So as i said we stayed at the Hotel Krasnapolsky in downtown Paramaribo. I liked the fact that when i finally arrived in my room at 3 am after travelling incessantly on Caribbean Airlines which wouldn’t allow us out at Piarco to get some doubles even though there was a 3.5 hour layover there, and after all that you couldn’t even get a real drink on the plane to calm your nerves because for some inexplicable reason they had no alcohol on board, when i finally got to my room hungry, thirsty and starving at 3 am it was incredibly welcoming to find a little care package waiting with slices of cheese and bread, peanut butter, chocolate spread and a bottle of water.
Likewise when we departed a week later, also at 3 am (the airport is almost in Guyana, an hour away and the flight was at 6 am) each of us received another care package with an apple, bottled water, bread, cheese and a boiled egg, albeit without salt or pepper. It would be a few days before I would learn that Carlos Fuentes once said that sex without guilt is like a boiled egg without salt, the twitter feed was buzzing with Fuentes quotes the day his death was announced. Carolyn Cooper managed to find a vagrant Rastaman at the airport who was happy to receive whatever was left of our Krasnapolsky care packages. I hope he was luckier with the salt situation (an Ital Rasta would’ve eschewed salt anyway) but at any rate Dear Dear Krasnapolsky Hotel, you made us feel loved and cared for on leaving tantalizing Suriname. The only complaint i might have was the patchy wi-fi in my room and the Protestant work ethic of the cleaning staff who liked to start their working day very early, practically dragging you out of bed to clean your room.
This time the wait at Piarco was much shorter and Carolyn and i nearly missed the connecting flight so deep in conversation were we. Actually she was trying to mark papers and periodically showing me the most egregious samples of what passed for student English and it wasn’t until we suddenly heard a voice on the loudspeaker announcing a final boarding call for Caribbean Airlines flight 455 to Barbados and Kingston and urging passengers Cooper and Paul to show themselves immediately that we realized that everyone else had inexplicably boarded the plane without our even noticing a thing.
Some of the other enjoybable things about the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS) conference we had just attended were the art exhibit ‘Short Stories’ by Kit-Ling jon Pian Gi and the launch of ARC no. 5, the latest edition of that remarkable art publication by Holly Bynoe and Nadia Huggins, two women from Bequia and St Vincent. If you haven’t seen it yet, get copies, they’re likely to become collector’s items for they’re produced in limited editions with the highest production values imaginable. Rarely has the region seen such an uncompromising commitment to international publishing protocols and standards. May ARC have a long and eventful life.
Active Voice 