A total lockdown earlier this week caught us off-guard, so we decided to walk to the neighborhood Chinese store and replenish our food stocks.
Let's Hit The Road 🛣️
Our oldest daughter Srey-Yuu decided to opt out of this trip, but I snapped a few pics of Sreypov and Monkey-B walking along the alley that leads to our apartment.
Along the way we passed the abandoned lot that seems to serve as a dumping ground despite the fact there is a garbage truck that serves this area. We've been puzzled about the liquid contents of the large plastic bottle you can see laying on the coconut fronds.
Our neighborhood only has two markets that sell fruits and vegetables, and they are each less than a kilometer from our apartment. Due to a flat bike tire, we've been walking lately, but it's been a good opportunity to take some photos of a commute we make day in and day out.
The first store is only 200 or 300 meters from our apartment, but has no veggies, and mostly sells liquor and lottery tickets. Before the 6pm curfew which we've lived under for nearly a year and a half, this place hosted many fights between Guyanese prostitutes and their "Johns."
Only a stone's throw from the liquor store is a mosque, which is truly ironic, as our neighborhood is predominantly Muslim but also seems to be littered with beer cans and hard liquor bottles. Suriname is also host to many unfinished buildings, and our neighborhood is no exception.
As we reach Yu Feng Shang Chang, we always look to the left at a small monkey which is kept in captivity in the small shed you see in the above photo. It always stares deep into our eyes seemingly in a desperate plea for help, but Surinamers love keeping animals in captivity, and we aren't here to change the culture.
Recently our biggest neighborhood store put some fresh coats of paint on the exterior, and along with that came a desire to let everyone know they have soda water and canned beans, one full of gas and the other guaranteed to make you produce your own.
We finally arrive at Yu Feng Shang Chang, where we usually take a deep breath before going inside, a bit of meditative preparation for what we know will be increased prices throughout the store, and most likely an abysmal selection of overpriced and half-rotten vegetables.
This day was actually about as good as it gets, because often times there are just two or three things on the above table. The okra is always too big, full of huge seeds, and very stringy after cooking, so we never buy them.
The longbeans are always wilted, the cucumbers yellow, the capsicums overpriced, and this usually leads to buying some bananas and brown rice, then doing some foraging. Above is Sreypov expressing her disdain for the price of a single capsicum.
The eating habits of Suriname dictate what the markets sell, and it's a scene similar to the USA, where stores consist of 95% processed packaged foods. This is the opposite of Cambodian markets, where 90% of what is sold are fruits, herbs, meat, veggies and other fresh things.
Monkey-b wanted to do a style in the middle of the aisle, so I gladly obliged. She then demanded a popsicle, something I would never buy in Cambodia, but packaged foods have invaded our lives here in Suriname, especially during the food chain crisis which has been going on for several months.
In Cambodia we'd be buying some grilled corn and a fresh-squeezed sugarcane juice, but here it's packaged bread, popsicles, and soda water.
Monkey-B even remembers the days when the ice box was better stocked with a wider selection of popsicles and frozen treats. Once upon a time there were even natural soursop popsicles.
After buying hardly anything, we decided it was too oppressively hot for foraging, so we hit the road back to our residence. "Home" is a word I don't like to use for our apartment, because I've never felt those kind of vibes in this country.
If we ever make it to the USA, or anywhere else on Earth but Suriname, my family now knows what a "food dessert" is. This is something my wife still has a hard time explaining on the phone to her Cambodian friends, because most Cambodians prefer to work from home over living in a bedroom community and commuting to work for a boss.
Ever since we have lived here, we've walked and biked the streets of this country, and it seems everyone is always home at all hours of the day. You would think this would result in poverty, but every home has at least one car, multiple air conditioners, and what seems to us a very expensive lifestyle.
This is a country full of secrets, so we honestly don't know how people stay at home, don't work, but yet own a house and cars. As you can see from the photos, people stay inside their houses and fences, and are not approachable like our former of Cambodia, where people seem to find any reason not to be inside the home during the day.
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