An Unexpected Guest

Occasionally, I find it necessary to release myself from the locked cage of vibrational creativity that is my one-bedroom apartment on the edge of the jungle. Often, that just means running upstairs to the gym to have a punch-up on a pair of Thai pads that never retaliate. Other days, I am called to the hustling, bustling streets of Paramaribo’s city center to remind myself that I am not an island.

Despite the staggering economic recession, shops and shopping bags remain full around town. It’s a hearty soup of energy and attraction in Suriname's capital city. Strokes of humidity mix with the competing ingredients of material consumption and the eye’s consumption of human form. Women are prone to bat an eyelash in my direction, even while walking with their boyfriends. I’m prone to bat an eyelash at their boyfriends just to keep everyone on their toes. It’s usually a game of look and look away, but one recent afternoon the image of a woman emerged from the crowd like a sub-equatorial mirage to catch me in her invisible snare.

“She's looking at you?” My driver playfully mentioned in between sips of a Parbo tall-boy. 

“I noticed,” I replied while trying my very best not to notice. 

A month had passed since my Brazilian ex-girlfriend kicked me out of her house for reasons I will never understand. Mostly because I don’t speak Portuguese and she doesn’t speak English. It had been two weeks since I enacted psychic revenge by sleeping with her friend and co-worker; also, non-English speaking. I had all but given up on finding love in the jungles of South America, but I rolled my window down anyway.  

“Excuse me,” I said as the cab idled up next to her. 

Her strides were broken by my words. She seemed startled by my voice. Maybe she wasn't looking through me and not at me as the driver and I had suspected. Or maybe it was just the fact that the first words out of my mouth were in English. 

My driver rambled something off to her in Sranan Tongo (Surinamese).

“Hello. Don’t worry, I speak English,” she said with an inviting smile and a wave. Already, this was going way better than my last relationship.

“Would you like to come to my place to hangout tonight? Maybe we chill, maybe we go dancing?” I asked. 

She stood up straight, inverting her hands on her hips. She peered out across the streams of busy bodies navigating gaps in between stalled cars, as if to ask herself why this strange, bearded foreigner picked her from the illustrious garden of tropical chaos around us.

“Sure,” she said, leaning in again. The whites of her cat-like eyes glistened in the remnants of the afternoon sun. I wrote my address down on a piece of paper and handed it to her just as traffic started to move again.  

She eerily and unexpectedly sauntered up to my doorstep at midnight. Normally, this would be late, but nothing about my schedule in Suriname was normal. Midnight had become like “new-noon” as I struggled mightily to harness my creative energies anytime before sundown.  

She settled into a chair in the corner of my dimly lit kitchen. She crossed her legs, causing her black and white striped mini-dress to creep up her thighs, exposing naturally smooth skin that shimmered in the ivory moonlight trickling in through the open doorway.

The referee themed motif of her dress was particularly fitting. Every man’s attempts at turning physical attraction into deep, soul-enriching connection should be officiated by the woman he is trying to swoon.  And it helps if she has a collection of bright yellow bullshit flags at the ready. I tread carefully, but confidently after she broke our awkward silence with the question, “What brought you to Suriname?”

It’s a question I am often asked. Instead of a mystical re-telling of the harrowing experiences I’ve had in indigenous, psychedelic ceremonies; where I play the role of a knight in ever-thinning armor, slaying dragons and biting snakes in half to escape a fiery, personal hell, I normally just answer this way: “God told me to come here.”

“You know, before I left the house this morning, my mother told me that I needed to keep my eyes open because I was going to meet the love of my life. My mother is a very spiritual Christian woman. She said it came to her in a vision given by God himself,” she said.   

In this part of the world my spiritual intimations are not just received, they are often reciprocated. Thirsty souls are quenched in Suriname for reasons I am still trying to comprehend.

“Well here I am, the love of your life,” I said facetiously.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said withholding a coy grin under sharp glances. “Do you have hash or wine?” she asked.  

“No, but I can get both,” I responded. I reached for my phone and sent a text to the only man I knew who could grab hash and wine on the fly at 1am and not seem bothered by such a request.

Twenty minutes later my mysterious night messenger arrived with a bag of hash and a bottle of cheap red wine. The girl took the hash and quickly set to rolling a tight joint. After a few re-affirming licks to seal the hash in the rolling papers, the three of us partook of the burning bush and intermittently sipped from the bottle of wine.

