Javanese Market

 She got tired after an hour wandering  but we did make it to the Sunday market five minutes from our apartment. The landlord had mentioned two markets in town on Sunday mornings, the Chinese  one and the Javanese street food which Layne and I got to visit yesterday but we did spend time inspecting some street food and hauled our loot home successfully.

There are moments Suriname confuses me or annoys me or leaves me baffled with strange bureaucracy or Dutch speakers angry at us for only speaking English, stuff like that  but then you get to the street food and that’s where we died and went to heaven Sunday morning. It doesn’t look much, a block long, but it is divine. The sign says “House for sale” according to Google translate but I can’t imagine living a block from this Sunday market…I’d end up there every Sunday drooling like an imbecile. 

First up was a waffle, classic Belgian -Dutch snack food, but have you ever seen them like this? Heavy duty breakfast coming up. 

I went with crème brûlée for some reason and it was like custard on a firm waffle which for some reason they give you a stupid plastic fork to eat it. I picked it up like a tostada and managed not to spill it on myself. 

And then we wandered the street checking the savory food after my late breakfast. “Kaaiman sate” is alligator satay (grilled on a stick) but we stuck to chicken (“kip”) which I find less dry than alligator.  

Peking duck was everywhere because this may be called the Javanese market but it is more than just Indonesian.

And pork crackling just because it’s good I guess. I think of it as Latin American but maybe they eat it in Indonesia too: what do I know? 

These Chinese steamed buns are on a totally different order of deliciousness than the puffy balls you get in the US with a pinch of meat in the middle. This is a meat pie with Chinese flavors in a delicate slightly crisp steamed bun. 

One of these please…lobster? Okay then. Layne’s backpack was bulging by the time we left. 

We stick out enough as tourists without dragging cameras into the market but my iPhone 12mini did not reproduce the bubbling hot oil in the woks. The smell was street food causing salivation…

The vendors were cheerful and patient with our excitement, our fumbling with paper money and our English only menu. It was great fun as they didn’t even mind being photographed. I got a pandan mochi and Layne got chocolate because I like the floral Far East vanilla-ish flavor of the green filling and  she is boring and goes for familiar chocolate. Oreo cookies are everywhere which I find totally weird but you’ll find them n supermarket shelves, in smoothies and ice cream and now patently in Asian desserts. 

I was pleased to see cashews, the edible fruit for sale:

I was so astonished this guy below in blue, spoke Spanish I forgot to photograph him but it was a fun moment as we bought tomatoes and tiny very sweet bananas. 

I see dogs and monkeys on chains and a few street dogs and live crabs dangling at the side of the street and then these fish. First World  sensibilities have no place on the road. I went home and hugged Rusty extra hard. He took it like a man and went back to sleep. He likes stationary air conditioning. 

We went into the Chinese market as Layne wanted to find satay peanut sauce similar to what we had in Domburg and while she went off led by a cheerful Chinese employee (who spoke English…yay!) I wondered the yea and sauce aisles marveling at the range of stuff for sale in a genuine Chinese community. Just the teas blew my mind as I love tea:

Then we drove home.

It took less than ten minutes and I snapped pictures as we went. 

You are seeing more of Paramaribo than anyone you know. Fancy Florida type homes:

Suburbia: 

It’s very European, not Latin American, very little street life, no sitting around in public with the grandkids on Sunday morning like you might see in Colombia or Peru for instance. 

I’ve learned a lot about not being able to speak or understand the local lingo, that sense of looking through a window and not knowing what’s going on. And yet we do get to speak some English. Without that this country would be a total fog. 

Suriname doesn’t expect to see tourists because everyone here visits to make a connection, to renew family ties, to work, to be a missionary, to do something. We are just drifting with no connection to the country and that confuses the less educated. So when we ask them to speak English it’s because we want to know, not to impose our culture or values or white-ness.  But that curiosity is outside their experience and it makes them defensive if they don’t speak English or speak it well. That’s the worst of being in Suriname, and there is no way around it. 

Rainy season is coming and the canals will need to drain the water away. We’ve seen back hoes scraping hyacinth plants out as fast as they can. 

So much greenery in this capital city and I find it charming. 

When eventually we get to French Guyana I will miss Suriname with its wild culture, irritating language barriers and its gentle drivers always on the wrong side of the street. Why they drive on the left is just another mystery. We enjoyed the market so we decided to make our departure date from Suriname on a Monday just to have one extra visit. This would be ideal road food.