First meeting with the interns
After shutting down shop at Spang Makandra, me and Wouter decided to first freshen up, ditch our laptops and meet up with the people of the Backlot for drinks. We also had the opportunity to have my laptop added to the allow list of the wireless internet I so fruitlessly tried to obtain.
When we arrived, we were greeted with a somewhat odd-looking situation. The guy who was there to add my laptop to the router configuration had left the gate open, leaving the place open for prying eyes. These were courtesy of three youths who were very interested in the shiny laptops me and Wouter were flaunting, as well as the surroundings and interior of the apartments. They excused their presence with the intent of renting one of the apartments and were here by appointment of the owner. We felt really uncomfortable about their prying and snooping, excused ourselves and went indoors. Turned out later that they were not supposed to be there, and their motives were at best unsavory. Completely freaked out, we arranged for our gear to stay over at Eddy's place for the night.
We started the belated drink run at Zus & Zo, which is adjacent to the Palmentuin near the Presidential Palace. Since we were delayed by the freakout moment, we basically made it there by closing time. We then left for 't Vat, a tourist trap which had the unfortunate idea to have a live tv report on the terraces. With Eddy Wijngaarde around, it took very little time until our table was targeted for a nice little question round. I recall nobody being happy about it, but I was having great difficulties dealing with the stifling climate at the time. I cannot be held accountable for my lack of insight at the time.
Me and Wouter left to meet the interns he'd been spending time with. The odd link here being Jeffrey, the cheery intern at Vincent's offices, who lives in a dorm-like situation with 13 other youngsters.
I had to admit that my state at that point (a time shift that left my body somewhere way past my usual naptime and an atmosphere you could physically touch) didn't really allow me to connect with any of them and I spent most of the time being quiet in a hammock, silently being gleeful at the fact that they adopted a stray cat, who was quietly sleeping among the hammocks.
After this brief introduction two of the interns were leaving for Krasnapolsky, and Wouter and I tagged along (with plans of leaving towards the city again). This way I got to actually talk to Paul and Amy. Paul can at worst be considered cheerfully annoying, but only ever so slightly. He has a hankering for Jazz music and has yet to not be cheerful, loud and assertive. Amy was a genuinely nice person to talk with and had some pretty good experiences to share about the cultural and political aspects of Surinam. Grim stories with a glint of admirable determination. We all ended up back in the city again, where I was subjected to the most terrible thing this side of the pond -Barka bars, where dutch music was craftfully engineered into a hellish tapestry of crap music. Natives argued that us white folks brought the music with us to their bars, but the interns were pretty adamant in their belief that they just got used to the crap that bar owners played to attract the Bakras in the first place. Chicken and egg theories are fun.
Finally, me and Wouter were picked up by Lou to head off to a night club, where several trainees were having a last time to meet up with Wouter before his flight the next day. I got several bemused stares from the trainees for not dancing, but I was just too damn busy observing a whole new ballgame by the sidelines. In the end Wouter ran into two more interns from the house, one being the dreadlocked girl so omnipresent in the pictures he sent to Us Media. According to Wouter I had met all 14 of them, though in the flurry of bar hopping and shaking hands, I pretty much lost track.
We left by taxi, crawled to bed around 03:30 and were somewhat asleep until 07:00, when a burglar alarm started whooting...
When we arrived, we were greeted with a somewhat odd-looking situation. The guy who was there to add my laptop to the router configuration had left the gate open, leaving the place open for prying eyes. These were courtesy of three youths who were very interested in the shiny laptops me and Wouter were flaunting, as well as the surroundings and interior of the apartments. They excused their presence with the intent of renting one of the apartments and were here by appointment of the owner. We felt really uncomfortable about their prying and snooping, excused ourselves and went indoors. Turned out later that they were not supposed to be there, and their motives were at best unsavory. Completely freaked out, we arranged for our gear to stay over at Eddy's place for the night.
We started the belated drink run at Zus & Zo, which is adjacent to the Palmentuin near the Presidential Palace. Since we were delayed by the freakout moment, we basically made it there by closing time. We then left for 't Vat, a tourist trap which had the unfortunate idea to have a live tv report on the terraces. With Eddy Wijngaarde around, it took very little time until our table was targeted for a nice little question round. I recall nobody being happy about it, but I was having great difficulties dealing with the stifling climate at the time. I cannot be held accountable for my lack of insight at the time.
Me and Wouter left to meet the interns he'd been spending time with. The odd link here being Jeffrey, the cheery intern at Vincent's offices, who lives in a dorm-like situation with 13 other youngsters.
I had to admit that my state at that point (a time shift that left my body somewhere way past my usual naptime and an atmosphere you could physically touch) didn't really allow me to connect with any of them and I spent most of the time being quiet in a hammock, silently being gleeful at the fact that they adopted a stray cat, who was quietly sleeping among the hammocks.
After this brief introduction two of the interns were leaving for Krasnapolsky, and Wouter and I tagged along (with plans of leaving towards the city again). This way I got to actually talk to Paul and Amy. Paul can at worst be considered cheerfully annoying, but only ever so slightly. He has a hankering for Jazz music and has yet to not be cheerful, loud and assertive. Amy was a genuinely nice person to talk with and had some pretty good experiences to share about the cultural and political aspects of Surinam. Grim stories with a glint of admirable determination. We all ended up back in the city again, where I was subjected to the most terrible thing this side of the pond -Barka bars, where dutch music was craftfully engineered into a hellish tapestry of crap music. Natives argued that us white folks brought the music with us to their bars, but the interns were pretty adamant in their belief that they just got used to the crap that bar owners played to attract the Bakras in the first place. Chicken and egg theories are fun.
Finally, me and Wouter were picked up by Lou to head off to a night club, where several trainees were having a last time to meet up with Wouter before his flight the next day. I got several bemused stares from the trainees for not dancing, but I was just too damn busy observing a whole new ballgame by the sidelines. In the end Wouter ran into two more interns from the house, one being the dreadlocked girl so omnipresent in the pictures he sent to Us Media. According to Wouter I had met all 14 of them, though in the flurry of bar hopping and shaking hands, I pretty much lost track.
We left by taxi, crawled to bed around 03:30 and were somewhat asleep until 07:00, when a burglar alarm started whooting...
posted by Hung Laxley at
1:27 AM
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