Food for Thought...

January 11, 2010
Sometimes you just have to step back and laugh. Really laugh. Not just a short little chuckle when someone trips on the sidewalk (I know, I’m heartless, but 90% of the time I’m the one who tripped, so it’s ok!), but a gut wrenching laugh that makes you half cry! So, with less kids home for the break (we’ve currently got Laxman, Isha, Asha, and Manisha here), there’s more time to step back and just laugh and relax with the kids!

Story 1. *This story contains bodily functions humor, and if that offends you, I’m sorry from the start and you might not want to read this one!

Once upon a time, there were four little children (ok, not so little) and one big sister home alone for the night. Their Auntie and Uncle had gone out for the evening, meaning they were on their own for dinner and the rest of the evening. Well, life started out quite fun with Sister making stir fry for them to eat for dinner. Everything was great, and Isha was ever so helpful and made the rice. Suddenly, with a loud hiss, water erupted from the pressure cooker lid, causing the flames of the gas burner to flare and then die with style! Shrieking ensued, with the children and Sister frantically trying to figure out what went wrong. Finally, they decided the lid was not on correctly. Amazingly, the rice cooked fine.

As they served dinner, in true Nepali fashion, the power went out, as it does daily. Usually the power is out for 7-8 hours during the day, broken into 2-3 hour chunks. However, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern as to when or for how long it will go, so it’s always one of those nice little surprises that life gives you each day! Sorry, back to the children. Well, they proceeded to light candles and ate a tasty stir fry dinner by candle light in about 4 minutes flat (they eat really fast. it’s a curse of living with 15 kids and fighting for the seconds that may be left!). Then, they tidied the kitchen, cleaning away all the crumbs and leftovers for the chickens so that the mice wouldn’t be able to find any munchies during their midnight stroll through the kitchen (they often leave “evidence” that they’ve visited on the counters; the day I actually see one, I’m not sure what I’ll actually do. Probably scream and scrunch my toes like I do when I’m scared out of my wits!)!

Because of the vast darkness encompassing the home, the 4 little children and Sister decided to camp out in the sitting room until the power came back on or Uncle and Auntie returned, whichever came first. So, they gathered the candles and made their way into the sitting room, shutting the door on the rest of the darkened home. Sister has an AMAZING mom who sends her all sorts of fun things to share with the children, including a gingerbread house kit, complete with several types of frosting and sprinkles. Making a house to just look at it seemed like a waste in a society where food is more treasured (especially if it isn’t rice!), so, Sister adapted and gave each child a piece of the house to decorate and eat (she tried the gingerbread first to make sure it was edible, and it was, and tasted delicious!).

In awed confusion, the children watched Sister spread a layer of frosting and then create designs with sprinkles. As they sampled the frosting and sprinkles and realized they were merely solid forms of sugar, smiles spread across their faces and they dove in with gusto! And their creations were beautiful and I’m sure Auntie and Uncle would have been appalled at the amount of sugar consumed. About halfway through, though, the loudest “bbrrrruuuummmmmmppppphhhh” vibrated the entire room. Sprinkles flew as the children dove away from the child suffering the after-effects of eating too much rice (this is a common occurrence; usually, though, they hide it better)! The room resounded with laughter turned to tears as they all laughed until their sides hurt, burying their noses inside their shirts and hoping that the candles would burn off the excess methane quickly! And the moral of the story is: don’t eat too much rice at once; others will surely know if you do!

Story 2:
Have you ever had Twizzlers? You know, they’re long licorice strips, which now come in a rainbow of flavors and have a hole down the middle making them the perfect candy straw! Well, I gave some to the girls to eat one afternoon, and they weren’t too impressed with them until they realized they could use them as a “pipe” (that’s Nepali for straw). Then, they ran to get glasses of water to drink through their “pipes.”

If you’ve ever done this, you know the Twizzlers begin to absorb whatever liquid they’re submerged in and turn to a soggy mush after awhile. Well, the girls didn’t like the taste of them too much before they used them as straws, and they really didn’t like them afterwards, so we decided to feed them to Dolly, our dog (don’t worry, the only food Dolly ever eats is human food, so it was all good!). Well, Dolly loved them, and chewed and chewed on them, gnawing here and there on them, savoring each one! Which was rather humorous in itself!

But, she lost one without us knowing it, and it was left out on the ground all the cold night long, hardening as the air sucked the water right out of it! As any good boy would do, Laxman went out the next morning and swept all the grounds, and found this strange looking blue tube on the ground. As he thought about it, it dawned on him what this must be, and he came running in the kitchen looking for scissors. Fortunately, at that very moment, I was in the kitchen helping Asha make pancakes, and I asked Laxman what he was doing. “Sister, it’s those things we put in the walls so we can screw stuff into them! And it’s so long so I’m cutting it to make lots of them so I can use them!” The girls, realizing what Laxman was holding, burst into laughter as I tried to control myself long enough to explain that that indeed was NOT for using in walls or any other construction, but was candy that Dolly rejected.

In confusion, he looked at it, and then back at me to make sure I was telling him the truth. When he realized I was indeed serious, he began to laugh at the fact that he was about to drive Twizzlers into the wall as homes for whatever screws he could scrounge up! Moral of the story: make sure your dog eats all its Twizzlers or they may end up holding screws in your walls!