It is alway fun to talk to interesting people. This week in Suriname I enjoyed the company of an intelligent young woman named Ine Apapoe. Ine is researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Anton de Kom University of Suriname and she will soon travel to Amsterdam to start her PhD at VU. Ine is currently one of my workshop participants and so she got enthusiastic to start her own blog about the traditional Maroon Society. Marrons are, according to Ine’s blog, descendants of people who, during the 17th and 18th century, escaped from slavery at the plantations of former Dutch Guiana and settled as free men and women in the interior lands. Born from Marron parents, Ine, who grew up in Paramaribo, decided to study the influence of modern public administration on traditional hierarchic structures, like those of the present rural Marron communities.
Ine is an expert in Surinam history. She knows the intriguing facts of this country’s history both from the official literature, and from her own experience, and from personal stories told by her relatives. She knows facts about the interior wars and other important historic events, many of which have hardly been documented. Proficient in several traditional languages, Ine has an advantage above other researchers. She is able to make people feel comfortable, whenever she visits the Marron villages. This will help her collect the information needed for her study.
Apart from being a passionate researcher, Ine is also a caring mother of three children, the youngest one being only 15 months old. Early in the morning she cooks traditional dishes for her family before going off to work at the university campus. After work she hurries back to drive her children to piano lessons and to the tennis court; today she had to buy some gifts for the Sinterklaas party this weekend.
It is nice to meet people like Ine. She is a great story-teller. She made me curious to learn more about the history of Suriname.