Satisfied, our shadowy delivery man departed, leaving my guest and I to sift through the compartments our souls in plumes of smoke and wine waterfalls.

“So, what’s your story?” I asked, sensing the hash had relaxed the tense energy between us.

“I came here when I was 17 from Guyana,” she responded. She tapped the ash off the end of the joint and into a coffee mug painted red and white. 

“Came here and got caught up with the wrong man; a wannabe gangster. He went to prison and left me with three kids.” 

It was hard to imagine such a tiny frame supporting a fully inhabited womb, let alone doing it three times over.  

“It’s always the wannabe gangsters that want me. I don’t know why,” she remarked, shaking her head and taking a heavy drag of the joint. “You’re not a wannabe gangster, are you?”

I took a moment to think about her question. Flashes of my previous life wrestling drunks outside of bars and throwing solid jabs in back parking lots rolled through my mind’s eye.

“Well,” I paused again. “I’d say, I’m more like a reformed gangster than a wannabe.”

She passed the joint and I sent those all too recent memories off in a purge of smoke that was swept away by a timely jungle breeze. Just as the joint burned down to the clutch, she began to roll another.

“Yeah, well I also found out he was sleeping with his sister,” she casually imparted.  

“His actual sister?  Like, his real sister?” I asked.

“Yep. Got her pregnant and everything,” she said keeping her eyes focused on the bits of hash she was organizing with the tips of her painted, white fingernails.

“So, what did you do after he went to prison? How did you support your children?” I asked.

“I worked the street. Men always found me attractive, and I knew I could make money. I worked the street for two years. Then one night, five years ago, this man came and took me to his house. He sat me down and cooked for me.” 

She paused to light the freshly rolled joint. She pulled hard and blew the smoke out of the side of her mouth, in the most gangster way possible. 

She continued, “He was a mysterious man. Kind of like you, but not like you. He served me dinner and told me that God told him to pick me up that night. The man said he had a vision that I would die working the street.”

“And you listened to him?” I asked taking the joint from her with a thumb and forefinger.

“I did. I quit immediately and got a job working at a gas station. For five years I provided for my children. Just me. No help,” she said confidently.

Her tale of courage, prophecy, and clarity put my past struggles into perspective. During my personal battles, I only had to worry about the face in the mirror, but in her darkest days, she sacrificed her body for the wellness of the three young souls she brought into this world. I cannot even begin to imagine having to breathe life into three children while you’re dying on the inside.  

“I appreciate you sharing your story. I’m stronger for having listened to it. You are a very strong woman,” I said. Her story was tragic, but her essence was reaffirmed by its ending, or what I thought was its ending.

Her orange, old school Nokia brick phone vibrated on the table in front of us. She snickered as she read the number on the lime green screen.

“That’s him, the first guy I told you about,” she said ignoring the call.

"The guy who slept with his sister?" I asked for clarity's sake. 

 “Yes. He still calls me from prison. Sometimes it’s to tell me he loves me, sometimes it’s to threaten me.” 

She put the phone back on the table face down. She grabbed the bottle of wine and took a hearty swig. With her free hand she scratched at the lower part of her stomach. I could tell she was uncomfortable.  

“You okay?” I asked.

“Surgery scar. Sometimes it itches from the inside. Sometimes it burns,” she said rubbing the area gently.

“That must be a pretty fresh scar if it’s itchy,” I said.

She signaled for the joint that had been lingering in between my lips for far too long. “We humans like to challenge God’s plan every chance we get.”

She went on, “Two months ago, I got greedy. For five years I was doing okay for myself but one day in December I decided to see what the streets had to offer. I went with this man back to his house. He promised to pay me well. He was a nice man, but he was very rough in bed. He was pounding, pounding, pounding me,” she said gently tapping a tightly clenched fist onto the table as she described the man’s relentless nature.

“I had to stop. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed for an hour in his bed. Eventually, he forced me to get up and leave. I was on a side street walking home and suddenly a rush of blood and fluid came from under my skirt. I miscarried right then and there,” she explained.

“What? You were pregnant?” I asked.

“I had a couple of boyfriends over the past year. One of them got me pregnant and I didn’t know it,’’ she said. “They had to perform surgery after the miscarriage. So, yes, it’s still a fresh scar.”

