Climate change and gold mining steadily erode the sources of life for the Indigenous and Maroon communities in Suriname. During a trip along the Maroni river we learn of the pressures they face and their resilience, evoked in stories and songs.

The Maroni River forms the border between Suriname and French Guiana, and is home to Indigenous peoples and Maroons, descendants of Africans who freed themselves from Dutch enslavers. Climate change and gold mining steadily erode their sources of life: land, forest, and river.

Through stories and songs, Monikondee evokes the pressures these communities face, and their resilience. We encounter them through Boogie, a Fiiman (“free man”) who delivers freight to the villages along the shore in a motorized dugout canoe. While the communities increasingly depend on his supplies, his provision of fuel to gold miners makes him complicit in the very forces threatening their livelihood—an uncomfortable reality that several women firmly confront him with.

Summoned by community leaders to a hearing concerning his nephew, Boogie begins a journey upriver. Along the way he reflects on old and new ways of life.