Happy New Year Hive!

We made it to 2022!

I sincerely hope you got to celebrate in your own way. Friends, family, food, fireworks (drone video below!) ? All of the F's together? 😂

It's been a hell of year, I think we shouldn't underestimate how much effort it took for us to stay 'sane'. At least, that's the case in my situation. I think we don't give ourselves enough credit for persevering and getting through things! Maybe because that's "expected" or maybe because we're not wired to give ourselves credit?
Whatever it is, I wanna say, I'm proud of you for making it through the year, your achievements and even your learning experiences. Cheers!!!

Now that I got the serious part out of the way.... I'm in Suriname!
I'm happy about this! It's been way too long and I'm glad to be here.
That being said this is the weirdest December I've ever had here. You see "normally", December is a party month in Suriname, it's famous for it (there are news articles!). This year, the covid numbers started to rise again just before I got here so the situation was a bit tense.
My mindset, originally was to not expect any partying and get myself ready to spend my days on a hammock eating snacks (I'm totally fine with that). But when I got here, I noticed that there were 2 distinct groups: one was partying like nothing was wrong, and the other was overly cautious and didn't wanna do anything. It was surreal!

People are tired of the whole situation and you see that they have the need to blow off some steam... I'm not judging, you do what you need to do.. But I was somewhere in between those two groups. Mainly, yes, I can admit this, mainly because the biggest fear in the whole thing, is this that I infect my mom or my aunt... That is the main reason I wasn't partying. The risk is not just my own.
And it was a risk, a couple of people close to me (or at least people I had met) ended up testing positive so I tested myself twice (leaving more than 3 days in between) before being 'social' again.

I held myself in check, I didn't party.
I didn't party in December, in Suriname, weird I tell you!

I did enjoy myself though (lockdown or not) , I met up with some friends in a more open/safe setting. I had some great family nights. We went to explore some nature (seperate posts coming but check a few pics below)
I ate, A LOT! Life is good if you look at it that way.

Our tradition is that we all end in up at my aunt's before 12 to eat, have drinks and light some fireworks. That was a must!

So on the 31st (which is normally the biggest party of the year) I visited a couple of friends in the afternoon. Picked up my mom and we went to my aunt's 😁😇😇😇. Good times!

Check out some of the fireworks below.
There is a drone video and video of me lighting a traditional 'pagara' 😎.