Suriname: Parbo and Berg en Dal

8 September 20158 September 2015 / travellingross / Leave a comment

Wednesday 29 July to Wednesday 5 August 2015

travellingross rating = 8/10

My short rotations and short breaks continued. This time a 15 day rotation, then 7 days off then 15 days on before finally getting back to my normal 19 off, 23 on. All to provide coverage for one week when the top 4 environmental staff would be off-site. I don’t mind it all that much but it is hard to get into a rhythm and have people around you wondering what the hell kind of roster you are doing. But for sure I was not going to fly out of the country for just 7 days off. So I stayed in Suriname. Spent 5 nights in Paramaribo at a different and nicer hotel than the Marriott which is what work puts us up at (although I have reached Gold Status with Marriott so the upgraded rooms are growing on me). Had 2 nights at a jungle resort as well. Would like to have travelled along the coast to see the turtles coming ashore to lay eggs but it is wrong time of year.

I tried to make plans with the locals I knew were on break in Parbo but quickly realised the Surinamese are not the greatest for sticking to plans. They don’t know what they’re doing until 5 minutes before they do it. It’s a level of disorganization that grates against my every instinct and motive. But maybe that’s all part of the test. I did spend a day out with some local guys from work and went to the cinema (saw Pixels which I enjoyed), which was good to see parts of town I’m yet to experience.

Berg en Dal (the jungle resort) is considerably larger than I expected. Full bus load of people came along with me for the 2 hour journey from the city. Beautiful setting by the river. Had to wait 2 hours before I could check into room. Food is average. Lots of families. Down side was that everyone speaks Dutch so all the tour info and greetings are in Dutch (this convinced me to download the Dutch language in Duolingo and finally succumb to learning Dutch over Spanish). Very tranquil place with cabins immersed in the rainforest like you’re in a tree house. No ceiling fans anywhere so lack of air movement makes it stuffy in this humid climate, but rooms have air cons. The beds are super comfortable soft, but I do prefer a firm mattress. There was a father and son who wore the same outfit every day – day and night. There are many adventure activities available; I chose kayak on the Suriname River which was a good mix of energy and exploration (the threat of Piranhas is an added incentive not to capsize).

The 7 days spent in Suriname were perfect time off to catch up on life and have some alone time. Work is so time consuming and hectic that there’s not much time to do anything else. Or when I do have a spare hour, I just want to vegetate.

Haven’t even had time to read it 😦

the demon hour?

a balcony! and a view of the pool/river. wow.

They don’t even celebrate Christmas so it is amusing that Macca’s advertises Christmas in July.

Torarica

The tallest wooden structure in South America

Yes, I went.

Kayak time

Suriname: A Dry Easter with Sloths

17 April 201522 March 2016 / travellingross / Leave a comment

Tuesday 24 March to Wednesday 15 April 2015

travellingross rating = 9/10

Still in Costa Rica, the newly tyre changed rental car made it to the petrol station on the sniff of an oily rag where I fuelled up and returned the car. Sitting in the free shuttle to the airport I yelled stop as I glanced out the window to notice my wallet sitting on the rental car company counter. Phew, close call. Costa Rica is one of those silly countries that charges a departure tax. And u have to pay before going to check in. I didn’t leave much time for this but lucky I checked in online and no bags to check. 3 flights and I was back in Paramaribo fairly exhausted which is not how this break thing is meant to work. It actually took me 5 or so days to get back to a normal sleep pattern which is odd for me.

This rotation was zero alcohol! It’s something I wanted to do when I started. I actually hoped this would be a dry camp not selling alcohol. Working continuously like this is tiring enough without throwing in the temptation of a beer or several down at the bar. Most people couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t drink but I still socialised and went to the bar. Sometimes with a mug of tea! I think I’ll make this a trend.

