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My God! You want know more about someone who live in the country and has the insight! People in South America travel continental distances by road, is very common migrants from Para or Northeast Brazil get in São Paulo or Rio or Brasilia by buses.
Of course the ones that are there, are benefitting economically most of them are seeking for gold.
They go to these places to improve their financial circumstances. And these places include Guyana and Suriname. Glad to see that you got the point.
You were pretending that they were just traipsing over the river to go shopping and to hang out with friends. The rewards for undergoing those treacherous bush roads must be real if people are going to undergo that This suggests that income inequality of Brazil.
FYI and just as one example. Thousands of river islands in and around the Mompox Depression in the Caribbean marshlands at least 3 x size of Jamaica have been isolated and continue to be even until now. This is what the collision of two of the 100 longest rivers in the world causes. Only now is appropriate infrastructure being built for these UNESCO & National heritage communities. This is the epicentre of Colombia's main Zambo identity.
Zambo communities of the Mompox depression and surrounding cienagas and river islands...
Mohana or Mojana is not a S.Pacific disney character - it's the mother spirit of the water of the Mompox Depression...
As the above there are dozens more isolated communities across the country in the vast difficult to reach geographical spaces. So Caribny I suggest a little bit more research and less ignorance on your part. Still waiting for your next deviating argument?
1. What % of Colombia's population live in those places?
2. Do they have historic patterns of conflict with the authorities which results in their isolation from modern amenities and then suffering as a result?
Do some research about Suriname's Maroons. You will learn that mere isolation is only part of the issue that explains their low incomes.
In any case you know full well that the income inequality of Colombia is NOT only due to these isolated populations. You are so angry that I expose anti black racism in Colombia that you have lost all logic in your dealings with me.
The Guyanas. A piece of the Caribbean stuck on the northeast of South America. Some overlap with Brazil, which also has a plantation heritage and an Afro influenced culture, but alien from the rest.
When I was in graduate school, I spent a month in Paramaribo. It is a very interesting place. The people are very mixed... blacks (Creoles), East Indians, Javanese, Chinese, Brazilians and a few other groups you see shopping, conducting business, together. It's not a wealthy place. Some of the buildings are run down, but you still see the Dutch colonial influence. There is a synagogue right across from a mosque. Don't try to take pictures of government buildings, though... I was warned by local military not to when I tried.
I really like the food... got all my meals from vendors along the water side... the Javanese food is really good. A librarian at Anton de Kom University invited me along with a white Dutch lady and a black Canadian guy to go see a Winti religious ceremony in the interior. It was a bunch of women dancing around... and a few gay-looking guys ("possessed" by the female spirit) dancing with them. Our host took us back to some religious thatch-covered structures... he was serious about the religion. There was a guy urinating in one of them. The host said to him in Sranan, "Disi no de wan pisi presi" ("This is no place to ****".) The Canadian guy laughed, but I kept it in not wanting to offend.
In Paramaribo proper, I took their collective vans (taxis) all over the metro area. Walked around remote areas. One guy called me disdainfully boeroe, which is the name for white farmer descendants of Dutch colonialists still living in the country. For some reason, he was not happy to see me. A group of middle-school aged children yelled, "Ben je op vacantie?"... Dutch for "Are you on vacation?" from their school. Got a cold Coke from neighborhood grocery stores (it is hot there), which were all run by Chinese people.
Some areas of the city you definitely want to avoid at night. You could get easily mugged.
I met this Suriname guy who had lived in New York for years and spoke good American English. He gave me a sob story and asked for money. I gave him some to help. Later that day I saw him sprawled out on the sidewalk completely unconscious. It was at this point that I said to myself that I would never give money to a beggar again (a vow which I have since not kept -- it's good to use discernment about *real* need).
Some American missionaries would drop this severely deformed guy off on a downtown street corner to beg. He couldn't walk. His legs were bent completely back, small, and completely without muscle (atrophied)… like useless sticks. They would pick him back up later in the day, every day. I really felt and still feel for him. There is little social support infrastructure in that poor country. I saw a young kid, maybe 8 years old, begging also. I asked him, "Fu sanede yu no go na skoro? Yu musu go no skoro?" ("Why aren't you in school? You have to go to school".) He just shrugged. There was no adult to watch over him. Some parents really neglect their kids, the world over.
On Sundays, men gather to enter their finches for a singing competition in a local park. It's a big *sport* there. Not sure what kind of birds they were. There were also some beautiful free-flying birds. I remember seeing a blue tanager that was striking. They had small, long-tailed monkeys free-roaming that would come down from the trees to be fed. They looked like they could be vicious, though, and I didn't offer them food.
