Transcript:Filmstrip/The Green Light Expedition Part 2
"That small, dark green area at the top of South America is Suriname.
For 200 years it was a Dutch colony that has recently become an independent nation with
a population of about 400,000 people.
The capital city, Paramaribo, on the banks of the Suriname River, from which the country
takes its name, has every modern convenience, an international airport, a large harbor for
ocean liners, many good schools and colleges, air conditioned homes and supermarkets.
There is an old world charm about the city.
People from the five great branches of the human race have made Suriname their home and
lived together peacefully.
These are Amerindians of the Red Race, the original inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere.
They are taking part in a national festival.
So are these girls of the Brown Race, whose ancestors came from the Mele Archipelago.
There are many members of the Black Race in Suriname.
These are West Indians having a good laugh at some white university students having their
head shaved in public, all in fun.
There are also many representatives of the great Yellow Race who have emigrated from
Asia.
This man is a typical Bush Negro.
During the 17th century, great numbers of slaves were brought from Africa, and in more
than one uprising, escaped from their captors and fled into the jungles, never to be recaptured.
It was to visit and film these people that the green light expedition came to Suriname.
The Palamaribo Bahais received us with open arms, and we met with them a number of times.
In this small gathering, we counted eight people who, between them, had served almost
90 years as pioneers in places as far away as Africa, Europe, North and South America.
The oldest of these, standing on the extreme left wearing a white shirt, is a German pioneer
of 22 years standing, a knight of Baha'u'llah for French Guyana, where he went in 1953 to
teach the faith.
This map shows the part of Suriname we visited.
Being arrived by air in Palamaribo, we motored up to a place called Afro-Baha on the shores
of the largest lake in the country, created artificially in order to have a dam built
for electric power.
This lake flourishes under the name of Professor Doctor Engineer from Blumenstein.
We took a dugout canoe with an outboard motor, and crossed the lake to a place called Reddy
Doty, a bush Negro village.
From there, we returned to Palamaribo and hired a plane a few days later, and flew to
Bota Passi.
We then took another dugout canoe, and went up the river Suriname as far as Kamalua, where
we stayed about one week.
Returning to Ramadan, which is the place where the government ferry picks up passengers to
carry them back to Afro-Baha.
Here we are at Afro-Baha, to start out for the first bush Negro visit.
On the left is Marc Sedan.
Next to him is Anthony Worley, then Mr. Masur Hamsi, a counselor for South America.
Jan Sheed Agermandy, a Persian pioneer and board member who accompanied us.
Myself, Dr. Nosrat Rabani, a medical doctor who was with us on the first part of our trip
in South America, and Rodney Charters on the extreme right.
The dugout canoes had been rented to take us across this artificial lake, which produces
electric power for the bauxite industry, the main export of Suriname.
Only by following the previous course of the river can this vast flooded valley be safely
navigated.
We passed these dead jungle trees sticking out of the water as far as the eye could see,
and found it a most depressing sight.
In my mind it became Stick Lake.
There is our steersmen in the rear.
The people in the jungles are expert boatmen, as water takes the place of roads.
They are highly skilled and equally at home without board motors or paddles.
It was the beginning of the rainy season in this part of the world, and a storm overtook
us, making the dead bones of the trees, suddenly beautiful against the dark and angry sky.
It took us almost three hours to reach Sarah Creek, a small river on the other side of
the lake.
We gathered up all our provisions and equipment and disembarked for our visit to the Bushni
Groves in the village of Reddy Doty.
It seemed to us a small place, but we were told about a thousand people lived there.
Bushni Groves are divided into four tribes, and these were the people of the Alcana tribe.
As far as we knew, no members of this tribe had either become Baha'is or heard anything
about the faith.
It was only because this young student from Parramaribo, standing on the right, knew Jam
Sheed and invited us to come and visit his village that we were able to go to this part
of the interior.
I am shown between his grandfather and grandmother.
The Bushni Groves are a handsome and lovely people.
Look what a beautiful face this woman has.