Highlights this rotation:

Installation of new air quality and weather monitoring stations. Was a long planned project so it was good to see it through to install.
Easter. Quiet and not really commemorated here. But I still had my own Easter moments.
Putting on weight. When I drink, I lose weight. So the best part of a month without booze is I have noticed a few extra kilos which is a good thing for me.
Sloth. I saw my first one!!! It’s kind of a must-do in Suriname to see a sloth and better yet to relocate one that could otherwise be harmed by clearing activities. So this Good Friday was my sloth relocation day. Strange looking, slow-moving and shy. Remind me of koala’s.
Running. I finally started running again. The geology superintendent is a runner and dragged me along. He was impressed I could go the 7 km distance and keep pace. So I guess I’ve still got it and we went several times when weather was kind. We actually had a whole week without rain. Driest I’ve seen Suriname yet.
Work. Continues to be enjoyable and I’m happy overall. Some testing times that raise my heart rate. But nothing I can’t handle. I’m focusing on the big picture a lot more this time around and not sweating the small stuff. So long as I’m learning, I’m happy. I am exposed to different perspectives and methods to build my work and life knowledge.
TV. They didn’t pay the bill so the t.v. in dining room didn’t even work 90% of this rotation. No CNN, not even crappy soccer. And the internet has been terribly unreliable, but that doesn’t really affect me since I have a private SIM card with internet. We joke that this workplace is worse than North Korea for external communication. When international dialing was cut, along with TV and internet, the IT Manager was re-named Kim Jong Un and I started to wonder if I woke up in 1995.
Evictions. The army came to site to evict the illegal miners from our property. Never seen so many guns and ammunition in my life. Overall no violence, but a bit concerning to have breakfast with a bunch of uniformed guys carrying weapons.

To think so much unexplored and unknown

4 to a room in construction. cramped.

Big bucks

Process Plant Facilities under construction

Farewells, Welcomes and More this Rotation

24 March 201524 March 2015 / travellingross / Leave a comment

Wednesday 11 February to Friday 13 March 2015

travellingross rating = 8.5/10

Following 6 relaxing nights in Tobago, I got back to Suriname for the longest rotation yet…

Night 1 on site was farewell party for Matt. Great night as always and people came down from construction camp to celebrate with him at the purple heart exploration camp bar.
Valentine’s day. I told myself I would not go to the bar. But my arm is rubbery and easily twisted. It was Saturday night after all. And I dropped my phone as I got it out of my pocket to show a photo. Dropped on the top right corner smashing the screen. Devo central. I use my phone for everything in life. Luckily one of the mining engineers had an adapter where I could plug a mouse into the phone and use a curser to navigate around the broken screen. I did this for weeks until my new phone arrived from the USA care of my life saver Ryan.
Melissa started. A colleague and friend since we worked together at Boddington and fresh out of New Zealand. I recruited her to join me in the jungle. After 2 days of exhausting travel to the other side of Earth, I’ve rarely seen someone so pleased to see me as she rolled late into camp at 820pm 16 Feb. Great showing her around and having a fellow Aussie to chat to and someone who instantly knows my work style, method and temperament.
Another expat employee in my group started. His first time out of the USA. Dedicated to erosion and sediment control. Getting new starters mobilised and settled requires a lot of organisation and a fresh thought process for me to share my expat learnings with first timers. Both are coming back for second rotation so I must be doing something right!
Madison’s birthday. Great times. But the construction camp bar is terrible compared to the exploration camp bar. Explo camp might have water/electricity/internet outages all the time, but damn we have the best bar.
Biggest concrete pour to date (400m3)
1st ore movement in pit
Executives visit. There are not many people I would stay in for. But the top boss for environment and social is one such person. So I extended a week to be at site for the 2 day 10 person delegation from Denver. A couple of tough questions and I gave a couple presentations. But went well and I got positive feedback, mostly related to how relieved Denver is that I am here. They trust me and have confidence in my abilities.

Needless to say I was brain drained at the end of this 32 day rotation. Productive, enjoyable and much better than the last one. The sun is setting later so I have time for walks after work which is nice to break up the days. Longer rotation means shorter break. But I will take days in lieu next break. For now I have 12 days in central America.

I like to think his face is one of sadness, not being annoyed that I am posing in the center rather than him.

