A blog about everything and nothing
Even though a lot of historical records have been digitized, researching your Surinamese family history can still be tricky at times. For instance, the enslaved Africans in Suriname only received a family name upon manumission or emancipation. This makes digging through the slave registries still a very tricky process. You constantly have to check and […]
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Content warning: This blogpost contains material that may be considered very disturbing to some. Discretion is advised. When doing research, I sometimes stumble upon very lurid stories. This is one of them. The following text contains an English summary of the newspaper article displayed in the image below. Semire, an enslaved woman of about 30 […]
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A painting containing the actual faces of rebels who participated in one of the most well documented slave revolts.
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In my post They connected…! I posted a list of Surinamese words that have an African origin. Of course Suriname isn’t the only country that has persevered and has managed to preserve Africa in all aspects of life. This post will focus on how Africa was preserved in the languages of the Diaspora. Take for […]
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Frequent readers of this blog, know that I love to write about my home-country Suriname. About all the ways in which mother Africa is still very much present in the souls of Surinamese people, hundreds of years after their ancestors were snatched away from her bosom. I write about our resilience, our music, our pride. […]
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Dear Cecilia, I will start off by saying that compared to the other letters I’ve written, this letter has been the hardest so far. I’ve started a couple of times but then stopped to post other things, which is something I normally don’t do. I may even end up drastically editing the post after I’ve […]
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Dear Serafina, When I found out that your picture, this picture, existed, I felt several emotions raging through my body. Surprise, because who would have known that after all this digging around for clues, that there still would be actual imagery of you. Excitement, because I would finally be able to attach a face to […]
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As an avid genealogist, a lot of my time is spent browsing through old newspapers in search of clues and missing puzzle pieces. I was doing just that today, when I stumbled upon this article in the Surinamese newspaper De West: nieuwsblad uit en voor Suriname, 21-11-1951 about “Negervervolging in Amerika”, translated “Negro-prosecution in America”.
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They connected…! A list of African words in African Suriname languages
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Suriname is far from a racial utopia. However, it is far better than most countries when it comes to race relationships, and that I know for a fact!
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In Suriname there is an odo or saying: Mi na bana bon, o moro y’e trowe doti tap’ mi, o moro m’e fatu. Translation:
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I pride myself in having a very good memory. I have a problem with remembering number sequences and birthdays, but apart from that, I have no problem telling you what you were wearing at a party 5 years ago, what you told me during a casual conversation 8 years ago and I’m sure I […]
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I traced part of my family history back to 1490. It was really simply. I just googled the Sephardic name,
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Tack Tack Tack…Tack Tack!
Read MoreThis is a fragment from the documentary Katibo Yeye. It’s a pity they didn’t post the whole documentary online. Every African (in diaspora) should see this video. Especially From the 06:00 minute mark on, it gets very interesting. It amazes me every time I see it…:-) There are some ignorant Africans in Diaspora that claim […]
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Ana Elrich 