Four weekends filled with the contagious Suriname vibes. This is the largest festival of it's kind in the Netherlands. This is an annual festival that comes from very humble beginnings and now takes place in Amsterdam, at the Nelson Mandela park every summer.
Hard to imagine it has such humble roots.
And when you learn the history, it is just simply so incredible and appreciation for the festival becomes much greater.
The annual festival, KWAKU, was once a simple football tournament.
Thats right, a football tournament for kids organised by a Suriname foundation (Kwakoe). I do not know when the first football competition was held, but it has to be roughly 40-50 years ago.
The tournament brough together many different Suriname families together where they cheered and competed. But that sas just a start.
Over time, in typical Suriname social fashion, attendees started bringing food, playing music, dancing, singing songs, and so on...
The football tournament started becoming popular, and the agenda of events got bigger. It eventually turned into what you can see today.
The summer festival is now one of the most popular events in the entire country. Albeit the largest number of attendees are from Suriname or Suriname backgrounds, the festival attracts people from all countries.
I visited the festival on it's very last day. It still was incredibly busy as you can see. The weather was horrible- rainy, wet, and cold. But come rain or shine, Kwaku is packed!
Most people buy their tickets online. It is the easiest way. However, some people do it on venue but as you can see the line is very short. The event has heavy security and getting through security after getting your tickets scanned is the longest part.
Kwaku has all and everything Suriname. Above, you can see the different kinds of pop up stalls.
Shops sell different kinds of things. There are shops with fresh produce, produce from Suriname, Surinamese baked goods, processed snacks, traditional clothes, hats, accessories, and even Patta.
Patta is another successful Suriname company with humble beginnings. "Patta" means shoes is Sranan Tongo, the popular language in Suriname. The Patta brand has made it big and is so popular that they have one of the most sought after shoe design line with Nike.
As the festival has gotten popular, more stalls from other South American countries as well as some African countries have started participating.
Every corner, all around the festival grounds, is a stage or a dance floor. There are rougly 4-5 stages, and there id a schedule at the entrance where you can see who is performing in which stage and at what time.
There is one main stage, the biggest one, is close to the entrance. It has some of the most energetic perfoemances. I enjoyed the traditional Surinamese music, called something like Taki Taki. I was told the guys on the stage were popular in the community. As it started raining, we took shelter under the canopy.
The smaller stages host more contemporary artists. One of my friends has done an hour long performance here last year. He told me beforehand, that many up and coming artists launch to success from here.
There were two stages that were different than the others. These had dance floors and were in tents. One had Brazilian music and drinks!
There was a Nigerian popup foodstall. I ricocheted between going for my favorite cuisine, Surinamese, and trying something new - Nigerian.
Since I can try Surinamese food anytime I want, I decided to go with Nigerian.
Fried fish and rice.
It was spicy!! Looking at the rice, I thought it would be tomato rice...or not spicy, at the least.
I do not eat spicy, so this was extremely difficult for me. The fish, however, wasn't spicy. Or maybe, my tongue was so numb from the spicy rice that I didn't taste the spiciness in the fish.
The meal was very expensive. This is something that people aren't happy about. In the past, Kwaku was run by Surinamese communtiy and organisations. However, now it is not. There are many speculations on why the hands have been changed. Some say due to previous security issues and violence, some say it is because of how much money the festival generates. But there is no clear answer.
However, the end result is very clear. Kwaku is now very expensive.
This has turned many people to turn away from the festival. It is hard to believe that once you see how many people attend the festival. This was my first time in Kwaku, and looking at the crowd, I couldn't imagine how busy it was before when Kwaku was less expensive.
More than anything, there were foodstalls. All sorts of good, yummy, lekker, delicious food.
The air smelled of freshly grilled barbecue. This is one of the few things that has been in Kwaku from the longest time. Barbecue was the main catering in Kwaku when it was still a football tournament.
It is extremely hard to ignore these. Each grill has a different flavour. It is just so beautiful to watch these large operations. Multiple grillmasters and constantly selling out.
There were also popular Surinamese snacks like bara, fish, and so on.
Een apple voor de dorst
I decided to get a mocktail. Nada colada. From the brazillian bar. It was delicious although it was raining.
Apart from all the entertainment, there was a small section where there were posters about communities in Suriname. This was very interesting to learn about the communities in Suriname.
The community is huge. The latest information I read online said something about 300000 Suriname people live in the Netherlands. That is a huge number when you see the population in Suriname itself - roughly above the 600000 mark. I love the culture and food they have brought here with them.
And at last, the thing that brough Kwaku to existence - football. Unfortunately, there is no football field anymore. Very few matches are played...and all that in this soap football field shown above.
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