Snake and Pygmy pie

One of the students in the Men’s Academy is a young man named Bush, who more makes up for his less-than-perfect English with his energy, enthusiasm and resourcefulness. On Tuesday, Bush had asked me if I’d meet with him, but wasn’t really clear what the meeting was about. I agreed, and then throughout the day, I found that he’d also invited others to the meeting.   Lunch was scheduled for noon, and we were to meet outside the foreign faculty apartment building, which is where I’m staying. when I got there, I found there were about 6 or 7 of us, and it still wasn’t very clear why we were meeting, or were we were going to have lunch.

By 12:15, we still hadn’t moved from our meeting spot, and so one of the faculty members tried to expedite things, asking Bush where we were going to eat, as he would have to get back to teach class. Through a translator, Bush explained that it wasn’t all that far, and would only take 10 minutes or so by taxi. Given that we were mere feet away from a lot of great lunch spots, none of us could understand why we going to go off campus, and so again through the translator, we asked Bush why that was. His answer was that we were going to a restaurant that served snake, because that is what I’d said I’d wanted to eat.  Now, while I am pretty adventurous when it comes to my eating habits, I was also pretty sure that I hadn’t expressed any interest in local reptilian delicacies.

Suddenly, I realized where the confusion must have crept in.  When Bush had asked me in his broken English about meeting with me, and saying that we could get something to eat, I think that I must have replied “sure.. we could get a snack or something”.

Snack.. Snake.. it’s an easy mistake, and makes for a fun memory of my time here!