I took a much-needed sip of wine to wash down the unexpected doses of raw human experience my guest was serving up. I was not speechless, but there was no need for words. I could see that the recanting of her past was making her exhausted at a time when she was probably already tired. I took both of her hands in mine and lead her up on to my lap. She fit perfectly in my arms.  She rested her head on my shoulders and closed her dreary eyes.

Her phone vibrated again. She turned it over to reveal the same prison number strewn across the screen.

“It’s half past four in the morning. I should go. My kids will be up soon,” she said after declining the call. 

She rested in my arms for a little longer. I spread my fingers wide, putting one hand on her back. I closed my eyes and said a prayer for her. A prayer that also conveyed a certain level of thankfulness for allowing me access to the details of her sordid past. I prayed that I could find lessons in her past. I prayed that I could find lessons in our chance encounter.

“Next time we talk about your fucked-up life,” she said with an ear-to-ear smile. Moments later she left to catch a taxi. I locked my apartment door behind me.

While I had all but given up on finding the love of my life in the jungles of South America, my happenstance guest reminded me that I should not give up on loving life; not now, not ever. I opened my laptop and began to write.

Words and First Image by Keoni K. Wright

EXODUS - A Surinamese village struggles to re-gain its footing in the wake of a decreasing population

Jdjani (21) and Mayo (48) are bound by their allegiance to Witagron and the way of life the jungle provides

If you are confident enough to compete with logging caravans hogging narrow strips of loose sand, once city pavement ends you can make it to the remote village of Witagron in under five hours. Local guide Steve Oldenstam (“Steve O.” to his friends) travels this road often. He navigates the bumps, downed trees, and the seemingly magnetic lure of roadside ditches the same way a seafarer reads the open ocean. Steve-O has been taking curious tourists to Witagron and other off-the-grid villages in Suriname’s western rainforest for years.

“Witagron is the wild west, man. I want visitors to experience the rawness. Other villages play to the tourists’ expectations. Not here,” 28-year-old Steve O. says.

Aesthetically, Witagron is unlike other villages along the route. A red and white communications tower dwarfs the tallest trees and pulls the eyes away from an array of transcendently colorful flora. Nearby, a modern Bailey bridge connects Witagron to the fertile hunting grounds on the other side of the Coppename River. The tiny village boasts a school, a development center, and a medical building. Unfortunately, all in Witagron is not as it seems.

“No one is ever there; the medical center, the development building. It’s all bullshit,” says Mayo, a 48-year-old local hunter and boatman. He speaks Sranan Tongo, the local creole tongue, while Steve O. translates.

According to Mayo and fellow boatman, 21 year-old Jdjani, the medical building is never staffed which leaves locals without modern options for preventative or emergent healthcare. The communications tower is “too short” and provides such limited range that it is nearly obsolete. The bridge (an engineering marvel around these parts) is rapidly deteriorating under the 

Witagron's impassable Bailey bridge

weight of logging trucks. It is currently deemed impassable.

Instead of sending construction crews, the government posted two police officers at the ailing bridge on the eve of our arrival. A move that was probably more about ensuring the safety of aloof loggers than protecting villagers.

Witagron is the ancestral home of the Kwinti people. The Kwinti are the direct descendants of slaves who escaped the wrath of their Dutch overseers and returned to an African way of life in the extended Amazon rainforest. Of the six groups in Suriname descended from escaped slaves, the Kwinti have a reputation as the fiercest.

“The other slaves fled the plantations, but the Kwinti were known to stand-up to the Dutch. They fought for their freedom,” says Steve O.

In more modern times, Mayo called upon the righteous spirits of his ancestors during Suriname’s six-year civil war. The war pitted rebels from villages in the interior, fighting under the moniker “Jungle Commando”, against government forces lead by Suriname’s then dictator, Desi Bouterse.

“I once defended Witagron from an ambush with seven other men. They [government forces] came with bazookas, helicopters, and planes,” Mayo says proudly from behind a very calm demeanor.

Jungle Commando fighters surrendered in 1992 after Bouterse promised a return to democracy. Ironically, Bouterse was democratically elected as Suriname’s president in 2010, a position he still holds. While the raging sounds of automatic gunfire have been replaced by the echoes of shotgun blasts from local hunters, younger generations of Kwinti, like Jdjani, are embroiled in a war against the lure of the city dollar.