There’s always 1 tool who jumps into a selfie shot wearing high viz clothes.

Good lord

Bought this in Denver for $32 american dollars!!! Holy cow. Didn’t realise the price until the counter. It’s good though. High grade jasmine 🙂

Enjoying her 1st juego Parbo beer.

2 Rotations and a Christmas

7 February 20157 February 2015 / travellingross / Leave a comment

Wednesday 19 November 2014 to Friday 23 January 2015

Work and life has got in the way of me updating this website as often as I would like, but sitting on planes for hours on end gives lots of time to type the words and sort the photos so here’s a snapshot of the last couple months…

Named Myself Employee of the Month This Rotation

Arriving back in Paramaribo from Curacao on 19 November 2014 (with a cheeky stop over in Trinidad to collect more passengers that I was unaware of) I checked in and headed straight to a bar to meet up with people. I’ve embraced the social side much more than when I would come in and out of Accra, Ghana. Various reasons but above all is that Paramaribo is a city I feel much more comfortable in compared to the unpredictability and challenges of getting around Accra.

Overall, I’d give this rotation a 10 out of 10. I arrived back to site and met up with my friend Ryan who I worked with in Ghana. Surreal to see him here. And then Madison came in. Another person I worked with in Ghana and have stayed in contact with the most. A truly awesome person and makes me happy. I like to think I make her happy too, although she would never admit that. A realisation this rotation was that I don’t laugh enough anymore. The last years have been serious and humour in everyday life was harder to find. But I’m pleased to say it’s back. I have laughed so much at this job that tears roll and that’s a rarity these years. Especially at work. I enjoy the team and the balance.

Memorable highlights:

Setting up the hydroseeder to revegetate cleared areas with grasses and getting covered in green mulch
Getting positive reviews for my work associated with the CEO visit. Always a boost to get a genuine pat on the back.
Having significant wins on the recruitment front as I assemble my team that will represent my leadership in the next few years. One of whom is someone I’ve worked with at Boddington and excited to work with again.
Man, I’ve never had boots do that to me.
Huge ones. Still not seen a sloth though.
End of year company function / Christmas party. Interesting experience.

Perth Christmas

Coming home for Christmas on 18 December 2014 was important to me. Spending time with family after working in Ghana last Christmas was a perfect way to catch everyone in one sitting. Plus after a couple rotations, I had a long list of things I wanted to bring back to Suriname.

It was all good, got my appointments done, socialised, enjoyed the summer weather, saw in the new year with the Bri where we plotted out our resolutions and reflected on our 2014’s over some champagne just like old days.

Montreal, Lost Luggage and Hectic Work Days

Departing Perth 4 January 2015 I arrived in Montreal where it was -20C compared to the Perth max of 44.4C. What a variance! I was in Montreal for a work meeting for 5 days. The journey there was first time in all my travels that my suitcase didn’t make it. It didn’t make the short connection in Jakarta. Getting it delivered to me should’ve been an easy task but for intensely frustrating reasons that I am so sick of talking about, it didn’t and everyday I was given the impression that the bag would be delivered so I didn’t buy more clothes or a jacket. Particularly upsetting cause I had a lot of stuff in that case that I was purposely bringing back to Suriname. To think u would never see it again was depressing. $4k worth of stuff. But the monetary value is of limited concern. I just want my things! The bag is now supposed to be at the Denver airport waiting for me. I type this on the flights to Denver. I have minimal hope but haven’t given up just yet.

This and other personal things came together to make my 3rd rotation less enjoyable than the high of the last one. I haven’t been this busy at work in many years and many tasks in my personal life have taken a back seat. I’m one who pride’s keeping on top of everything so when I’m not, it annoys me and gets me down. Given the time in Montreal and working extra time last rotation meant my site time was shorter. I crammed 3 weeks of work into less than 2. January is always busy with budget updates, systems, planning the year ahead etc. With my high standards, there was a lot I wanted to achieve.

