Here's the rest of my Suriname pictures descriptions. 13. Landoe and two little native villagers. I believe this was in Viano's village, Benanoe. Notice the bright paintings on the huts. Each design tells a story about the people that live in the hut. The Bush Negroes do a lot of marvelous wood carving also. I have a lovely large round tray that a man carved for is wife. It is a tray used for winnowing rice. I was able to buy it from her. I almost felt guilty bribing her with gilders. Of course it was Jytte and Viano who talked to her about my buying it. She wouldn't have understood a word I would have said, anyway. 14. This lovely man's name was Da' Moi Lafoe (father with the beautiful smile/laughter). He asked Viano and Jytte if we would do him the honor of coming into his hut and joining him in a drink of strawberry pop. We climbed up the ladder to the "second story" (where he is standing in the picture) and we practically had to crawl into the hut through the small doorway. We all sat on the small carved wooden stools that they use for chairs and he opened the very warm bottle (it must have been about 120 degrees in there!). He poured some of the pop out on the floor and prayed to the spirit of the Mother of the Earth, thanking her for the drink and offering her some of it. He also thanked her for bringing people to him who wanted to learn about his people. He went on and on with his prayers until we thought he would never stop. However, when Jytte had interpreted what he had said, we were all quite touched. We certainly weren't treated like "tourists" by and of the villagers. They just thought it was so wonderful that we were so interested in seeing how they lived. And we thought it was so wonderful how loving and generous a people they are. Truly an education in Christianity--and most of the villagers have not been converted to Christianity yet. 15. A most unusual picture of several Bush Negro women sitting outside a thatched hut. We had to be very careful about taking pictures as the natives thought it was an invasion of privacy. I believe I "sneaked" this picture, pretending to take only Jytte's picture. Notice the carved stools they are sitting on and the hand woven baskets against the hut. We didn't see too many men in the villages as they were unusually fishing or hunting. 16. My favorite picture. Karyn (the wife of Alan) handing out candy to the little children. You can tell the girls from the boys as the girls wore beads around their waists and braided their hair. They were such friendly and loving children. 17. The last village we stopped at--Langatepeche. We had to leave the village sooner than we wanted to as there was a rain squall coming up. There are villagers on the river bank and above the bank waving goodbye to us. 18. This is the reason we had to leave the last village. When it rains in Suriname it really pours. After the rain was over, it was quite chilly but refreshing. On the river it was always quite pleasant. There always was a breeze. But when we got out of the boat and walked through the villages the heat was almost unbearable. No one stayed in the sun any longer than they had to! 19. St. Laurent, French Guiana. It was so very, very French. Like Surinam (Paramaribo) is so very, very Dutch. We took a short walk around the small town. I bought a beautiful gold ring with a pearl from the goldsmith who had made it. One of my most prized possessions. 20. The gates to the old prison which was made famous (or infamous) in the movie "Papillon" with Steve McQueen. St. Laurent used to be a notorious penal colony. Anyone trying to escape from the prison was automatically sent to Devil's Island in French Guiana. This was long ago [actually it wasn't until 1953 that the penal colony was closed!] and now I believe the prison buildings are used for a shrimp packing plant. I'm so glad I wrote down the stories behind the pictures when I did. I had forgotten so many of the details but now they're fresh in my mind again. vee