Boondocks

I found the missing present from my Christmas package! Zebra striped pajamas with red trim. I was excited to find them still at the post office. I suppose the thieves didn’t want them.

Tuesday, we were informed that all of the foreign teachers had been invited to take part in a food festival in a neighboring town of our county. We arranged for our classes to be rearranged and then took off to the festival. They chartered a bus for us to take us to Malong, since it is even more out of the way than we are.

The way that everyone had talked about this festival, I was expecting it to be something very special – something like a fair or festival. We were greeted with a small – tiny – parade of school children and a paper dragon and then were shown to a new building development. I think they were trying to encourage us to move to Malong??? We finally arrived at the town square and I was rather disappointed. They had a bunch of tables set up, but nothing else. I was looking around for the festival, but couldn’t find it.

We sat down, and were served our food. It was a true You’re Gonna Eat THAT!?! moment. I really couldn’t identify anything on the table that I recall and some of the meat we debated as to what organ it could possibly be – brain, stomach, or intestine. Either way, I decided that I didn’t want to eat any of it, so I passed it up and went for the duck and mutton soups. I have come to appreciate meat with the bone in it because that is usually a good indicator that the meat is a least meat and not organ. Needless to say, the highlight of my food festival venture was the baked potatoes and I left still hungry. It was definitely an experience and not one I will forgot very soon.

As there is no drinking age here, some people begin to drink at a very young age. A young girl caught my eye and called me over to her table. I figured that she just wanted to talk with me, but instead she wanted to do shots with me. I politely refused and sat there rather awkwardly while she took a couple of shots of very strong liquor. It was apparent that she had done this before and that she had had a little too much. We got up to walk around before leaving a bit and she was falling down. It just broke my heart because she was so young and no one seemed to care or to be looking after her.