I ticked most of my tasks and still managed to have some fun times. Got to know people better and there’s always new people starting which I like that dynamic nature of construction. And I was finally able to transfer money out of my USA bank account to Australia, got my last year’s tax return for review, watched a brilliant movie ‘Gone Girl’, got 3 extra staff signed up to join my team next month. Looking forward to that. So that’s all helping to get back on track with my “be more positive” NYE resolution.

The best thing about flying a long distance out on break is you have solid time to decompress and unwind from work. I’m excited to see where my friend Matt lives in Denver, go skiing, explore that city I’ve heard so much about over the years since it is headquarters of the company I’ve worked with for 10 years. Stay tuned for that update…it’ll be quicker this time.

a couple missing and more to be added in 2015

yummy

Flew into my office

The Suriname town of Moengo has lots of 'art'

A wooden Mickey

This has become a routine…better beef up my muscles.

Airport leak in Montreal waiting for taxi

So this is Suriname

4 November 20147 November 2014 / travellingross / 2 Comments

I’ll be honest upfront – I had not heard of the South American nation called Suriname before I accepted a job there. I always thought that Suriname was the name of the Project, not the country. As someone who likes to boast about my geographical knowledge, this is somewhat embarrassing. To the people of Suriname, I recommend some serious PR to raise your profile as so far my impressions are of a beautiful country, with generous people, a fascinating history and an enviable global location (aside from the flights in and out which are few and poorly scheduled).

As my first entry to diarise my experiences, I will try keep this brief but hopefully informative for all those that are interested in learning more. This format and website is new to me so let’s see how well I can use it and communicate the message. Here we go…

The journey to Suriname was long, tiring, and testing of my travel skills. Perth to Hong Kong (cause Cathay Pacific was the cheapest 1 way fare to LA) to Los Angeles (overnighted) to Miami to Aruba (overnighted due to work making an incorrect flight booking) to Paramaribo (landed at 1am, overnighted in a nice hotel) to the Merian gold mine construction project site (4 hour car ride south and towards the French Guyana border) arriving at 2pm.

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24 hrs in Aruba was enough to check out the high rise hotel district and wander around town. Not sure I would like to return here. Didn’t really excite me, but that could also have been the head cold and general confusion over what time it was. Paramaribo (or Parbo for short) is an attractive capital city with a few hundred thousand people, world heritage listed with lots of Dutch influence from the colonial days. Inevitably I find myself comparing back to Ghana as my only other international working experience, but really there aren’t many comparisons between this part of Sth America and West Africa. Here is a wide mix of races, clean air, fewer people, less confusion, more organisation and higher wealth.

Why am I here, how and what’s the deal? Well, I am glad you asked. I’m still trying to figure that out myself. The last month or so of life has been a whirlwind where I felt almost sucked into a vortex and now spat out typing this in Miami Beach after my first rotation. Bit dramatic, but that imagery makes for good reading. I left Perth Monday 6 October 2014, and prior to that was a series of appointments to get organised for the trip and job. Prior to that was 7 months off working after finishing up my last job in February. That time off was fantastic overall. The last couple of months a bit monotonous looking for work and thinking about what the next career move would be. I guess this relaxing time explains a fair bit of why the busy last month has been such a gear change for me. Like pressing the power button. It’s hard to think about it much when you’re in the middle of the ride, and that’s why I’ve done very little the last couple of days and I think it is beneficial to write this to take stock and think “wow, did all that just happen” and “how fortunate I am to finish one 3 yr assignment, have 7 months off, and be in South America working on another rewarding international assignment”. And South America was the goal for my next career move. Ideally a Spanish speaking one, not Dutch. But if that is the only box not ticked, then who am I to complain? Doing a 23 days on, 19 days off roster in a warm tropical country on the edge of the Caribbean working as the most senior environmental person on site is a career move I’ll take any day. I worked hard for a decade (and years of study before that) to position myself for these opportunities. Calculated and knowing that if I worked hard and with focus, the rewards will be there for me. Taking those 7 months off was the best thing I could’ve done: to re-energise, reconnect with my goals, live life, meet great people. A year or so ago, I really thought I wanted to give it up and get out of mining, get out of environmental, find a new career where I could do the 9 to 5 without care. I still aspire to branch out eventually and do something different, but not for the same negative motivation I had at that time. So that brings me in a round about way to reflecting on Suriname, the new job, the new life chapter, and the new memories. Here is a list of random observations that I noted down over the last few weeks:

