Medicine is a very helpful thing. In the medieval days it was passed down mother or father to child and master to apprentice, now there are whole schools dedicated to the cause of teaching this skill. The other day I went and got a stitch for an ugly cut I gave myself while carving something for my Grandpa. As we were driving to the health center my mom remarked to me, “Son, you seem to be bent on testing the healthcare in all the places we go.” I laughed tightly at this, trying to hold in a scream, and thought to myself, “Not everywhere.”

In America I have gone to the hospital for many things. Drinking a coffee cup full of medicine, which nearly stopped my heart, falling off ripsticks, twice, once on the arm and another time one the head. I think I lost a few brain cells. I did get a concussion. In Asia I went insane. We called it the Chicken Apocalypse because our only theory is that I didn’t clean my hands well enough after cleaning a chicken of its guts.

That afternoon I had spent time cleaning a chicken of its bowels. A few years before, I had spent time on a chicken farm with some friends. We, being Jonathan and I, gutted quite a few chickens. I don’t think we did as many as fast as we had hoped and my grandpa told me later that it brought to mind a saying, “One boy does work fast because he wants to get back to something he finds fun. With two boys it takes twice as much time to do one thing. With three boys you get nothing done.” Thankfully the other boy who was near my age was a little queasy about doing it, so we did end up getting something done.

Back to the story, I took the time to gut a chicken. That night we enjoyed some very tasty roasted chicken. That night we also watched a usually pleasant young man turn into a crazy killing machine. Almost. I was found twice wandering aimlessly around the house without focusing on the things in front of me. I threw up three times and bashed my head on the wall four. I remember this slightly. Everything is blurry of that time but I remember sitting on the bathroom floor and thinking, “Why is mom in my face and moving her mouth like a fish out of water?” In truth, she was yelling at me. I would go up to a wall and bash my head on it because if felt strange. I didn’t feel any pain when I pinched myself or smashed my head, just a tingling sensation.

Mom and Dad decided it was time to take me to the hospital. Dad had checked the beer supply and wine and all the other alcohol in the house and had found none out of place; so they knew it wasn’t that. As they were dragging me out of the house to the car, which was not ours, our neighbor had decided she would drive us to the hospital because there was no way I could ride a moped to the other side of the island, sound rushed back into my head. Dad was talking with Mom urgently and whenever I would make a noise they would say stuff like, “Shh Baby, it will be ok, were going to the hospital.” I knew right away that I didn’t want anything to do with needles, or doctors prodding me, or asking questions and so, in my delirious state, I attacked them. For a moment it I felt like I was winning, and then all strength left me and I sat down on the bed and started to weep. Did I mention that I had been having nightmares as well that night? I found that out later though.

The hour or so drive felt like seconds. Lights were all around me suddenly and I was walking. A man talked to me and I looked at him for a second and said, “What?” He smiled and said again, “Blureditdifdbg.” “What?” was my response again. His face changed from pleasant to concerned and said the same thing again. This time I was not even able to hear what he said because I was still puzzling over which muscles had to move to make the eyebrows come together like his did. Then a girl came into sight and she and the guy took my hands and arms and lead me down a corridor.

Everywhere I looked there were people lying on beds of white. Strange things would pop out at me, the way the man was breathing, the way the foot of the little girl sitting on the edge of the bed looked. Then I was one of the people on a bed and they had pulled the curtain all around me. A moment later and Dad came in. I saw him through a haze and blinked. Still, he was in a haze. It wasn’t fair, I could not see long distances anyway and now my short distance eyesight was not working. I felt tears run down my face and then a sharp prick. Looking at my arm I saw someone pushing a needle into my arm. All my reflexes said, “Pull away!” But my brain said, “If you do they will do it again and you might break the needle inside your arm and then they will have to cut on you to get it out” Dad reached out what I found out the next day to be his hand, but it looked like a snake and I jerked away from it.  .” I was delirious.

The next few hours passed so fast I don’t remember them really. The next thing I knew clearly was I was lying on my back looking up into a face. It rolled in and out of focus for a moment before turning into Dad. It was night and he had checked on me and woken me. We went back to sleep and around ten hours later we were taking a drive home that took two hours, not five minutes.

Bangkok Hospital, on Phuket, was probably the best hospital we had ever been to in the history of our lives. It was clean, the people there were nice and helpful, if not fast, and all in all it is a good hospital to go to. We never found out what happened to me, but we have decided it was the chicken.

About the concussion, I remember nothing. One minute we were watching a movie, the next I was looking at the roof of a camper. Dad says I got stuck in a loop. It went like this, I would say, “Dad, where are we going?” And he would say, “To the hospital” and I would say, “But why?” And he would say, “Because you may be really hurt.” A minute would pass and I would say, “Dad, where are we going?” I can’t tell you anything about the time there because I do not remember myself.

