Chameleon Food

Oh my goodness. Who thought it could be SUCH an ordeal to bite into a cheese sandwich… well… not exactly a cheese sandwich, but it still would not seem possible to take about 45 minutes to eat a roll about the size of a White Castle Burger bun (are those all mini? I mean the kind that Tristen used to eat if not… the mini frozen variety). Yeah… that size. And yet… at least 45 minutes while writhing around on the bed like the snake we killed last week. The problem was… there was an added crunch to my cheese sandwich. I would love to say that after the initial challenge of biting in it got better. But that would be a lie. After about 20 minutes convincing myself (with Val’s encouragement and much to her enjoyment) that I should do it, I managed to chew (at least a little) and swallow. The initial swallow was exciting. The biggest hurdle had been cleared (or so I thought). But then I looked down for the next bite and saw something that is now plastered into my mind’s eye. The eyes of a grasshopper were staring up at me. Much to my chagrin I had not miraculously swallowed all the grasshopper pieces that were in the midst of my sandwich and the worst was yet to come. It turns out the first bite only had maybe an abdomen… it was slightly chewed with one or two minor crunches but then was easily swallowed within a bolus of also partially chewed bread and cheese (appetizing, right?). The next bite turned out to have multiple pieces… a good number of them… and they were plenty crunchy. The piece could not be swallowed nearly whole like the last, but I was going to have to bite down, not knowing when I would hit one of the crunchy little morsels. Every hit was like a blow to that snake’s head… a convulsion would overtake me as my teeth landed on the chitinous body of what should have been my chameleon’s dinner. Every one was also an ENORMOUS source of enjoyment for Val, who sat dyyying of laughter on the other end of the bed while I underwent the most traumatizing dinner experience I can think of. Once I caught my breath, I proceeded to look at the rest of the sandwich. This was the one with the eyes. Sure the others all had eyes and antennas as well, but this one was staring at me. I had decided not to lift up the top bread on the last bite… not wanting to know what all I was in for. Now about half of the sandwich was left, but I knew that things would not end well if I had another experience like the last. I saw the one gigantic grasshopper that might as well have jumped out at me and realized that in a minute that creature would be between my teeth. Then I made the biggest mistake of the night. I lifted the bread. As it rose, I saw something dark that contrasted strongly with the light Gouda cheese constructing the rest of my sandwich. It was… a thorax. Well, I think. The thought of consuming more than that one gigantic, people-watching, grasshopper was daunting and I immediately collapsed on the bed in despair. I decided to eat the rather large section of sandwich all at once, knowing that I could not undergo much more of this torture. At least it was my last piece. I had been trying to avoid anything but the bread touching my tongue during this whole process, with some success. But this guy was so long that there was no way. To get my teeth in a position where they could accomplish anything remotely useful in eliminating this creature from my mouth, there was no way to avoid him from sensory stimulation via the taste buds. Fried with onion, that was by far not the worst part but now I could feel his mouthparts (which I had been watching earlier when his cousin munched on some sugar cane in the chameleon’s cage) as they rubbed up against my tongue. I could picture the skull, which I now had to crush between two molars in order to swallow it. A final crunch resounded through my head before I hid the pieces within chunks of wet chewed bread for immediate passage down the esophagus. FINALLY it was over. I will never look at a cheese sandwich in the same way again.



Anyway… yesterday a couple vets arrived from the states and we left Kampala with them to go to a small village on the west side of Uganda, working with UCVM (Uganda Christian Veterinary Mission) through Uganda’s vet school. So now we’re there and we will be doing an outreach through Sunday, treating people’s animals and doing the whole Gospel thing at the same time – you think that’s a strange combination, but trust me… it works! These people rely entirely on their animals for food, milk, and a living most of the time, so we are able to show them God’s love through the profession. Yesterday we were even on the radio! So I’ll be here for the rest of the week and then back in Kampala for a symposium that goes with this whole thing. Val won’t be with me in Kampala later, so I think I can even get out of eating more grasshoppers!! (YAY :-D)