What I call a genuine human being, not merely an imitation of one.
He is the mother of the student you just saw.
Our first act had been to call on the captain or chief of Reddy Doty.
He owned the only store in that entire district, and you can see him behind the counter with
a cap on his head.
The old men are dignitaries of the village.
The captain informed me we were most welcome to use the village hall as a guest house during
our stay.
And a number of people came to assist us in getting settled in.
Here we are in our new home, where we lived for four days.
The rolls on the wall at the left are our sleeping hammocks, which we took down every
night and slung across the hut in rows.
We wanted to film the villages, but had to go about it very slowly and tactfully, so
we consulted on the best method of doing this.
All our food and camping equipment we brought with us.
People in villages are not in a position to unexpectedly feed a lot of extra guests,
and it is very wrong to impose upon them.
We lived an eight in our own hut, and this is the kitchen end of the building.
I am sitting in my day hammock, cool and very comfortable.
It was the rainy season, and we were overtaken by many showers.
Through the open side of our hut we watched the children, as usual stark naked, playing
about happily in it.
I was constantly reminded of my beloved Africa and felt very homesick.
When the rain stopped we went for a walk to explore the village, typical in every way
of the bush Negro life in the interior.
In comparison with the local people, we had on far too much clothing for the hot, steaming
tropical weather, but because we were afraid of being bitten by insects we were overdressed.
We soon discovered it was not the biting season, but went on suffering from the heat
as we had no other clothes with us.
The women are usually naked from the waist up.
These are typical villagers, friendly, amiable, intelligent, laughing, charming people.
The house with the tin roof at the back was beautifully kept, and we asked permission
of the proud housewife to photograph it.
At first we thought this must be a shop, but soon discovered that such homes as this
are not rare, though most of the houses were more simply furnished.
This is the dining room, sitting room.
The bedroom is at the back behind the partition.
Note how decoratively the row of spoons has been placed on the wall.
The bush Negroes are the cleanest people I have met anywhere in the world.
They wash themselves and their dishes usually twice a day when we would it.
Not only the mamas are spotlessly clean, their daughters energetically follow their example,
like this young lady during her own wash on the riverbank.
From the time when they can walk, village children share in the work.
They are a happy, healthy, and uninhibited lot.
Dr. Nosrat, who had practiced medicine many years in Surinam, noticed this child had
an eye infection, like almost all younger children.
This little girl was not afraid, did not cry, and let herself be treated.
We paid a visit to the local carpenter shop and found them sewing boards in the immemorial
way, with one man at the top of the long saw and one at the bottom, a method used all
over the world, including Japan.
On the left you can see the pile of very neat boards they have produced.
In our guest house were two very large handmade drums, similar to those one sees in many countries
of Africa.
One morning two little boys came in and began to play them very well.
After they left two older children found the temptation irresistible and also began to play
them, but alas, not half as well.
Our young audience was very much immune.
The young men were the ones who could really end in a true African way, and that night we
had a party to which many of the villagers came.
The captain also came and sat with me and Mr. Hamsey.
We watched the dancing with much interest, in which some of our own young men took part
much to everyone's amusement, as they could not keep up with the pace of the villagers
at all.
All we had to offer were some sweets, much appreciated by the children, who, politely,
each accepted one.
Next morning we got ready to leave.
The counselor, as usual, in whatever environment he found himself, got up in shape, watched
by a group of very interested spectators.
I got up and proceeded to roll up and tie in his waterproof bag my own budding, much
to everyone's amusement.
On the right you can see the captain laughing at me.
I refused all offers of help, as my years of experience have made me more capable of
doing this than anyone else.
We said goodbye to our kind new friends, and the captain invited us to come back, saying
we would always be most welcome.
A few days later we hired this plane, and flew from Cara Maribo to boat a passe on the
Suriname River.
We found it was quicker and much more practical than to travel by car and boat, when our time
in Suriname was so limited.
Our plan was to visit the Baha'is on the Saram Makanar tribe, who had accepted the
faith while working in the city.
