He’s approximately 2,800 miles from his hometown of Paramaribo, the capital and largest city of Suriname. He was a firefighter there for 17 years, an assistant chief, when he left his job and life and flew north to Knoxville in 2017. Today he’s a firefighter for the Knoxville Fire Department.
Meet Melvin Tamsiran. He lives in Karns with his family and works with another family at Station 10 in South Knoxville on Sevier Avenue.
Melvin Tamsiran
Firefighting is not why he’s in Knoxville. Her name was Jennifer Zurakowski when they met in 2014. She’s now Jennifer Tamsiran-Zurakowski, Bearden High School and University of Tennessee graduate. In 2012 she moved to Suriname and was teaching English for 3 1/2 years at a private school in Paramaribo when his aunt, a secretary at the school, introduced them. “Neither of us was looking for a relationship, but that changed pretty fast,” he says.
“On our first date he took me to see a horror movie and I hate horror movies,” Jennifer recalls. “I’m glad I gave him a second chance.”
They were married on June 13, 2015, in Suriname. They have two sons – Zephaniah, 5, and Malachi, 2. “Both are Biblical names,” Jennifer says. They are members of a new church on Merchant Drive – the Village Church, which is self described as a multi-ethnic church welcoming multi-cultural families.
Zephaniah was born in Suriname. Shortly after he was born the South American country had a great deal of political and economic unrest. Food was scarce. “I could not even find my son’s baby formula so we decided we’d come to Knoxville,” she said, which they did in July 2016.
Melvin stayed behind and spent 14 months and $3,000 to get a green card to join them, which he did in October 2017. He is currently working and studying to become a U.S. citizen.
Jennifer now teaches sixth grade English Language Arts at Karns Middle School while her husband is part of the Red Shift at Station 10, working on their Quint 10 engine truck. His family there is Capt. Kenny Jones and Master Firefighter Billy Cooper.
Life and work here are very different. He’d never seen snow before. Suriname has but one season – hot and rain combined year ’round. The average daily temperature is 95. The country is only 276 miles north of the Equator.
This man speaks four languages – Dutch, the native tongue of Suriname; what he calls “British English;” Sranan Tongo, a creole language spoken by most people in Suriname; and Javanese, the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. His family was originally from Indonesia.
The firefighting business is different, too. Firefighters there are not medical EMTs (emergency medical technicians) as required here. Melvin has studied and is now an EMT Advanced. Fire trucks there drive on the left side of the road. Fire engines in Suriname have six firefighters per truck. It’s three here. He also was a search and recovery diver there as well.
“Paramaribo (population ca. 250,000) is divided into districts and each district has a fire hall,” he explained. “We usually have 10 to 20 house fires a month and wildfires. But most of our calls were rescuing people from killer bees. The worst one was a man who ran over the nest on his tractor. He fell off under his tractor and when we got there, they were all over him and he was dead.”
He says he has always had a passion for fire fighting. “I love helping people. You have to figure out how to solve the problem and I like and enjoy that aspect of this job very much.”
His supervisor, Captain Jones, enjoys having him at Station 10. “Nope, no language barriers. He had to make a few adjustments. He’s a really good firefighter and a hard worker. He takes the initiative and reads and studies on his own. He fits in great here.”
Tom King writes Our Town Heroes each Monday. Suggest future stories for him at tking535@gmail.com or call him at 865-659-3562.