So we finish loading the supplies into the truck-and then it’s just a minute or two drive into town. Well, we must pick up more things while in Maripasoula before going out to the gold camp. I can tell right away that Pascal is fun, but Roland, I don’t know. When Roland Wagner looks at me he looks deep into my eyes. Roland leans toward me and says, Cuire, il et cuire!īe good to our friend the cook or you cook yourself! Roland says. Pascal is touching the boxes: FOOD! He opens one and hands me a beer.
We load supplies from the Twin Otter into a woebegone white Toyota pickup. I had better stop doing this or these guys will think I’m mocking them. and we find ourselves in the emerald jungle with these strange men who have survived here. I can’t help it, too many of those National Geographic shows as a kid-in them, Jacques would say something like: I realize I’m speaking in my Franglish Jacques Cousteau-in-the-mini-sub accent. Ah ha ha ho ho, from life! But of course! And I don’t understand what Pascal is talking about.Īh, oui, oui-from life. I’m babbling away in my Americanized pseudo-French accent, not speaking French just speaking with a bad French accent. Roland has a barely visible scar that runs above his lip and along his left cheek and another on the right side of his neck below his jaw.Īs we’re off-loading supplies, Pascal nods toward Roland, and whispers to me in his thick French accented English, Hey, ex-paratrooper in French army. Roland Wagner, a forty-year-old prospector with a round young face, and Pascal, the rotund cook, are here to meet me. To me the town looks like a collection of blocks strewn carelessly along the river. Faded pastel-colored buildings crowd the dirt streets. After a time we’re banking over the Maroni River and back around to the concrete landing strip at Maripasoula. Brownish-gray glistening rivers meander through it like giant pythons. The jungle is a palette of every shade of green. Signs of civilization are drifting away from me as we progress farther across the jungled terrain.
#WIDELANDS SEND GEOLOGIST SERIES#
The Air Guyane plane is a twin-engine Series 300 Otter-the same kind I’d so often used for exploration in Canada. To get there I fly south to a small river town called Maripasoula. Our partners, the French Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières aka BRGM, the French Bureau of Geology and Mines, have found gold deep in this jungle. The company I work for-called BIG C-is a partner in a venture, and I am here to assist with the evaluation of a gold deposit. It is all jungle southward to the horizon. As we fly toward the French Guiana coast, just a bit north of the equator, the Atlantic takes on a coffee brown color-and I realize it’s sediment from the Amazon River as it spreads out along the South American coast. Yesterday: the jet is on approach to the Rochambeau airport in Cayenne, the morning flight from Martinique. Blade-like leaves of the palms offer spectral images that shimmer in gentle breezes. Sunlight streams down like golden vines through the high jungle canopy. The sudden sharp calls of monkeys fill the humid atmosphere. Green and brown lizards the size of small cats scurry nervously around me. I am standing perfectly still by an ancient white-barked tree that towers 120 feet. Think of all you’ve seen! CONTENTSĪbout The Author JUNGLE GOLD ACT 1 In Country Tell it like you see it, and that is the truth.Īnd upon the advice of my dear friend, Oliver Warin, Kuhns, for their love and insights and for encouraging me to wander off and explore beginning at a young age, and to my son, Matthew, and daughter, Madeleine, who have explored the world with me. This collected works volume of performance monologues is dedicated to my father, William R. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Gales Ferry, CT the monologues have been performed in public.Ĭover Design, Maps and Illustrations by Roger Kuhnsĩ78-1-95 Didn’t See That Coming, Hardcoverĩ78-1-95 Didn’t See That Coming, Softcoverįor Information and to book performances of the monologues contact the or Library of Congress Control Number:2019909510 No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a database or retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the author or publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Roger James KuhnsĬopyright renewed © 2019 Roger James KuhnsĪll rights reserved. Didn’t See That Coming Didn’t See That Coming True stories of a geologist’s adventures, challenges, friendships and self-discovery from far afield.
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