Neither Jamshid, who knew them well, nor any other Baha'is had ever been to see them.
We were all very happy and thrilled to be on our way.
Crossrat had served the Bushney Groves as a medical officer, but never gone so far into
the interior as the green light expedition was now doing.
As for me, it was the fulfillment of a long, cherished dream.
This is the dense tropical jungle that covers Suriname.
You can judge by the size of that fadged hut the immense height of the surrounding trees.
One of the hardest things in the jungle is to estimate how big trees are, and only rarely
when you see them like this in relation to something you are familiar with, can you appreciate
the vast scale of the virgin jungle.
When we arrived at Bodo Passi, which means in Takitaki, the national language, boat passes,
we found a tremendous number of very interested children waiting for us, but no Baha'is.
They had not heard the radio announcement of our coming as they were working on their
plantations in the interior of the jungle.
We found ourselves temporarily stranded on the little grass air fear.
Mr. Famsi and Jamshid went to call upon the village chief and asked him if we could rent
a boat to go upstream.
He was very helpful.
So was everyone else, and dozens of people, at no cost to us, helped carry our innumerable
belongings through the village, down to the boat landing, including this little boy with
a heavy carton on his head.
Obviously, to these little people, we were the most peculiar and fascinating thing they
had seen in a long time.
There we are, having gotten ourselves and belongings into our boat, waving goodbye to
our new friends who were so kind and helped us both.
In jungle countries, the rivers are the highways, there are very few roads in the interior.
People constantly travel in these homemade dugout canoes to the fields on the sides of
the river where they have their plantations, to visit other villages, to go across the
lake to the big city itself.
Many of them now have outboard motors, but the universal method of propulsion is still
a paddle.
Here is a whole family arriving at the rock, which is the landing stage of the village,
where we ourselves were about to disembark.
Other children, pots, pans, all piled into their canoe, and all propelled by hand.
Even very small children are excellent boatmen.
Very small children also go fishing, sometimes successfully.
It is a place in the world where child's life is an easy and happy one.
This is a very typical village team.
Often women and children go down to the river twice a day to wash their clothes, their
pots, their pans, their babies and themselves.
The people are extraordinarily gifted artistically and carved very beautifully.
Everything is ornamented, including the prowls of the canoes.
By the side of the river, we often found them making their canoes in the old African way,
hollowing out from the suitable jungle log, the body of the canoe, peaking it with fire
as this man is doing, stretching it with wooden struts like the canoe in the foreground,
to make it wider, and later curing it with water inside.
This is another village occupation, which one finds all over the world.
In this case, the women are pounding rice in a wooden mortar to remove the husks.
In many parts of Africa, the method is exactly the same.
Notice the metal wire around the ankles of the women, also a typical adornment among
many tribes of Africa.
This woman, who happened to be one of the local bahis, is winnowing the grain.
We use a method which is common to Asia, Africa, and South America.
All over the world, women go to the well to fetch water and carry it back in receptacles
on their heads.
The same way these women are doing, in the village we stayed in of Kamalua.
We found that a great many of the buchini grows still follow the old pagan religion of Africa.
Everywhere we saw large and small voodoo shrines, voodoo no doubt being derived from the African
name juju, which means magic.
Inside that little shrine, inside the clay jar standing on that pole, is some kind of
witchcraft, placed there by the witch doctors as a protection for the people or an offering
to the spirits.
These two men are witch doctors.
The pagan priests of the village and the guardians of its most sacred shrine in Redidoti, which
they allowed us to catch a glimpse of and which was very like those in West Africa.
Behind the man on the right is the spirit screen to prevent evil spirits from entering the temple.
In a much smaller village, we saw this dilapidated shrine on the ground.
The people have very few materials at their disposal, and nearly anything is used for
the adornment of such a shrine, including empty bottles.
Behind it is a larger shrine in its own typical little hut.
Sometimes we saw villagers gathered about a large shrine holding some kind of service,
but we never intruded upon them, respecting their right to worship in their own way.
This shrine was much more beautiful than most of them, and had carved poles inside its fence.
