For that morning, we had a scheduled tour of the Kourou space center from which France and other European nations launch their satellites into orbit. We had submitted our application forms in advance; everyone in the group had passed the security check and received confirmations that the visit was approved. We arrived at the space center by 8 a.m. and lined up to get our passes. Alas, my approval was missing from the computer system. Everyone else’s name was there, except mine. It was to no avail that our guide showed the confirmation we had received; the staff member simply shrugged and said it was too late to do anything about it. The group went off on a two-hour tour of the center while I was left outside.
Having decided to make productive use of my time, I went to the post office. I had bought postcards with views of Devil’s Island the day before and thought it would be fun to mail one to myself. Usually, sending a postcard is a simple matter – you just need to buy the right stamp. In French Guiana, however, it wasn’t that easy. The postcard had to be registered in the computer system, and it turned out that my country, the US, wasn’t in the dropdown. All the postal staff gathered around the computer to put their heads together, but nothing worked. They even tried routing my hapless postcard through a third country, but that failed too. In the end, they handed the postcard back to me and told me to mail it from somewhere else. What was wrong with me and my country of residence? Both of us had vanished from the computer systems.
The group returned from the excursion, and we all headed toward our next country, Suriname.
We were cleared to leave French Guiana in five minutes, then boarded a small boat and sped across the rather wide border river. We had already filled out the Surinamese border forms and paid the fees online. I was worried that I wouldn’t be found in this system here too, but everything worked out fine.
We arrived in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, and checked into a hotel in the city center. When I entered my room, I noticed water dripping from the ceiling light fixture in the bathroom. I did not like that, water and electricity don’t mix well. The receptionist came in and offered to bring a rag so I could wipe up the bathroom floor.
“Um, maybe I should be put in a different room?”
“Sure,” she agreed, and I was given a two-room suite on the top floor. The group decided this was a fair compensation for the missed tour of the cosmodrome.