About

On New Year’s Day of 1974 the world was blessed with the addition of Rehuël Daniël Fernando Lobato de Mesquita to its population. No, that’s not the best day to be born on. Especially not in Suriname, where the “Old Year” celebrations is the most popular celebration in the country. So everyone is at home with hangovers, no one has money left for presents for me, because it was all spent on booze and fireworks.

I was born in Paramaribo, the capital, but didn’t stay here long. My father was a teacher who loved “far away from busy cities” assignments. So with my second year I moved to Dri Tabbiki, or Drietabbetje in Dutch, or Three Small Islands in English, an island group in the Tapanahony river, somewhere deep in the jungle of Suriname. We lived there for 2 years, then moved to Moengo for 7 years. After that we moved around a bit. 2 years Latour, Paramaribo, 2 years Nickerie, then back to Paramaribo.

It was during my third year of 9th year of Primary School that I first got in touch with computers. That’s the period I really got to learn the true meaning of the initialism RTFM. My knowledge of DOS was built up, and I got to mistakenly format some hard drives in the process.

My professional career starts
In the early 90s I quit school and got to do my first job as a DTP clerk. Meanwhile I learned hardware basics, software analysis, customer support. By 1995 I had extensive knowledge of and experience with Novell and Windows networks, from laying the cabling to administrating. I think I had the most fun in this period in my life, because I got to learn a lot about network protocols, cabling types, topology etc. This era opened the doors for my Internet era

The Internet
In 2000 I had a chance to learn web design. I remember asking myself “how the hell did people get the websites to show in my browser” kinda questions. I got my answer, because I got teamed up with Rafiek van Kanten who started answering the same question for himself a couple of moths earlier. We both were so eager to learn, that it took us less than 2 years to master web design (technically and graphically), learn PHP and MySQL and use it all to build strong web applications.

I also got to learn to work with Linux. I was given Slackware to start with, “because with Slackware you need to compile most of it yourself”. And compiling I did. I learned to check my kernel sources, then compile them, most of what I did on the Linux box was compiled from source. I got my own sub domain at this second largest ISP (we have 2) until I left my test ftp server running for a long time with anonymous access. The Linux System manager thought I “sold” my server space and was making money by letting people use it. They believed me, but “they wouldn’t risk me making such mistakes again” so they gave me my own x86 machine to install and play with Linux.

I did some small freelance jobs up until 2004 when I started my own company. I got me a dedicated server, an account with Enom for registration of domain names and started offering websites for far less then the local web design companies would. Business is actually looking too good. I did manage to take on a little too much work so now and then, but now I’ve learned to bring it down a little.

The present
I think so now and then one should shift his focus to a different aspect of his profession. Even though there is still a lot to be done here in Suriname concerning web design, I’m looking for ways to stabilize my situation first. At the moment I’m trying to internationalize. I want to focus on the international market, but not with web design. I want to try out affiliate marketing and e-business.

Stretsh
I got the name Stretch from a good friend in Oakland, CA (I called him Dad), because I was tall and skinny. When i tried to open my first email account at Yahoo, the name stretch was (obviously) already taken, so I decided to change the C into an S, since the pronunciation doesn’t change. I’ve been using that name since, for my online personality.

Hobby’s/interests

• I love basketball and soccer.
• I’m also kind of an adventure lover. Explored the San Fransisco Bay area for almost 2 years, just to get to know people and to see places.
• I love to talk about my work.
• Oh, yeah, I am one of those men who loves (window) shopping with his wife!
• I love being part of online communities. I felt some kind of rush when I started the chat with Nathan. Just the thought of talking with someone who you never imagined existed… It makes me feel alive and helps to understand that the world is huge!

In the near future I am going to explore some parts of the Surinamese part of the Amazon jungle. I will keep an account of these journeys at exploringsuriname.com.

Any question? Just let me know.