Once a thriving village of over 500, Witagron’s population has dwindled to just 50 as more young people leave the rainforest for what they hope are greener pastures in Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo. Those who leave tend to ditch their cultural identity once the dirt hits pavement.

“I will never leave. I could probably go to the city and make more money but I feel healthy here. I feel strong,” Jdjani says.

Mayo echoed his younger counterpart’s defiant stance and claims the city is a place he rarely travels to.

“It’s nicer here than in the city. I can live without spending much money; living off the nature. I only occasionally go to the city to get luxuries like sugar,” says Mayo while rolling a joint on a silver-plated platter.

Jdjani believes the exodus to Paramaribo is one that stems from a lack of local employment and education.

“If there was more work young people would stay, but if you can’t find a job logging, working a gold mine, or being a boatman, like me, you have to leave,” Jdjani says.

The school in Witagron only provides children with an elementary level education. They must board in Paramaribo to complete further studies. In Paramaribo, young Kwinti are thrown into a materialistic stream of consciousness where city dwellers are prone to openly dismiss traditional means of living. Those who return to Witagron after high school do so with a greater sense of monetary value that sometimes contradicts the natural wealth provided by the jungle.

A local woman preparing vegetables outside of her home was quick to relate the story of her two sons - one who stayed in the city and the other who returned. The son in Paramaribo is unemployed, caught up in drugs, and living like a “street person.” The son who returned to Witagron feels “stuck” and struggles to find purpose after attaining skills and insights that do not directly translate to village life.

The problems in Witagron are further compounded by a lack of representation. Unlike most villages who have one captain, Witagron has the supposed luxury of having two. One captain resides locally and the other who lives in the city. Captaincy is a bi-product of post-slavery, Dutch colonial rule which sought to give remote villages a representative voice in Paramaribo. 

“The captain who lives here, in the village, listens to us. The captain that lives in Paramaribo is just about the money and doesn’t care about us. He never comes here,” Jdjani says.

Some villagers optimistically contend both captains are relaying the needs of their village properly. They feel the real problem lies in the nation-wide recession; a recession the government is trying to combat through exploitation of natural resources. In the eyes of the government, the land in Witagron is worth more in the hands of corporations than under the feet of villagers just trying to survive.

“The friends of the President, the gold and wood companies, will take over if people continue to leave,” Jdjani warns.

While other villages are accustomed to underground plumbing and uninterrupted electricity, Witagron is left with a crumbling water tank and mineral water fountains that no longer work. Residents are allowed four hours of electricity each night from 7p-11p. Electricity restrictions mean a greater reliance on gas and oil which puts further economic strain on villagers. Disconnected ice boxes, relics of more prosperous times, are used as dry storage for locally harvested rice.

When asked what they would discuss if given a private audience with the President, two local women emphatically responded, “Water!” An opening to the river at the back of the village is used as a boat launch and a communal watering hole.

The effects of neglect on a dwindling population filter all the way down to Kwinti spiritual practice. African groups in these jungles use ceremony to transform themselves into their individual spirit animals. The most powerful of which is the Jaguar. Kwinti Jaguar-men (those born with the spirit of a jaguar) are heralded as problem solvers, healers, and mediators between the realms. However, there are no Jaguar-men currently living in Witagron.

“The elder Jaguar-men passed away, and those who are alive moved to the city,” Jdjani says.

Visions of Witagron’s future differ generationally. Jdjani believes his village’s survival hinges on Paramaribo committing to infrastructure projects in time with initiatives making Witagron more attractive to merchants and investors. Mayo, on the other hand, cautions against giving control to outsiders in bed with big government.

“If they [merchants and corporations] are interested, they need to invest and communicate with us directly, not with ministers in government,” Mayo says. Steve O. believes the key to Witagron’s future is conscious tourism.

“The easiest way to make people aware is through tourism. Witagron’s residents can make more money introducing people to the trees than by working for corporations that cut trees down,” Steve O. says.

The dusty path leading to the center of Witagron

Although their reputation as no-nonsense warriors often precedes them, the Kwinti are an inclusive and accommodating people. Mayo feels his way of life holds invaluable lessons that can benefit the global community at-large. He uses the example of an American couple who came to live in Witagron for two years during the 1970s.

“They learned the language, how to plant, how to drive boats, and set nets for fishing. By the time they left they could do everything just as well as us.”

Words & Photos by Keoni K. Wright