White Beach

Today was a pretty boring day. Yet another one of reading tests at school and doing nothing at home.
At around 7pm it was time for dinner. Tineke was already in the kitchen cooking the rice when I started on the chicken and curry. When you have limited access to herbs and spices, you just use what you have, so improvisation all the way for me!
Everyone liked it though and no one had any problems from the food, so I was happy.

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Last school day and yet again reading tests. Mr Paulus (the principal) had promised us a teacher meeting so we could introduce our project to all teachers. In the end, we didn’t get anything, so I hope we can talk to him about it on Monday, cause we really want to start with whatever we have planned to stay on schedule.
On our way home, we stopped at Kirpalani, a sort of supermarket with all sorts of stuff like kitchen, garden, office equipment and a lot of school stuff as well (which of course was the reason for us going there).
Today was leftover day (mixed with McDonalds day, since there weren’t enough leftovers for the six of us).
We also decided to watch a few movies tonight: during dinner we watched Snow White, afterwards was A Knight’s Tale’s turn and Enchanted to end the day. By that time it was 1am already, so really time for bed!

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God, today was a very filled day! We started with having a relaxed breakfast and decided to head into town for some shopping. Everyone needed something.
Again a visit to Kirpalani, because Ellen needed to buy a mosquito net. We also all bought a white T-shirt for Holi Pagwa, a Hindustan holiday (you’ll probably hear all about it after March 11, the day we’re all going out to celebrate). After this, came heaven: Vaco, the bookshop. Marij and I shopped till we dropped (we spent over 500 SRD on fun books for school, thank you sponsors)! With a few full bags and very empty pockets, we left to go home already, since it’s pretty impossible to have fun shopping when you’re carrying all those heavy bags.
Today was the day we would go out for dinner. So we called the other students to see if they wanted to go with us. They weren’t that hungry, so we went by ourselves. Apparently you don’t use cutlery to eat roti, you use your hands instead.
Afterwards, everyone was ready to leave again, but needed to wait for me, since I couldn’t find the little keys to the locks on my bike… Started to panic a bit, but I eventually found them in my very big purse.
“Mounted” our bikes again and rode back home. Pia, a girl from the other group, called us, to see if we were going to do something tonight. We all agreed to go to Havana Lounge, a club a bit further into town. in the end Tineke, Sharon and Evi decided they didn’t feel like it after all, so they stayed home, bought something to drink and had a party at home on their own while we got in the taxi.
We did have a good time. Pia and Joachim, Marij, Ellen and I went to Havana Lounge, but it turned out you needed a VIP pass to get in tonight… We crawled back in the cab and drove further into town. Drank a caipirinha and almost got knocked out by the amount of alcohol in it!
We felt like doing something a bit more active than just sit there and get drunk, so we headed to Starzz, a night club. The price you needed to pay to get in is 17,50 SRD and we all agreed that was a bit too much.
Our final stop: Zanzibar, a little cocktail bar. Very cheap and extremely delicious cocktails! Nicky and Vincent, the two other students of the other group, met us there and we had a little party of our own. At 3am we headed back into town to see if there was still somewhere we could go. Seems that bars and pubs close at 3, so we called a taxi and drove back home.
Everyone was still awake when we got there, our neighbours from across the street had also come around for a visit.
Ellen was exhausted and went to bed, so the rest of us took everything and head downstairs. Wesley had the brilliant idea to make a camp fire in the back yard and we all took a chair and sat around a cosy, warm “fire” (more smoke than fire, but it was warm and cosy!).
At 5am Wesley and Winston thought about a “fun” game, a bit of a combination of spin the bottle and truth or dare: you spin the bottle and give a task to the one the neck of the bottle points to.
Very fun and it was past 6.30 by the time we went to bed. We’re supposed to go to the plantage around 10am tomorrow, so we’re going to look like zombies! \o/

Some of the fun assignments:
- Drink a full glass of beer, hanging upside down.
- Make 10 turns around a bottle and run to the other side of the back yard as fast as you can without falling over.
- Run around the street in your underwear.
- Be a tree hugger and hug the palm tree.
- Give someone a lap dance.
- Strip.

My favourite task: give Bianca a 10 minute neck massage. (and no, it wasn’t me who gave the task! And it wasn’t me doing all those other assignments either! :p)

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I got up at about 10.30am. Pretty early if you consider I only got to bed at 6.30… Wesley came over and we convinced him to go buy us some sandwiches. Roché also came around to tell us that the trip to the plantage was cancelled, because the second car was at the garage and we didn’t have enough room in one car for all of us. This is the third time (?) the trip has been cancelled.
Luckily Winston called us a bit later to ask if we felt like going to Saramacca, a district a bit further into the country. Evi was out to some of her parent’s friends (her pqrents used to live here) and Ellen didn’t really feel like going, since she still had a lot of work to do.
On the way there we stopped along the road to buy some fish and some ramboetans. Us Bakras (which means white person in Sranantongo) jumped out of the car to take some pictures of the Saramacca River which we had passed just seconds before.
After about an hour drive we arrived at Winston’s aunt, who was going to cook for us. Winston left with her to the corner of the street to buy some saoto soup. When he got back the car missed the back window and had a big dent in the trunk. Apparently he had hit a light pole backing up from the parking space. We didn’t really mind, the air cooling was very welcome!
At 7pm we used a rope to keep the trunk closed and drove back home. Because we hadn’t slept a lot the other night I was exhausted, but the good music kept us all awake.

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On Sunday we had planned a trip to White Beach with the other students. At 8.45am we were supposed to be at their house to be picked up with a little minivan. Since it was pouring, we called them to see if they could come pick us up instead. They told us it could be arranged, but that they were going to be a bit late because people had broken into our driver’s house.
By 10am they finally arrived and we were on our way. After a 45min drive we got to White beach. This is a small area where they have dug up sand from the river and made a “beach” at the bank (usually, there is only mud, trees and bushes). The indication “White” is a bit misleading, because it’s actually grey sand. After a nice swim in the river (with fairly warm water, a fairly strong currant and fairly gross sand), some of us lay themselves on the beach for some sunbathing, while the others searched the shelter from our little rented beach cabin to play some games.
When it was time for lunch, Marij and I head over to the little pub-like place to buy ourselves something yummy: Nasie with chicken and some samosa, which are small pastries filled with potatoes, kousenband and a mild curry (very delicious).
After lunch Marij and I head back in the water to play some beach ball (a game with two wooden “rackets” and a small ball) to cool ourselves down again. The sunbathers joined us (all red and baked) and after that time for some more sunbathing. All the girls lay themselves down and took a nap, read a book or made some Sudoku’s (or did all three).
Around seven pm we packed everything up again and head back home. It was a very fun, exciting and active day!