I met a woman from Jamaica living there who said that the local language, Sranan, was close enough to Jamaican Patois that she could understand it. I met a few Guyanese as well. None of them spoke Dutch, which is used by nearly all native Surinamers in the city, along with Sranan. Dutch is the more formal or *proper* language, while Sranan is more for relaxed settings / cutting up.
There's a nice open air market in the city, where you can buy fresh vegetables and other foodstuffs. It's open every day. I brought American Express Traveler's Checks with me, but couldn't find anyone who would cash them! I don't remember how I got by, but I did...
When I was in graduate school, I spent a month in Paramaribo. It is a very interesting place. The people are very mixed... blacks (Creoles), East Indians, Javanese, Chinese, Brazilians and a few other groups you see shopping, conducting business, together. It's not a wealthy place. Some of the buildings are run down, but you still see the Dutch colonial influence. There is a synagogue right across from a mosque. Don't try to take pictures of government buildings, though... I was warned by local military not to when I tried.
I really like the food... got all my meals from vendors along the water side... the Javanese food is really good. A librarian at Anton de Kom University invited me along with a white Dutch lady and a black Canadian guy to go see a Winti religious ceremony in the interior. It was a bunch of women dancing around... and a few gay-looking guys ("possessed" by the female spirit) dancing with them. Our host took us back to some religious thatch-covered structures... he was serious about the religion. There was a guy urinating in one of them. The host said to him in Sranan, "Disi no de wan pisi presi" ("This is no place to ****".) The Canadian guy laughed, but I kept it in not wanting to offend.
In Paramaribo proper, I took their collective vans (taxis) all over the metro area. Walked around remote areas. One guy called me disdainfully boeroe, which is the name for white farmer descendants of Dutch colonialists still living in the country. For some reason, he was not happy to see me. A group of middle-school aged children yelled, "Ben je op vacantie?"... Dutch for "Are you on vacation?" from their school. Got a cold Coke from neighborhood grocery stores (it is hot there), which were all run by Chinese people.
Some areas of the city you definitely want to avoid at night. You could get easily mugged.
I met this Suriname guy who had lived in New York for years and spoke good American English. He gave me a sob story and asked for money. I gave him some to help. Later that day I saw him sprawled out on the sidewalk completely unconscious. It was at this point that I said to myself that I would never give money to a beggar again (a vow which I have since not kept -- it's good to use discernment about *real* need).
Some American missionaries would drop this severely deformed guy off on a downtown street corner to beg. He couldn't walk. His legs were bent completely back. They would pick him back up later in the day, every day. I really felt and still feel for him. There is little social support infrastructure in that poor country. I saw a young kid, maybe 8 years old, begging also. I asked him, "Fu sanede yu no go na skoro? Yu musu go no skoro?" ("Why aren't you in school? You have to go to school".) He just shrugged. There was no adult to watch over him. Some parents really neglect their kids, the world over.
On Sundays, men gather to enter their finches for a singing competition in a local park. It's a big *sport* there. Not sure what kind of birds they were... they looked like green singing finches (Serinus mozambicus), but I may be wrong. There were also some beautiful free-flying birds. I remember seeing a blue tanager that was striking. They had small, long-tailed monkeys free-roaming that would come down from the trees to be feed. They looked like they could be vicious, though, and I didn't offer them food.
I met a woman from Jamaica living there who said that the local language, Sranan, was close enough to Jamaican Patois that she could understand it. I met a few Guyanese as well. None of them spoke Dutch, which is used by nearly all native Surinamers in the city, along with Sranan. Dutch is the more formal or *proper* language, while Sranan is more for relaxed settings / cutting up.
There's a nice open air market in the city, where you can buy fresh vegetables and other foodstuffs. It's open every day.
Great post.
There is no way someone can claim to know Sranan because of Patois. Very dissimilar
There is no way someone can claim to know Sranan because of Patois. Very dissimilar
The Jamaican woman was living in Suriname. I suspect that her knowledge of patois would have allowed her to learn Srnan faster than she learned Dutch.
If I see the written form sometimes I can get a sense of what is being said. It has similar roots but "re Africanized" itself after Suriname became Dutch (it was originally British) because of isolation from the English language. The Creoles of the anglophone Caribbean became closer to English for obvious reasons.
I met this Suriname guy who had lived in New York for years and spoke good American English. He gave me a sob story and asked for money. I gave him some to help. Later that day I saw him sprawled out on the sidewalk completely unconscious. It was at this point that I said to myself that I would never give money to a beggar again (a vow which I have since not kept -- it's good to use discernment about *real* need).
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