incompetent americans undercook jungle yams
Hey,
These cybercafes give me nausea... although come to think of it, the source of that feeling might be the jungle yam that Kate and I poisoned ourselves with yesterday. There were two good things about the experience of poisoning yourself with something you harvested from the forest the day before: the first was that as soon as Kate described the pain as the type you'd experience from eating a bunch of fiberglass, I immediately recalled the plant family it belonged to- Araceae, which is the same family to which dumbcane, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and skunk cabbage belong. These plants all contain a needle-like crystal of insoluble calcium oxalate which penetrates the skin and mouth and feels very much like fiberglass. Recalling that, I calmly and certainly decided we should walk ourselves three miles to the dispensary, despite the pouring rain. I just wanted to be en route when our throats swelled up and in case we stopped breathing. Then as we gathered our raincoats, I noticed a 10 inch poisonous centipede huddled in the corner where I store the bag of Shaws cotton balls that I brought to Malaysia. Deciding to deal with the scaley, deadly creature later, we headed out, and on the way to the dispensary, I stopped at Majintin's hut (he's the one who "takes care" of things like poisonous centipedes and recharging my car batteries every few days) and informed him in a mix of Malay, Rungus, and English, that "we maminow sid dispensary because we makan poison, and here's the key to my house because ada centipede sid onkob." he looked a bit confused, and ran off to borrow the neighbor's motocycle, and then just after Kate and I had hiked up our skirts, and crossed the river (that was rushing and full with water for the first time since I've been here), he pulls up and tells us he can only take one of us at a time- lucky us. That mototcycle ride was the second good thing about eating that poison... speeding down a dirt road in the pouring rain on a motorcycle with Majintin, mud splattering my legs behind, eyes squinting because of the rain and clothes saturated, zooming along to the dispensary- I felt like the heroin of your typical Bollywood film. Kate and I agreed later, and we gargled water to relieve the burn- that the ride made it worth it. We humored all those Rungus more than scaring them- we had only undercooked that wild yam, and they gave us some placebos (I think) and sent us on our way. So then Majintin "took care" of the 10 inch centipede, by hacking it in half with his machete and we recovered, and everyone came by to see how we were.
Later Majintin brought us over a twig with some perfect and delicate honey comb filled with drippy tangy delicious honey to make our throats feel better. Wondering if he climbed a big tree to get it, wondering if he courted his wife like that, wondering how these people got to be this way they are, and wondering if we are the luckiest people in the world to be here in this unreal, unreal situation. love you all, Betony
These cybercafes give me nausea... although come to think of it, the source of that feeling might be the jungle yam that Kate and I poisoned ourselves with yesterday. There were two good things about the experience of poisoning yourself with something you harvested from the forest the day before: the first was that as soon as Kate described the pain as the type you'd experience from eating a bunch of fiberglass, I immediately recalled the plant family it belonged to- Araceae, which is the same family to which dumbcane, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and skunk cabbage belong. These plants all contain a needle-like crystal of insoluble calcium oxalate which penetrates the skin and mouth and feels very much like fiberglass. Recalling that, I calmly and certainly decided we should walk ourselves three miles to the dispensary, despite the pouring rain. I just wanted to be en route when our throats swelled up and in case we stopped breathing. Then as we gathered our raincoats, I noticed a 10 inch poisonous centipede huddled in the corner where I store the bag of Shaws cotton balls that I brought to Malaysia. Deciding to deal with the scaley, deadly creature later, we headed out, and on the way to the dispensary, I stopped at Majintin's hut (he's the one who "takes care" of things like poisonous centipedes and recharging my car batteries every few days) and informed him in a mix of Malay, Rungus, and English, that "we maminow sid dispensary because we makan poison, and here's the key to my house because ada centipede sid onkob." he looked a bit confused, and ran off to borrow the neighbor's motocycle, and then just after Kate and I had hiked up our skirts, and crossed the river (that was rushing and full with water for the first time since I've been here), he pulls up and tells us he can only take one of us at a time- lucky us. That mototcycle ride was the second good thing about eating that poison... speeding down a dirt road in the pouring rain on a motorcycle with Majintin, mud splattering my legs behind, eyes squinting because of the rain and clothes saturated, zooming along to the dispensary- I felt like the heroin of your typical Bollywood film. Kate and I agreed later, and we gargled water to relieve the burn- that the ride made it worth it. We humored all those Rungus more than scaring them- we had only undercooked that wild yam, and they gave us some placebos (I think) and sent us on our way. So then Majintin "took care" of the 10 inch centipede, by hacking it in half with his machete and we recovered, and everyone came by to see how we were.
Later Majintin brought us over a twig with some perfect and delicate honey comb filled with drippy tangy delicious honey to make our throats feel better. Wondering if he climbed a big tree to get it, wondering if he courted his wife like that, wondering how these people got to be this way they are, and wondering if we are the luckiest people in the world to be here in this unreal, unreal situation. love you all, Betony
posted by Betony at 10:19 AM
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