Songs on radio that are from today. So far no Celine Dion like in Ghana!
Airport far out of main town. 30 mins before hit significant buildings.
Fast food place in hotel lobby.
Hotel pool actually looks swimable and breakfast had variety.
Travel brochures in hotel that have tourist sites I’d actually be interested in seeing
Road to site brilliant for first 2 hrs, then dirt road that’s bumpy to the point you can’t read or type. Apparently much better than a month ago though.
The site exploration camp is like a shanty town. The facilities are shared, basic, like a 2 star caravan park.
Site is half hr drive from exploration camp
Saw a monkey
Significant small scale mining everywhere. Called porknockers.
Drive on left
Showers are raw water harvested from roofs but looks clean, drinking water is bottled.
Food is good. First night I had duck but all bones. Beef is imported. Chicken is common.
Bar has small selection. Nice setting. No mosquito protection. More nationals than expats there when I went on first night. My intent is to avoid the bar.
Must take laundry to laundry people to wash and then pick up yourself. I spent 3 days trying to pick up my washing only to realise I was looking for the wrong bag cause I forgot that I’d changed rooms and needed to look for the new room number. Searching through all the laundry bags is a highlight. Especially when I inadvertently started trawling through the dirty laundry bags and the woman had to stop me. oops.
Showered with a frog on second night.
Little spiders, bugs and lizards everywhere
The site vehicles are new hilux and have electric windows and Bluetooth stereo. And machete. Hmmm.
The forest is impressively dense. And trees are ridiculously tall.
Terrain is very steep in places with deep valleys
Forgot my black tea leaves. Here they only have Lipton tea bags nooooooo.
The work mobile phones are from the days when Jesus walked the Earth. Screen is the size of a postage stamp. But I’m since told that smartphones on way coming…. Android. Yay.
Work email account is powered by Gmail.
Windows 8 computers and I’ve got a really good laptop. Nice way for me to experiment with this before buying a new personal one. But it keeps crashing. Argh.
I have 7 staff. 3 senior, 4 junior. Plus 2 vacancies. All great people and I feel the makings of a great team – the rossification has begun. The juniors are all African descendants. Very interested in asking about my time in Ghana and the language.
The work is interesting, the people good and lots of opportunity for me to contribute value. So far so good.
No goats, but stray dogs everywhere.
Internet access is available in wifi and just got a lot better and reliable with upgrade to link going to city. But still slow and drops often. Lots sites blocked. I bought a private SIM to get open net. But it is still slow; will try a different phone company next rotation.
Power outlets are USA style
A mosquito borne virus (Chikungunya) is spreading quickly through the country – I really don’t want this and cover up as much as possible.
Although the new camp has much better facilities, I am in 2 minds about requesting to move there. Because they don’t have internet in room until late November. I value my internet so think I put that above nicer room and nearly private bathroom (share with neighbour). Plus my office is at exploration camp so I’d have half hr commute there and back if at construction camp. I value sleep and my personal time so don’t like this idea.
Instead of moving to new camp, I luckily was moved to a new room in Exploration Camp that is bigger, better furniture, better air con. But…on first night, my bed collapsed when trying to put suitcase under it!! It made such a loud noise that my neighbour started yelling at me through the wall. I called Matt for help to put the bed back together. Hilarious moment. Actually there have been many funny moments and I haven’t laughed so much at work in a long time. Great to work with humorous people who I connect almost instantly with.

And so there you go. First entry complete. Good to get that out there. And for all those that have patiently waited for an update, thank you for waiting while I got myself sorted. I appreciate your interest, thoughts and well wishes. All is good and I look forward to taking you on the adventure.