Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Don't try this at home

When I called my friend Phoebe, asking if she's eaten yet, she answered quickly. "Bado." (Not yet.)

"Could you, Ruth and Betty come to my place for dinner?"

"We can come!"

Hardly two minutes later, the three ladies were at the door while I was still throwing some things in the pot. I decided to make pasta and meat sauce. I put some melon and ham on the table for them to snack on while I finished cooking. And avocados. An interesting combination of foods, but I feel strongly about not caring about what exactly I feed impromptu dinner guests. As long as it's tasty, right? And by the sounds coming from the dinner table, the guests enjoyed the interesting appetizers.

As we enjoyed the pasta and sauce, we visited about all things interesting. Like the snake that was killed in our compound yesterday.

And then Betty told us about the time when she was really little, when a snake spat her in her eyes, but how she and her sister were too afraid to go home and find help because they were our stealing fruit from a neighbor... So as they were hiding, her eyes swelled shut. And her face swelled up. Then her neck started... They finally went home, Betty not being able to see a thing. Her eyes were throbbing with pain.

In order to help, people started making incisions all over her face (the inch-long scars can still be seen) until her grandma showed up.

"What do you think you're doing? It's a snake bite. Where's a nursing mother?"

And so Betty's life was saved by the mother squirting breast milk into her eyes.

For real.

I hope I never have to try that.

But then again, rather that than lose my sight, or my life!

1 comment:

  1. haha. adele. that one line of "for real." literally made me laugh out loud. haha

    ReplyDelete