I praised the Surinamese food and without thinking I said: the dish i ate was so delicious and it was only 110 SRD (about five dollars USD). Thinking of what such good food would cost in Miami or Paris, I said: it is cheap
No sir, it is not cheap, she politely scolded me. For people like me who are living on Surinamese salaries, going out to Chinese supermarkets (where you can buy imported goods) or eating out is not an easy option.
In Miami, the caricature of fraud and capitalism, people are concerned about the cost of everything without understanding the value of very few things .. On top of it all, they pay working class people a wage which is not a livable wage ..
I visited CHOI's the biggest of the Chinese owned supermarkets and they had a good selection of foods, vegetables, wines etc all imported from Holland .. so one can imagine the mark up on prices and its effect upon the wage earners of suriname.
One humbling lesson I learned early on my anthropological studies was from the San/bushmen in Tsumkwe! in the Kalahari. While an older man and another younger man was showing me around, i was surprised to see the sparsity of vegetation and the monotony of the landscape. There is nothing here, I said with some exclaim to which the old man, who was name Thœmma said: For us everything is here
So please do not compare prices and say it is cheap or expensive. After a while you will realize that the price tag on any items at supermarket or amazon.com has a different effect upon you. you will gauge the price and the utility of what you are buying.
