Going Primitive 🔥 Scarcity In Suriname Is The Norm 👋
As if things couldn't get any worse for in Suriname, now it seems there is no propane on the market and very little produce to purchase for cooking even if there was propane to be had.
😤 Everything In Short Supply
The last few months we've had frequent water outages, fruit and vegetable shortages, and also propane shortages. On the bright side though, there's no need to cook vegetables that don't exist with water you don't have. No problem for Monkey-B though, who will gladly eat raw longbeans all day long, sometimes while giving the stink-eye 👀.
Neither of us are strangers to going old school and starting a fire to make a meal, but it's hard when you have to spend so much time cooking and foraging. It leaves less and less time for earning money, which is what it will take to get us out of this whole mess.
Between homeschooling the kids and dealing with our immigration case, I help my wife and oldest daughter edit their Hive blogs and manage their crypto portfolios, cook a little, and also do all chores that require a distant trip, like this morning's Wester Union run. It's almost always past 6pm when I finally get a chance to sit down and think about what I'll post each day, hardly the best time for creativity.
I guess creativity is also in short supply now that I think of it. Well, the day was almost over when I found myself with a bit of free-time, so I walked down to the chicken coop kitchen where @sreypov was starting a fire to boil some drinking water, which is surely going to taste like "roasted water" instead of "boiled water."
The chicken coop kitchen is surrounded by the smell of death and feces, but hygiene is not a priority because it's only where the landlord cooks food for his dogs. While my wife and I looked at our "roasted water" fire, we felt brief nostalgia for all the tuk-tuk camping adventures we've done in Cambodia.
Not to be left out of any action, Srey-Yuu came down to investigate if we were having more fun in our location than she was in hers. She's at the age where she doesn't like to let me take pictures of her, so I shouted her name and caught her off-guard with the above gem.
I took this photo just to let my wife this is my hot content for the day, and she won't be posting about the "roasted water" fire. We have cheeky playful fights when we both stumble upon the same posting idea at the same time, but it's all in good fun, and it keeps our sense of humor fresh.
There is Monkey-B in the above photo, whom I only needed to shout "pose for a picture" in Cambodian, and instant results were produced.
Monkey-B is sensitive to smells even though her own deadly farts don't seem to fit into that equation. The stinch of chicken poop was a bit overwhelming for her, so she gave the nose a tight pinch while hanging out with us for a few minutes. Sorry I've got no super-duper content, the day was a bit rushed, but I still wanted to share a little bit of today with you all.
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ahahhaa, roasted water ha. Well, in our place we used firewood in boiling water but it doesn't taste roasted at all. Anyway, it looks fun to be in a new place even though that daughter of yours is sensitive by the smell of the environment.
I think ours has a bad taste because we don't have a proper kettle nor a pot with a tight-fitting lid. It reminds my wife of the life she had in the refugee camp in Thailand, full of scarcity. The only good thing about this is there's no vegetables to cook even if we had gas, because now there is also little food here too.
I think I just need to get them on a plane to Cambodia ASAP, these conditions are just brutal. We're tired of eating the same 4 or 5 vegetables for years, and we miss the abundance and variety of Cambodia, a country that grows too much for itself, and exports it to Vietnam and Thailand. Suriname produces nothing, so the cost of living only rises as global conditions worsen.
Hi hi.. Justin.. wow.. what a day... sometimes, bad days are those days we would remember sometime in the future. When in a year or two, you back in Cambodia, you would remember Suriname and may miss bits of it. Wow... it must be tough to not have any water sometimes. Luckily, the internet still works well which is a must to at least survive this. Hope that you family gets to go to another place soon.
Funny how the internet is a priority now that HIVE has entered our lives, but yes it's true. I think we have formulated a strategy that will keep us apart for only a few months at most. I will visit my family in the USA, remind them the open invitation to come visit us some day in Cambodia still exists. I also need to renew my driver's license and do some things to help create a paper trail that may increase our chances of immigration should we keep fighting the next few years.
We have made one very close friend here in Suriname, and we really hope he'll visit Cambodia one day, but in my 10+ years spent there, I never had one visitor of any kind. Well, who knows the future, perhaps when we financially recover, a trip to Borneo may happen one day.
