I was seventy miles up the Marrowijne River in Suriname, in a dugout canoe (yes, Catspaw, I had a paddle). The only boats on the water were dugout canoes like ours, made from hollowed out tree trunks, fifteen to thirty feet long. The bows were carved with a graceful upswept curve. The boatmen used intricately carved paddles with blades painted in bright, geometric figures.

Heavy and difficult to maneuver, the Djuka people could pilot these canoes through rapids that would give an experienced whitewater canoer pause. Each village along the river was fronted by a bare, muddy beach with a few canoes pulled up on shore. This was pretty remote country, no roads, no electricity, no touch with the central government, just a traditional culture living almost exactly as they had in the three centuries since they had originally settled there.

I was delighted that I had made it to a setting that was like "Green Mansions", on a jungle river, jaguars, macaws,I felt as though I had stepped into one of the National Geographic magazines I used to love to read, curled up on the window seat at home.

Somewhere in the middle of a reverie like that I noticed that one of the boats on shore had apparently smashed into a rock coming through a rapids a while back and the bow had been broken off. The repair had been made using, you guessed it, Duct Tape.