Two White Men and a Funeral

April 30, 2012:  An evening while staying along the Suriname River we were invited to a party for a corpse  we never met, nor did man who invited us – in short…we were funeral crashers.  It took over an hour to get to this village, traveling somewhere on a long boat, hiking somewhere and then transferring to another boat going somewhere.  I am glad I didn’t lose the group I went with since I would have had the most difficult time asking someone for directions to, somewhere. 

While sitting at an extended picnic like table in some sort of logged community center that served beer from a small opening in the wall, a random man from Guyana came over to talk to me.  Sitting awkwardly close, he would finish every sentence with “Man” and every other sentence making this “pff pff pff” noise such as Hannibal Lector made in film “Silence of the Lambs” when he said “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”  It sort of freaked me out as did my friend, Jason - as he so conveniently excluded himself from our conversation. 

The music started at 2am…only a mere 3 hours behind schedule.  I was sadly exhausted and ready to go back to the lodge before midnight.  Standing outside around all of the table clothed wearing woman, I felt as if I was drugged and could barely stay horizontal from exhaustion. 
The music did not encourage the typical mourning dancing (is there even a designated mourning dance?) or even the chaperoned catholic school sort of dancing…it was wining (aka dry humping while vertical).  A strange act to pull off while in public around kids, ancient aging adults and those in actually in mourning.  Learning how to do it while in Trinidad visiting a friend of mine for Carnival, I had a little experience practicing on her Mom, Aunt and her.  Standing around, fighting to stay awake, a few girls crept closer in their table cloth-like clothing, backing up into me for me to hump them – I mean to wine them like a South American street dog.  Wining tip:  While wining, make sure your pockets are empty.  I so awkwardly had a head lamp in my front pocket – so awkward...

Leaving to go back to the village at 4:16am our drunken group included a drunken boat driver suffering from impaired vision.   He had no need for that headlamp I carried around all night or any light for that matter – he did a great job going down the foggy dark river.  He wasn’t concerned since I am quite sure they don’t have breathalyzers in this part of the Amazon.

The next day we headed farther up the Suriname River racking up some more kilometers.  The deeper we powered up the Suriname River on the local super stretched long boat, the more interesting the people watching became.  Women were getting a little National Geographic-like as they began to lose their tops exposing their gargantuan utters that almost touched their ankles while the younger people seemed to not see the purpose to wear anything.  On the stairs of the river banks, the women were busy washing piles upon piles of dishes and what minimal clothes they might have had.  They perfected the skills of balancing big plastic buckets with dishes stacked so high it was as if I was watching a street show without the need to toss change in some sort of cup or dirty receptacle.

By the end of our brief exploration up the Suriname River and its communities, I counted 52 bites on my legs plus 1 on my frankfurter.  Perhaps a bath in DEET is necessary for future explorations.