Hi hi.. Justin.. I had a few busy days.. yea... the internet has changed the way our lives work. Few months not with family is not easy.. I am pretty sure your family in the US would be super happy to see you back.. I would be very excited to read your post about the US.. =) Wow.. you have spent 10+ years in Cambodia... must be quite fun... Do visit Borneo in the future... =) But I think one of the places worth going here is Sabah and you can bring your family up the tallest mountain in Malaysia. Stay there for a couple of days at a chalet.. 2000m above sea level. Thank you and have a great great day.. really appreciate it for your comment.. I enjoy reading them.. =)
It could really be hard to extract some creative juices from an exhausted mind. But sometimes an inspiration could just be anything like sparked by non existent propane. 😅
Srey yuu i think is the same age as my son. He is 12 and he does not join us in photos as much as before too. But at least we still have younger cheeky ones who could be our very willing models.
For what it's worth, my husband and I also have to contend about post ideas. Lols
Haha, we have a lot of similarities. I am already dreading the "teen years," where I imagine I will become even more of a goofball in my oldest daughter's eyes. For now Monkey-B still remains chief of cheekiness in our house, but I think I give her a good challenge sometimes.
I have to admit I envy you for cooking that way outdoors. I don't have an outdoors to do that. I know it sucks for you guys though since you have to deal with this shortage of everything all the time.
I remember the smell of chicken barns and I feel like I can smell it right now just thinking about it.
I love the photos! You can count on Monkey B to entertain with facial expressions hahah.
It looks good and fun, but it is not easy to borrow a stove many times because this place they use it to kill chickens for sale and it does not smell good here. But it made us happy for that time.
I understand and hope it will end soon. Best wishes!❤️
Thank you my dear friend❤️. I think I will come back my country soon without Justin. We hope to meet again in next year.
I hope you find a better place soon. Do try to enjoy it though :)
Give thanks! I thinking I come back my country soon. Have a great day😊
We do miss cooking outdoors, but on a much more efficient woodstove that doesn't produce a lot of smoke. A lot of my cousins in the USA work at and/or own those long narrow commercial style chicken houses. They are the worst-smelling places, even worse than commercial hog farms in my opinion. You're right, Monkey-B always lightens the mood with some cheeky vibes.
This is supercool. Its remind me of my childhood where we have to use this kind of stove in my village. Thanks for posting this.. !PIZZA
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Haha, yeah it's like we are living in the countryside again, even though we are in the capital city.
Thanks for sharing
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Thank you my friend.
It's quite funny about the roasted water. 😁
Actually, we do boil water using firewoods and cooking foods. 😊
You have a wonderful family @justinparke! 😊
Our biggest problem is we don't have a kettle or a pot with a good fitting lid, so a little bit of soot and smoke always make their way into the pot, and it does give off a slight smoky flavor.
Now we can smell when somebody is drinking from their water bottle 😁. Thanks for the kind words my friend.
Oh yeah I can feel you coz I experienced that before. So that's how roasted water came. 😁
Thanks to you, too! 😊
The first girl she always shows pride. but her features are really cute
That's your youngest, Monkey-B, and she is very full of character. She is definitely the comedian of the family.
I also see that she likes to make jokes for the whole family
After reading your post, I remember the house our family lived in five years ago. In the last picture, Monkey-B's gesture is cute.
Haha, yes, sometimes I have no post ideas, I begin taking pictures of Monkey-B, and usually a post manifests itself. She's very sensitive to smells, especially air conditioning in cars and planes, that's the worst for her.
Wow.
You're still cooking with wood.
That's very extraordinary, because we here also still use wood for cooking, sometimes also use a gas stove.
I'm proud of you.
Yeah, we don't mind cooking with wood, but we don't have a good kettle for boiling water, so our drinking water tastes a little like BBQ, but it's okay for now. We just have less time to Hive when we have to spend so much time gathering wood and making a fire every time we want to eat something hot. Thanks for stopping by.
You're welcome.
I really like watching you cook with wood, because my parents did that too.
In that way how I was raised when I was a kid. However, it was wonderful moment today. WHen I remembered I helped my mom looking for some firewood.
In some ways it's a fun way to cook, but it would be much more fun if were in the Cambodian countryside. It is a bit strange living like this in a modern capital city.