The tops of these poles were shaped into human heads.
This is the shrine that stood in the middle of the houses, where we held our meetings
and gathered about and talked.
My hut is on the left with the blue and yellow design.
The people were very generous, and as many villagers were away working their plantations,
they gave our party four huts to living.
Lying on the ground in front of me is the little voodoo shrine that protected my hut.
Here is another much smaller one of stick stuck in the ground, with strings and leaves
hanging on them.
From however simple, one seldom sees a home without a juju to guard it.
Kamal Nua is the most beautiful village I have ever seen, and a great many of the houses
were elaborately decorated like this one, with a fine sense of design and use of materials.
Although Surinam is a tropical country, we found the climate in durable and greatly
enjoyed our stay in this charming, spotlessly clean, hospitable village.
We met with our Baha'i friends and discussed how we could assist them in their teaching
work.
It was decided that we would return to Bodhappasi, where we had arrived the day before and been
received so warmly.
Mr. Hamsee and Jamshi, with our friends from Kamal Nua, went to explain to the captain
of the village why we had returned.
Soon he and many of the villagers came to join us in their guesthouse, some of them carrying
their own stools to sit on.
Like all Africans, the people have a strong sense of protocol.
Although Jamshi speaks fluent taki taki, and translated for me, it was the function
of the Baha'i, the man wearing the red striped sweater, to tell the chief or captain, as
he is told in Surinam, what was being said.
The meeting was very formal, but very friendly.
The chief is on the left, and one of the elders of the village sits next to me in the center.
I told the chief how the kindness shown to us the day before had touched our hearts and
made us want to come back and meet them again and thank them for their kindness.
The old captain at the end of the meeting said that although they were Christians, they
nevertheless were pleased to hear about our beliefs, and they absolutely insisted that
on our way back down the river we should sleep one night at Bodo Passi, which we did.
We then went back up the Surinam River in our canoe to pay a visit to another village,
passing many landing stages such as this, with their palm leaf screens erected to keep
out evil spirits.
There is a special way one has to pass through these spirit screens, women on one side, men
on the other, and one must be very careful not to do it the wrong way.
At our meeting in this village of La Fanti, Jamshade is showing various pictures which
emphasize the principles of the Baha'i faith.
The fact that this pioneer speaks the native language of the country very fluently makes
a tremendous difference in his teaching activities.
This is what Abdul Baha'is said in the tablets of the divine plan, that those who go to serve
the cause in foreign countries should learn the native language.
So much time is wasted in translation.
After this meeting we welcome five new Baha'is, one of them the captain of the village, is
sitting on my right dressed in the blue robe.
The three friends from Kamalua who brought us here are shown standing behind me.
Many of the people came down to the river's edge to see us off, and the captain said goodbye
most warmly, and thanked us for our visit to his people.
The illustrated teaching materials that Jamshade had used in the last meeting were a source
of deep interest to our friends in Kamalua.
They went over them very carefully, and before we returned to Paramaribo, they had persuaded
Jamshade to leave them with them for their own teaching work.
The last night of our visit we held the election of the first Bushni-Grow spiritual assembly.
The old man on my right is the captain of the village who became a Baha'i and who was
elected on this historic assembly.
Here the board member Jamshade is explaining to the friends the procedure in Baha'i elections.
As most of the people are illiterate, he wrote their ballots for them.
One woman was also elected.
The Baha'is were all radiantly happy over this event, and the villagers were duly impressed.
Next morning we had to leave, and this new member of the assembly accompanied us.
His costume is by no means unusual.
He carries a gun for hunting, a big knife, a machete, for cleaning undergrowth out in
the jungle, a briefcase, an umbrella, a boat paddle, and a bow and arrow for fishing.
There we are going down the river with two more of our new assembly members steering
the canoe.
The Sirinan River is not only the largest in the country, but full of dangerous rapids.
That man on the right looks as though he was standing on the water, but he is standing
in his tiny, frail, dugout canoe without an outboard motor, and is about to go down
the rapids as poised as if he were walking down the street.