The latest hospital run is probably the stupidest. One day I was out working on a spoon for my grandpa. I stupidly held it in the wrong position and it sheathed itself in my hand. It bled, I nearly fainted, and we got a stitch in it. Not much of a story. It is a little strange, I can see other people’s blood and not think any different about it, but if I see any of my own in any great quantity then I feel like fainting.

So, if ever you are in Phuket Thailand I would suggest taking a trip to the emergency room just for the fun of being in one of the best hospitals in the world!

It was a beautiful day. The sun beat down on our backs and a slight wind whipped around our faces. A dead snake lay on the side of the road where it had gotten hit by a car. Dogs barked and ran around us as we walked by their property and we walked slightly faster then before.

“It’s so dead when it’s not market day.” Elisha comments on the market square.

Ten minutes later we left the streets and entered a restaurant called Mamamia. A Thai lady approached us and asked if we wished to sit outside or in. We chose to sit outside. We exited the musty indoors of the restaurant and breathed in the warm, tropical air of the ocean and looked out over the deep blue ocean. The waves were a quite big this time. Almost big enough to body surf on. We only had a second to register before we were pushed into plastic chairs. A waitress came around and placed menus in our hands.

Usually the waiters only give you two minutes and then come to ask what you want. So I scanned the menu as fast as possible and finally chose one that looked good. It was Pad Thai Chicken. I would order it again if we went but it was not my favorite thing in the world.

After lunch mom left us and went to get her massage and us kids and dad started down the beach. We were at the place where we learned how to kite surf when we heard whooping and yelling. Suddenly Elisha takes off and I look where he is going and see some friends of ours on the beach. Their kids, ages five and six, are running towards us.

In moments my brothers had put their stuff on a chair and were building sand castles on the beach. Hannah and I waded into the clear, wavy water to join the adults. The water was cool as it swirled around my feet. Waves crashed against us and I almost fell over.

Once we had gotten out to the adults we started to talk about this and that and for a while we just floated there. Without notice a ball comes flying into our midst and sprays us all with water. Elisha, who was a little ways away, burst into laughter that only he can bring. A clear, ringing laugh that brings joy to every person that hears it. We tossed the ball back and forth (making sure to splash Elisha with it) until it started raining. Then we threw it onto the shore so that the little boys could play with it.

The rain only lasted ten minutes or so and then it was all sunny again. My mom had come back from the massage place and had walked down the crowded beach. A few minutes later my father followed. The rest of my family and friends had waded out of the beautiful water and were basking in the sun while the dogs barked and the car horns blared in the distance.

I got up and went up the beach to sit on a beach chair. I lost since of time for a while as I thought about this and that. But then Ezra asked me to go home with him. I said no but Hannah said she would. She had school. I could see my dad and mom making there way towards us. Hannah packed up and left with Ezra. I could see that everyone else were getting ready to go so I just got my stuff ready and waited for mom and dad. When they got to me dad told me he was going home to but mom was going to stay. So I left with dad.

With the ocean air blowing in my hair and with the sun beating down on me and with my head finally clear and light I walked hand in hand with dad down the road and back to my house that I share with the best family a boy my age could hope for. 

Actually they aren’t that bad. Once you get past the legs. They tickle your tongue and are a little crunchy.

I did not care for them that much but there must be someone who does, because in Oaxaca, Mexico, they have three foot high buckets full of them, with women in the back of the stalls frying more.

For those of you who have tried grasshoppers, you know you won’t eat another in your life. For those of you who have not, just go out into your back yard, catch some, squish the guts out, fry them, add chile and lime, and eat up! Who knows? You might like them! I only got one down with a straight face. I was going to bring them back to the states with me to show my friends that I had really eaten them, but they got picked up at the border. They still don’t believe me.

TERMITES

Termites are good. They taste like mint and they have the crunch of a carrot. Hannah and I eat them a lot, if we find them.

The first place we had them is in Belize where I got bit by an ant that was huge. But that’s another story for another time.

Termites live in wood, mostly. They infest trees and they build huge nests out of mud with mud tubes that spiral down the trunk all the way to the ground and help to protect them. They also build mud cities on the ground. All we had to do, though, was to poke a hole in the mud tube and wait until a termite came out. Then we could pick it up, and toss it back. We had to make sure that we had killed completely because if we didn’t it could bite you on the way down.

