-Chapter 12- Embarrassing and funny incident at KFC

Even though I still imagine hippies with dreadlocks and dirty cars when I hear the term backpacker, we had to classify ourselves as one. So in the evening, in the dark, we went back to KFC. Of course, not to buy anything, but to park in front of the entrance and mooch off the Wi-Fi from the car. In the meantime, we let our underwear dry on the dashboard. The KFC in Te Puke is pretty small, inconspicuous, and not very busy. Shortly before 9:00 pm, the last visitor left and we decided to leave as well. Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well. When Celina turned the key, everything just rattled a bit, but the engine didn't start. We looked around the dark parking lot, where we were now the last car. For two people who know so little about cars like us, this was the shock of a lifetime. We had forgotten to turn off the lights. At least we knew that would drain the battery. Celina's first reaction was to turn off the lights. The second was to pull the cigarette lighter out of the socket and throw it in the corner (we didn't retrieve it until weeks later). Celina asked a KFC employee for help, who was just on his way to his car. Since he didn't have any jumper cables, he drove home, but apparently told his colleagues. Two KFC employees came out afterwards, they owned the last car on the street. Eventually, all three KFC employees were standing in front of our car after their shift and had to help us open the hood. I had never done anything like that before. It was already incredibly embarrassing and terribly nice of them. But honestly, we didn't really understand what was going on. I only knew that we needed a jumpstart and that you needed another car for that. That's why I didn't know that we should have been looking for a cable the whole time. Then it got really crazy. One employee started running up and down the main road, flagging down cars to ask for jumper cables for us. This went on for a while until he sprinted back across the street, started his car with a roaring engine, and drove over all the curbs and hills towards our car. Then he enthusiastically performed the jumpstart with the other employee, and the car started again. We thanked them as much as we could and drove off the parking lot. For the remaining weeks in Te Puke, we made a wide detour around the KFC.