Welcome to Suriname!!  A tiny country on the coast of  northern South America that seems like nobody knows about it. We chose this out of 33 countries that start with S because it seemed very interesting, and we didn’t really know anything about it. Being full of Indians, Africans, Maroons, Chinese, Javanese, White, and Amerindian people it is one of the most diverse countries in the world.

The Dutch colonized Suriname. Well, that seems quite crazy because the Dutch didn’t really have any other colonies. Spain and Portugal were the one who colonized pretty much all of South America, except most of the Guiana area. This area was easy to colonize because it bordered the Caribbean sea which was easy to access from Europe. It was made colonized by Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland.

The Dutch and British then brought in lots of slaves, then People from India, and Java (Indonesia) and Suriname became what it is today, even though it has lots of border disputes with neighboring countries.

Here’s our Power Point for more information about this interesting country: suriname

Interesting Facts

• The Dutch gave New Amsterdam to the British in exchange for Suriname when the Dutch invaded in 1667.
• Suriname is the leading producer of Bauxite, the main metal found in aluminum
• Adults under the age of 30 are not allowed to get married in Suriname without a written permission from their parents
• Suriname has a famous Toad “the Surinam Toad” or also known as “Pica Pica” and has some seemingly unique reproductive practices. The female Pipa Pipa raises tadpoles to mini toad size in the spongy skin of her back and doesn’t have a tongue or teeth

Food

Suriname has a mix of food. The slaves and workers brought over there own foods and  mixed it with the local dishes. Suriname food is pretty mild except they have a really spicy sauce called: Sambal. Besides that they also have there own take on Indian and Indonesian foods.

Dinner

Cabbage Salad  – The Recipe is in Dutch so use google translate to see what it was in English. The salad was crunchy and really good.

Pom Recipe – It is a chicken and cassava casserole. The Africans in Suriname modified this recipe from one that Jewish people there brought over.  Its a traditional dish eaten on special occasions. It is crunchy and soft, I liked the chicken on the bottom the best.

 

 

Dessert

Bojo Cake – Basically coconut, cassava, sugar and egg and We added sugar on top to make it more sweet. After that it was really good also. It is soft and I had this several times after we made the cake.

Breakfast

Fried Plantains with Bakabana Sauce – The Bakabana sauce is a spicy peanut sauce. It
couldn’t stop eating them because they were so good. The freed plantains are sweet and go well with the Bakabana sauce.

Roti – Borrowed from the Indian’s, Suriname people love Roti. We just mixed two cups of flour, 1tsp salt 1Tbls oil and 3/4 cup water. Then let the dough sit for  a bit them cooked the dough up in a hot pan.

Culture

 

For the Culture we danced to a type of music called Kaseko, which comes from the french “casser le corps,” which mean “to break the body.” So the dance does has a lot of movement and some people play the drums. Somebody sings and a choir replies. It really a combination of African, European and American styles developed by the slave that were there. We watched this to get an idea of the dancing and sound:   Kaseko dance.

Flag

The star in the center of the flag represents the unity of all ethnic groups, being a very diverse nation.

The red stands for progress and love, the two green stripes stand for hope and fertility and the white stands for peace and justice. For more information go here: Suriname Flag Wikepedia

By Isaac