, Bel Air Airport Hotel, Trinidad, 8.45pm

Even though my room service phone isn't working, I've just had a gin and soda, prawn cocktail, rare fillet mignon and coffee, and a long hot shower. It's a great comfort to be somewhere comfortable (though far from luxurious) and somewhere where English is spoken.

Stan called around at 8.30am, as I was trying to ring KLM and De Paarl. I gave him his neighbour's book back, but he invited me to keep the Sfl250. So, I went out and bought a full set of Suriname stamps, a Sfl15 stamp for my cousin, two postcards, a repica Indian mask (made in the Phillipines), a wooden water melon (ditto), and some (spicy) peanut butter rolls and soft drinks from the YWCA cafe. I also got two crisp Sfl5 notes to keep. Jim called round to the YWCA cafe as I was waiting for De Paarl to say goodbye and to say that the Jewish Archive was being moved and was in a mess, but he was going to inspect the boxes that evening.

De Paarl bus arrived just before 1.00. It stopped for two women and children and what seemed like all their possessions, then again at the garage for a while. It was 2.10 before we got to Zanderij. Along the airport road you could see the bushnegro dwellings - little wooden planked houses with shelters made out of branches and overlapped leaves.

Zanderij took a long time as usual. First the queue for customs. The customs' man asked if I had anything to declare in Dutch. I said 'Emglish' so he waved me on. Then to check in and get rid of the suitcase. Then to another desk to get a seat number. Then to another booth for Sfl30 airport tax. The to the military police/army emigration - I presented the immigration slip and he asked why I had not gone to the police to get my passport stamped. I said I did not know; no-one had told me to do it when I came in. So he said 'next time you do it', and let me through. Next, to the military police security.

There were two booths with a half curtain hanging to hide the police and top half of the people. You waited until a booth was free. My undeclared US$220 travellers' cheques were folded in my jacket shoulder-pads (a trick I'd copied from an episode of Taggart in which drugs were being smuggled in shoulder-pads). As I waited, I felt it and it seemed so obvious - crispy - so since the toilets were next door, I retired from the queue and took them out. I tried hiding them in my pants, as the Javanese man had hinted. In the front seemed too obvious; in the crotch I thought they might make me walk like a cowboy or they might work their way out. I can't tell a polite audience where I hid them. I didn't want to attract suspicion, so I went through the process of pulling the chain and washing my hands. There was no drier, so I entered the booth with damp hands.

There was a man and a woman MP. The woman asked questions - nationality? We went over how much I had brought in. I did not have my £5 note with me - it was in the suitcase: 'was I sure?' she said. I showed her the US$ change and two five guilder notes. She had seen me rub my hands as they were damp. She gave me a deep-bore stare. 'Are you nervous?' she demanded. I tried to look her straight back and just said 'no'. Slightly squeaky, I thought. She made me take off my hat and felt my hair and plait. Then I got through, for the boring two-hour wait in the departure lounge. I could have bought the same items in their duty free shop, but if you're not allowed to take out more than Sfl100, you couldn't buy anything more than that.

Still feeling uneasy. I was worried they might spot-check people. The plane was fifteen minutes late taking off. Thank-goodness it wasn't longer. Great view of the Suriname River, Byam's Point and the Commerwijn. At Trinidad I hadn't been given an immigration form, so I had to fill one in there.