-^-for posterity-^-

last night some bluffton students julie and i went out to eat supper. we took them to one of our favorite restaurants: viet phong. it's a restaurant that juts out into one of the mekong's tributaries. you sit on top of the muddy water and listen to boats putter by.

we ordered food and sat around and talked and laughed and made fun of each other. we spent a wile listening to julie's accent. at one point she said, "you cheeky bugger", and the american's thought she said, "you chicken bugger", and everyone laughed. she also said some things in her new castle slang. the american's said it sounded like she was speaking vietnamese. it's amazing how homogeneous american's accents are as compared to the rest of the world.

we ordered rat because everyone who comes to vietnam needs to eat rat.

these rats are not city rats. they don't scurry around in the gutters and in the sewers and eat dead things and carry diseases. these rats are country rats raised on fresh air, young rice and warm, summer nights. these rats are healthy. now, mind you, we do have rats in the city. you see them daily running from trash pile to trash pile.

the rat came on two small plates grilled and resting on a bed of unripe mango slices. some of the bluffton students were excited to try it. some were hesitant. some were apathetic. comments ranged from, "oh, that's really good!", to, "it's all bony and disgusting", to, "it's just really greasy." well, at least they can all say they tried it.