When my family and I were in Tobacco Caye, Belize, I was playing volley ball with some men and women that lived there. Hannah was sitting up in a tree eating termites by the dozen when a little girl asked her what she was doing. Hannah told her and the girl climbed up to join her where she was lounging and Hannah showed her how to eat them. Then while Hannah was showing off she did not kill one completely and it bit her tongue and her throat on the way down.

I laughed as she told me later that day. She was not happy; I had not shown enough pity.  She said that she maintained what little “dignity” she had at that point and excused herself to leave the little girl to eat the termites and went to the hotel and made sure she was not to hurt.

CARP

One day while at my grandparents house in Canada my brothers set out on an expedition to catch a carp.

“The size of China!” as Ezra put it.

Nether my dad, my grandpa, or myself put and any real faith in them actually getting one.

My grandpa took his blood bait out of the freezer and put some in a ziplock bag and gave it to Ezra. Elisha asked if it tasted good. They filled a bag of snacks and got fishing poles, cane poles, oars, life jackets and took off.

My grandpa made a rowboat for us and I have taken day trips to go fishing or just to row all around the huge bay. One time I rowed straight across to deliver a dog towel a person had left behind. It was a long row and I got a cup of tea out of it. Not that I had wanted to get something out of it, I just wanted to say I had done it. I was pretty proud of myself because that was the longest full row I had ever completed. It was a couple of miles without a break.

Anyway, they took off and I went to the basement to do school, yes, even I do school, no matter how much I protest.

After about two hours I came up again and went to find grandpa.

“Are they back yet?” I asked.

“No, I highly doubt that they will get anything anyway. Once their snacks run out they will be back here in an instant,” my grandpa said.

At that moment the door flew open wildly and Ezra came storming in, tracking mud.

“Grandpa! Gabe! We got one! We did not get it with the poles but sneaked up on it while it was on the top of the water sleeping and netted it!” he yelled and then kicked off his shoes and ran up the stairs to tell Dad.

For a moment Grandpa and I just stood there.

“Grandmas going to kill him if she finds that mud on the ground when she gets back,” I observed.

“I’ll make him clean the mud up later.”

Then we looked at each other and went outside to see Elisha standing there with net in hand and a big carp in the bottom of it.

“Nice going boys!” grandpa had said, “Now go put it on a stringer and Gabe and I will clean it later, after I am done with work. Gabe? Can you help them?”

“Ok,” I said

We trekked down to the water and I put it on a stringer. It was heavy. When we put I back in it swam down to the length of its line

That evening Ezra and I went to the water and brought it back up the the fish to the shed where there was a trailer that we use to gut the fish on. Grandpa got his knives and we cleaned it.

When Grandma, Mom, and Hannah got back we had them cook it up and we all tried some. I almost spat it back out. By the second bite I was ready to get the boys to eat it all, so I did not have to, and to make them know not to ever get one again. Grandpa was with me on that one.

Instead we ate the bass Hannah and I had caught that week.

We liked the bass.

When we go there we like to get the bass but sometimes we get a garr or a pike. Those aren’t that bad. I don’t like the garr as much as the pike or bass though.

So the moral is: don’t eat grasshoppers, eat termites, don’t eat carp!

“We get to go to a waterfall?” Ezra asks for the tenth time that day. “Yes Ezra. Mrs. Gabell and her family are taking us. Now don’t ask again please. Dad is trying to drive.”

Mrs. Gabell has one child who is four years old. He is really cute. The first time we met at his school he was really shy. But when we got to his house he got his legos out and let Elisha and Ezra play with them and then rode his scooter around and squirted ants with a water gun.

First we got the food for the picnic that we were going to have at the falls. 

What are fish kabobs? Fish on a stick. Grilled to perfection and then filled with a leaf that I don’t recognize but that tastes like lemon. We call it lemon leaf.

We arrived in Bangkok after two long flights and backpacked to the train station. We took a train to near our hotel then we backpacked another mile or so to the hotel because we got a little lost. There was a pool and we refreshed ourselves with a swim but what I really wanted to do was eat!

I love to eat dinner at a street vendor. I’ve eaten lots of interesting things as we’ve traveled like, tacos in Mexico, fruit in Guatemala, Berber bread in Tunisia and chicken right off the grill.

In Bangkok I ate a pork kabob. It was yummy. Then I ate some fried pineapple. The fried pineapple smelled good we drank water with our lunch. Because we had bad jet lag we went back to the hotel to rest.

For dinner we went to another street vendor we ate noodles with pork and soy sauce. Gabe ate a fish kabob, he thought it was yummy but I did not like it. When we returned to the hotel I ate some Roman noodles, since I didn’t like the fish too much, they were good. The next day for lunch we ate at a another street vendor. I ate a pineapple kabob with noodles and a sausage kabob and a pork kabob they all were good these were the best yet.