One big cure of clean air

‘Now it’s rainy season here, it’s extra humid and you can see along the trails in the rainforest how it all seeps down. You are literally in a herbal vapor. You smell the soothing, calming scents of fallen leaves and grasses. I can imagine that it has a medicinal effect and keeps people healthy. It is one big cure of clean air and herbal vapor.

“My wife and her two pre-daughters from a previous relationship are from the interior. They are Maroons; descendants of slaves who fled to the forest. We have an eight-year-old daughter who grew up in the interior as a toddler. So we had a lat relationship. We have been living under one roof in Paramaribo for three years because of the children’s school. But my wife has kept her home inland. She regularly returns for her agricultural plot, where she grows rice and vegetables, then I am alone with the children for a few weeks. Now it was vacation and I brought the children to her and stayed for four days myself.

“Every time I take that river trip through the rainforest, I realize that it is a sought-after ecotourism destination. And something like that is in my backyard, two hours by land and two hours by water, that’s really a kick for nothing. Although due to the depreciation of money and the financial crises here, this normal family visit is now also precious to me.

“This time my wife had traveled there because of a death. For Maroons this is not a family matter but a village affair. Because of their traditional beliefs and rituals, it takes two weeks or even longer for someone to be buried. The body is well packed in the coffin with cloths, but the corpse odor sometimes squeaks out a bit. After the funeral it is brokodeia party that will keep you going all night.

“I experience it as a wealth that you can go up and down to the rainforest for four days. I come to myself there, I go there for my rest. There is no traffic, and limited electricity – all those villages are isolated communities living on the river. You can reach them by canoe, or you can take a walk in the woods to the next village. There is a different dynamic. You don’t think: what am I going to do in the next few hours? You live with the people, talk to them.

“Most houses don’t have a toilet, not even my wife’s, so it’s pooping in the woods. I always bathe in the creek where the women do their dishes and laundry. Not until about eleven, when the sun is nice and high. The water is clear and refreshingly cool. It is a kind of natural bathroom; I shave there and even bring a back brush.

“And then there’s the river. At low tide you can walk to the center and sit between the rocks, as if in a kind of wild jacuzzi. You have to brace yourself, otherwise you will be dragged along.

„I was promoted to pikin fu gron: child off the ground. The Maroons have no land ownership, you are assigned a piece of land by the village rulers and you can build your house on it. It is my dream to spend my old age there. But the reality is that because of the school of the children I will have to continue living in the city. Yet I cherish that dream.

“By the way, you never come back from the interior empty-handed. This time I had to bring large bananas for my wife’s brother. And my wife was making oil from maripa, a palm fruit. That is an intensive process, looking for the seeds in the forest and then pressing them manually. Previously, the agricultural plot was intended to provide for its own maintenance, but now that we are together it is more cultural preservation. It is very special that we sometimes eat for months on her home-grown rice.

“When she visits her agricultural plot, she sees her mother and the aunts, sisters and nieces with whom she grew up. She will never get rid of that land. The Maroons have a matriarchal system; the children are given the mother’s surname. When a child dies, the woman’s oldest brother decides what will happen. So not the father of the child. The maternal family is leadingalso in other family matters.

“When I emigrated to the Netherlands as a toddler, I thought we were going to a kind of heaven because you had to go there by plane. I have been living in my native country for over 25 years now. Since then I have no need to go on holiday elsewhere. If I want a holiday, I go to the interior and return to Paramaribo with a satisfied feeling. Isn’t it incredibly chic that I take our children to the bosom of the interior, the Amazon rainforest for family visits.”

Iwan Brave (1963) is editor-in-chief of the Surinamese daily newspaper The True Time†