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Originally posted by punknaynowned Is it Ded, that Dutch businesses make money by building bridges in Surinam or something else? And is it 'payouts' to the government of Surinam by the Dutch gov't or something else? I'm learning. Now to learn how to ask the question in Dutch.

Totally correct however I wrote bridges it's actually one big bridge
consuming a lot of money for a not clear goal. The bridge is named after the last president. So you can state it was more prestigious then nescessary.
click here

quickly translated from wikepedia (with worldlingo.com)
If you read feather please change this in ferry (in Dutch the same word "veer".

The Jules Wijdenboschbrug is the bridge over the Surinam river between the city Paramaribo in the Paramaribo district and the place Meerzorg in the district "Commewijne". The bridge has been named after president Jules Wijdenbosch. The bridge is also called Surinam bridge. It was produced on 15 April 2000, but it was opened on 20 May; six days for the parliamentary elections of that year. The bridge has ensured a faster connection between Paramaribo and to the district Commewijne more particularly the place Meerzorg. The intention of the bridge was promote the development of the Eastern part of Surinam. Formerly this area was only by Ferry connection contactable. The bridge has been built by the Dutch company Ballast-Nedam. The construction of the bridge was controversial because of the high costs involved, and the financing from the current budget relay spread out instead of by means of a loan. Also the lack of a development plan for the associated infrastructure harvested much critics.

The governement had large financial problems. The profits of construction company Billiton and the National oil society normally for the benefit of Surinamese government were payed directly to Ballast-Nedam pay during the construction. The bridges - in the same period also a bridge concerning the Coppenamerivier has been built - by many was seen as an election stunt of Wijdenbosch. The bridge was opened at the end of its term and the costs of the bridge came mainly for the later cabinets.
The bridge is 1504 meters long and has two traffic lanes. It is not accessible for pedestrians. By its altitude several times the bridge was the tragic setting of suicide attempts.

[Edited on 15-12-2006 by DED]

[Edited on 15-12-2006 by DED]

HA!
A bridge to Nowhere?

this reminds me, have any of you ever read Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon?
He's not to too nice to the Dutch but isn't to the brits or the french or just about anybody you'd want to name either, but lots of good fun, for historical fiction.

There are two references to the thread name - what do you look like -- that the bridge you speak of reminds me of this Pynchon book.
1) both Mason & Dixon (18th cent british surveyors in america surveying the famous line that now divides Pennsylvania from Maryland and now West Virginia) having a dream far out west, surveying the line with their guides and their soldiers and their woodsmen types. Yet they've lost many of the hangers-on and such as things have gotten weirder and weirder the farther west they trek. They both have this dream simultaneously. They are woken and taken a little farther on thru the woods to a hill where they can see a great river (the Ohio) and astriding it the greatest bridge they had ever seen which is described like a suspension bridge but they would never had seen the likes of it on this scale c 1750. In the dream they are told it's from the distant past (instead of the future), but is a kind of promise that the surveyors understand as such.
This was the memory link that got me goin on this idea this morning as I impatiently wait for the MOFO to arrive . . .
2) Was the discussion upon reaching the bridge that the guide has the Indian guide say is how the Native Representative feels what the whites are doing.
here it is:
""If I did not [show you the bridge], your Great Road thro' the Trees would miss it. You move like wood-borers inside a Post in a great House, in the dark, eating and shitting, moving ever into the Wood and away from your shit, with no idea at all what lies without."
"In the Forest," comments Mr Crawfford, 'ev'ryone comes 'round in a Circle sooner or later. One day, your foot comes down in your own shit. There, as the Indians say, is the first Step upon the Trail to Wisdom."
They wake." p 677
that's about where the US has gone IMO with the 'democratic experiment' even with it's business zeal

[Edited on 3-2-2007 by punknaynowned]