AMA Seniors Go On Boat Trip

On the 11th of February, 2011, a group of students from the AlphaMax Academy, went ton a boat trip along the Suriname and Commenwijne rives as part of a history project on Suriname. We did the trip on a boat owned by Suriname's most famous writer of historical fiction-- Cynthia Mc Leod.The name of ther boat is “Sweet Merodia”; sweet roots . Her boat was named after Cyntia’s first novel “the cost of sugar” and Merodia comes from the apartment “Merode” were Cyntia stayed in Belgium whille writing the novel..

This boat trip gives people the opportunity to see and learn about Suriname’s history. Mrs MLleod makes the trip available to schoolchildren free of ccharge. The Dutch ambassador made a donation of 25,000 guilders to help Cyntia made the boat sea worthy.. Telling people about Suriname’s history, Cyntia through this trip on the Sweet Merodia has been a success. Here is a brief description of my experience on the trip.

On the trip there was a woman who told us stories connected to the places we were seeing. As we were nearing the Commewijne river, she told us we should see the border line between the Suriname rivier and the Comewijne river as well as excited dolphins who would be jumping around the boat. Unfortunately, we did not see any of this. Because I ,however, had been on a previous trip and had seen this..

Written by Sharen Vess Schaap

While sailing past the Antondragtonweg, the lady told us that in this area lay plantations, all with French names-- Tourtonne, Marethraite. Around the year 1685, the rich French Huguenots, religious refugees, went to Holland and in Holland it was arranged for them to come to Suriname to set up plantations . These Huguenots were so rich that you could tell teir wealth from the height of their front step; the higher the steps the richer they were.

Years after that, in 1750, there was a place called Hoer Helena. This place was named after a woman who used to be a prostitute as well as the governor’s partner outside his marriage. During that period the term prostitute was quite norma. Later the place's name from “Hoer Helena” to “Orleane Kreek”.

Our guide then continued her stories of Suriname’s history by telling us that, in 1650, Lord Wiloughby came here to establish a colony for England. He came to our country and created ae fortress, Fortress Wiloughby. After seventten years in 1667, a Dutchman , Abraham saw the potential of Suriname and came with three ships, each having 2 guns.. Wiloughby had only 2 guns and the war lasted for exactly one hour and Suriname became a colony of Holland until the 25th of November 1975. Abraham changed the name of the Fortress to Zeelandia,. He also wanted to change the name “Paramaribo” into New Middelburg” , but unfortunately, the ship that had the legal papers with the name change sank and this never happened.

We now found ourselves sailing on the Commewijne river, passing New Amsterdam, which has an open air museum. One significant element of this old plantation is the statue of “Alonso de Ageda, the peering man”, made by Erwin de Vries in 1968. He stands with his back against the river and looking to the fertile ground of New Amsterdam. Near this plantation lies plantation “Rust en Werk”. During the period of 1750, this plantation used to produce coffee, sugar, and tobacco. After the emancipation in 1863, indentured workers from British India and Java came to work on these fields. Because India was a colony of England then, Holland needed permission for the Immigrants to come to Suriname. After the world wars, however, nothing was done on these plantation and many former indentured laborers came to Paramaribo and stated businesses. Plantation Rust en Werk belongs to the family of Armand van Alen, who owned seven plantations in total. In the second half of the 18th century there were a lot of plantation, because Suriname was then important for her agriculture.

When we arrived at Rust en Werk, we were introduced to two iresidents . They spoke about their work, which was processing dried shrimp. This happens as follows: the shrimps are cooked in salt water and afterwards dried in the sun. They are than put in a sack and knocked so that their shells get loosened. At last they are put into a big strainer and the shrimp and the loose shells are than divided.

This plantation looks like a farm.. I saw many cows, goats, coconut trees and there was one special tamarind tree.. This tree is 350 years old! The plantation once had hundreds of tamarind trees, but because there was a practice of using whips from these trees to beat slaves. Eventually the trees died out. What few people know is that these treescan grow older than a thousand years old., for example, The tamarind trees on the Independence square , for example, has been there from 1650..

Walking further we saw a huge bowl called “kappa” which was used to process sugar. The slaves had to stand next to this hot pot of sugar that would burn their body when getting in touch with it. Nowadays people use this term “kappa” to talk about somebody’s mouth in a rude way by saying “hold your big kappa”. I would really have like d to see the small cemetery with four graves from the past but for some reason we were not allowed. In these graves lay 2 daughters of Governor Crommelin, one with the age of 17 and the other 29, a brother in law, and an unknown grave from which indentured laborers used stones to built their floors. We had the opportunity to drink and eat something from the little bar that was available. We only spent half an hour on this plantation was half an hour..

On our way to the next plantation, our tour guide told us about the next plantation we were about to go to, named Pl. Frederiksdorp. This plantation produced coffee and cocoa. In 1785 it belonged to Mr. Knuppel and later his two daughters inherited all. They sold it to a new owner and this owner sold it again to the current owner Ton Hagenmeyer. He has been the ownert for 25 years. He wanted to make this place suitable for the Indian indentured workers so he decided to have a doctor there, a school,a police officer and from that a community group. One of the houses you could see had two black chairs which were the two dentist chairs. One of the most significant places we saw was the old coffee drying floor which is made of limestone and is still in its original form since 1750. There was also a big tank that was filled with rainwater, which was used by the people back then.

After having seen these historical monuments, my fellow students and I had the opportunity to walk around. We enjoyed the nice environment . When it was time to head back to the boat, it meant that we had to head back home. While heading back we did our presentation of the book “Elisabeth Samson “and turned our attention to the exciting and horrible stories of the past.
Written by Sharen Vuss Schaap