Paramaribo

In Paramaribo

I met a girl, half Indian and beautiful
there was a big church and a castle
to defend Dutch interest
A hot and swampy place, which I liked
coming from Norway, a cold country
with a poor working- class who sent
their sons to join the merchant marine 
The housing estate in Paramaribo 
consisted, mostly of shacks, among 
romantic palms
Had I married the girl and settled 
I would have been a beneficiary of 
the promised oil wealth
As it is, as a Norwegian, I get a pension
so mean, I have to live in Portugal
because the rulers put the wealth in
sovereign fund for a future that
appears to be at the threshold of a war