Hello,
My name is Anne Gré Geschiere. I lived three months in Suriname. These three months my During these three months I did an internship at the Richenel Slooteschool in Paramaribo. In January I called the school. I have spoken with mr Mohadin. He asked me to send him an e-mail, which included some information about me. We made an appointment to meet in my first week in Suriname.
On the 29th of February I cycled to the Richenel Slooteschool. Here I met the director and the teacher of the group, furthermore the dicrector guided me around the school. The Richenel Slooteschool is a primary school and the main language is Dutch. The school teaches children aged 4 till 14. The ages of the children in my group differ from 8 till 10. It is a Catholic school. There are a lot of different communities at school such as: Hindus, Javanese, Creoles, Chinese and Indians. It is nice to see that everyone respects each other even though they have different cultures. The school starts every day at 7:45 AM and closes at 12:45 AM.
It was a 15 minute drive by bicycle from the place I lived to the school. I lived in the Prinsessenstraat 114, in a pink house, with 13 other students Five of them, included me, lived on the groundfloor. You can find this house on www.stagewonen.nl.
Internship
My first day as a teacher at the Richenel Slooteschool I watched how my mentor teached tthe children. I think her way of teaching was very direct. She told the children what to do and the children did it. I would have chosen an other way of teaching myself. The second day I decided to teach the children myself. I tried to teach just like my mentor did, even though I did not like that way of teaching in the first place. The children listened well, but I still didn’t like this way of teaching. The next day I tried to do something cooperative. I think it is very important that children work together. The children were really exited, but because of their lack of experiences with such ‘free activities’, the lesson became chaotic. I realised I was constantly correcting them. I had to be the ‘angry teacher’ and I don’t want to be like that. Nevertheless I tried to do new things during the lesson to make the children work together, but unfortunately the lessons kept being chaotic and I decided to switch to my mentors way of teaching again.
Daily schedule:
In het schema hieronder gebuik je verleden tijd en tegenwoordige tijd door
The day starts at 7:45 AM with the ‘Flag Parade’. The children sing together with their teachers the National anthem. Thereafter, the children are going to their classrooms. First there is time for praying and after that the lesson starts. At 10:15 AM till 10:45 AM the children have a break. After this they have class till 01:00 PM.
I have learned a lot, like being clear to the children, being confident, being emphatic but also thinking about myself. I don’t want to lose this experience.
Culture and nature
Like I mentioned before, like I mentioned before there are various communities in Suriname. These communities came in different ways to Suriname. Lets start with the Indians. These people are also called the ‘Inheemse’. Which is the name for the original inhibitors of Suriname. This are the original Surinamese inhibitors. When Europe discovered Suriname they built plantations and used slaves to work on the plantations. These slaves were imported from Afrika. Many slaves tried to escape from the plantations. These ‘escaped’ slaves were called ‘bosnegers’ or Creoles. They still live in the inland of Suriname. Futhermore, Suriname has Indian immigrants, because they thought they could earn a lot of money in Suriname. The Javaneses thought this too. In this way many communities have came to Suriname. They all live together in Paramaribo.
The nature of Suriname is beautiful. The country has a lot of different landscapes. Examples are tropical forest and savannah. A lot of rivers flow through Suriname. When you go on trip in Suriname you can choose out of three categories. You can go to the coast, the nature (jungle) or you can choose for culture. The coastplaces to go are: Bigi pan and Galibi. Bigi pan is a house on the water. Galibi is an Indian village where you can see sea turtles laying their eggs. When you want to admire nature the best places to go to are Brownsberg, Voltzberg and the several waterfalls. As regards culture, your best option is going to the inland of Suriname. Here you have the villages of the Creoles and the Indians. Furthermore there are various kinds of animals. For example: caiman, spiders, turtles, dolphins, monkeys and a lot more.
Costs
One euro is 7 Surinamese Dollar. It is much cheaper to live in Suriname than in the Netherlands. The course in Suriname is very variable. This means that the price of the products is changing every day. This is a list of the costs I had during the three months I stayed in Paramaribo.
- Flight 900 euros
- Apartment 795 euros
- Bicycle 90 euros
- Live 350/400 euros a month
- Trips 750 euros
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