Mental lapse

Saturday we decided to go visit a friend's village on an island in the Maroni. The trip requires driving to another town, which is mainly used a military base, and then taking a pirogue to the island. Perhaps it was the fact that I hadn't had my cup of coffee yet that morning, but my brain just was not functioning properly and as I stepped out of the car and slammed the locked door shut, I left the keys in the ignition.


So there we were, half an hour from St.Laurent, with all our money, food, and water locked in a pretty red Twingo.


We managed to get one of the windows down a bit, but were quite lost as to what to do next. Luckily, there was a group of soldiers nearby who came to our rescue. They acted swiftly and sent one of the guys off to the "utilities building" to bring back a long sturdy cable. They formed a hook, passed it through the window, and gently pulled the keys out.


(I would just like to go on record of saying that we totally could have done it one our own had we had access to the "utilities building" or had a spare piece of cable lying around)

Our heroes of the day.

Unfortunately, our friend with the pirogue never showed up, and we spent some of the time waiting in the only restaurant in the town (if you can even call it that), watching a very cool sloth trying to get from one satellite dish to another, and being total tourists.









and in the end, I got my cup of coffee.



(Note: This is of course in no way a representation of habitual activities on one's year of service, but simply a funny story I wanted to share)