They are wonderful boatmen, they are brought up on the river, learned to paddle and swim
as children, and are afraid of nothing.
Our canoe got stuck on the rocks in shallow water, but our friends soon pushed us off.
They jumped back into the canoe.
And on we went down the rapids.
As no threat cannot swim, she was the only one who would not enjoy the excitement.
We came to more rapids and met another man coming up.
As you see, he has an outboard motor.
We asked him what it was like, and he said, "All right, and down we went."
All of this was a new experience for us, and we held our way as we shot down the Foming
River.
It was a lot of fun, especially for us city people.
After the rapids came a shower of rain.
Further down the river, we stopped at a village to see if we could find a behind who lived
there.
He was not only at home or decided to accompany us.
He is seen standing at the extreme land.
After all these events were stopped for a little rest.
We were nine hours going down the river that day, and it was a very exhausting trip.
We went down a small stream beside an island in order to avoid another dangerous rapids.
It was very, very beautiful.
The jungle is a wonderful place to be, and fills one's heart with peace.
Here is our new friend, with his bow narrow, hoping to profit by the quiet water and shoot
a fish.
All through the jungles of South America, both the Indians and the Bush Negro, spished
very successfully in this manner.
The last place we stopped on our way down the river was completely abandoned.
Everyone had gone to work on their plantations in the interior.
There was exactly one human being left in the village, and that turned out to be our
Baha'i brother, who we were hoping to meet.
Once again, we entered Stick Lake, as I called it.
The storm clouds added to the depressing and dramatic scenery of this vast flooded valley.
This is Mama Dam, where the government variable picks up passengers twice a week and takes
them across the lake to Afobaka.
No one was sure on which day the boat was due, and in order not to miss it, we had to
sleep three nights here, with about forty other people in one big shed.
Our Baha'i friends, who had brought us from Kamalua, stayed with us, and it was a wonderful
period of companionship.
These are dried piranhas, the killer fish of the Amazonian region.
Although they occasionally bite people, and one must be very careful where one goes in
the water, they are the victims of man, and a regular item on the native diet.
These are for sale to the passengers waiting for the ferry.
Our friends swung their hammocks next to ours, and we all ate together.
Here is one of them with moshrat cooking plantains for breakfast on our camping stove.
The bush negro friends cooked piranhas with plantains for dinner that evening.
It proved to be a delicious dish.
Afterwards, we all sat around and discussed the faith late into the night.
Periodically, it poured rain, and you can see how heavy these tropical downcores are,
creating rivers of mud in a few moments.
Everybody rushed out to collect drinking water.
David rushed out with a bowl to the edge of our roof.
Mr. Hamsey rushed over to another source, flowing heavily from another roof.
I returned happily barefooted from the visit to the jungle.
During our stay in Mamadam, a man in the white shirt sitting on jam sheets left, became very
interested in us.
Who were these white people, and these bush negroes?
He asked many questions, and listened hour after hour to the explanations of our friends,
and accepted the faith the morning of our departure.
Here jam sheet is enrolling him.
This man, a flame and convinced, would now return to his own village and teach the faith.
We took his picture with those who were taught him, before older, truly wonderful bahis,
and the new one, the second from the right.
Everything is always hard for the bahis, and we reluctantly said goodbye to these people
who had become our real friends.
The Thay boat had arrived at dawn, and was now ready to depart.
Dozens and dozens of people scrambled on board with all their parcels, and so did we,
even more heavily laden.
The only way to get on seemed to be to walk up this rope, and that is what I am doing.
We found ourselves as interesting to our fellow passengers as they were to us.
All kinds of tame parrots were being taken, quite loose to the city, and I tried to make
friends with a young macaw.
Soon, all of us were busy explaining who we were, where we came from, and what the Baha'i
faith teaches.
We had plenty of time, because it took us more than five hours to cross the lake.
Our wonderful visit to Surinam was over, and we flew off to the next phase of the Green
Light Expedition, the Amazon.
[Music]
