Rain And Fort Zeelandia

 It rained like it meant it yesterday, like rainy season is putting out its feelers.

Rain is a nuisance when you live and travel in a van but for us rain could spell a touch chunk of road once we are back in Brazil. South of French Guiana there is a 70 mile stretch of dirt highway that could be difficult to navigate if it gets seriously muddy. There’s nothing we can do about it but every time there is heavy rain it’s on our minds. 

Yesterday afternoon was a doozy. The morning however was sunny but with a cool breeze. We dropped off a big bag of laundry, hopefully our last in Paramaribo and went downtown to check out a tourist site I’ve long wanted to see. 

Built around 1660 on the banks of the Suriname River this was where Holland began its colonization of South America. The treaty of Breda signed in the Netherlands in 1667 was designed to redraw the map of the world, bring peace to Europe and divide up their slave operated  colonies equitably.

Leaving aside a lot of the complexities, Breda gave the nascent North American colonies to Britain, sorted out who owned what in the Caribbean and split Dutch Guyana into two carving the northern chunk into a British colony.

The fort sits opposite New Amsterdam…

…across the river giving the colonists total control over access to the Suriname River whence they exported valuable timber. 

The fort benefited from a breeze off the water but to prove I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer I spent thirty seconds pondering the labor required to offload all these bricks from the ships’ ballast to build the fort.  

Which was the moment I remembered that’s what slaves were for. I am astonished to read the modern defense of slavery saying Arabs and Africans kidnapping rivals in Africa are as much to blame for the trade and thus in some manner exonerating slave labor in the New World. 

I am a man of my time and my time is passing so I shall leave it to the next generations to explain how up is down and down is up but in my world view enslavement is a disgrace and I see this fascinating slice of history through that lens.

They had a model of the 17th century settlement under glass making photography a bit tricky. 

Kids on a Friday afternoon field trip:

Among the exhibits in Dutch (translated brilliantly by Google lens) was the emancipation proclamation of 1863. Why that date? I couldn’t say but I speculate wildly that they followed the US example set by President Lincoln. 

Another class field trip: 

This van has taken us to some extraordinary places.

Google Lens in action: 

Friday was my 68th birthday so for a history and geography nerd like me this walk was a treat. 

It rained later in the day after we had Chinese food for lunch but the water cooled the city off so there was that. 

We paid $165 for Rusty’s export permit so we are ready to drive for the ferry to French Guiana Monday morning. What a rip off that permit is when we get treat like livestock merchants for leaving this country with our own pet. Fortunately he’s worth it.

The Synagogue

It’s called the House of Peace and it was built in 1842 as an Orthodox temple but nowadays welcomes Reform Jews and even non Jews here in the middle of Paramaribo.

Suriname has a long history of Jewish settlers in the Dutch colony and while I was in Scotland Layne and Dale paid a visit to their 17th century plantation outside Paramaribo. 

Jodensavanne (Jewish Savannah) was founded in the early 1600s and got a boost in population when in 1660 when Portugal decided it was time for some Jewish persecution in neighboring Brazil. 

At its height the community had about 500 Jews and 9,000 slaves but it was isolated in the jungle on the Suriname River and got attacked from land and water by natives and neighboring French and so forth so they retreated to the city and helped build a synagogue on the site of the current structure. 

Nowadays the Neveh Shalom synagogue has between 40 and 100 members and lives next door to the main mosque in town. Orlando the caretaker told us they are good neighbors and friends.

There aren’t many more multicultural societies than tiny Suriname where everyone manages to get along.

For Layne who describes herself as a cultural Jew this sort of encounter is a reminder of the past when Jews were in the habit of fleeing. 

Nowadays Israel is the focus of a great deal of animosity all around the world but in Suriname its peace as usual. 

There are four synagogues in the world with their floors covered in sand. 

It’s symbolic of the need for silent worship in their countries of origin. Apparently one other such synagogue is in St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. 

It is forbidden to touch the scrolls so they use a pointer to mark the hand written text: 

Orlando the caretaker who fortunately speaks English. 

There is also a layer of sand above the ceiling under the roof. That is there for a practical reason, it’s to act as a fire extinguisher in case something catches light. 

It was a partly overcast day yesterday and we had some rain which pushed temperatures down into the upper 80s which felt pretty comfortable for us after the intense heat we’ve been having above 100 degrees. 

And then we went to have a late lunch at a Javanese eatery, noodles with chicken and with rice, Bami they call it and the plates came piled so we will have lots of leftovers. 

We stopped on the way home at Choi’s for some fresh squeezed orange juice.

We are both fighting off head colds which we suspect we may have got from peripatetic Dale, so Layne tackled the don’t yourself orange squeezer at Choi’s:

It’s a good middle class store, not cheap but with two outlets in the. It’s and with brands we recognize. Not to mention a slogan we remember from Publix in Florida.

It’s time to get driving. GANNET2 is ready and with a rocket launch scheduled Tuesday evening we want to leave Monday morning to go to French Guiana and the European Space Agency launch pad.