Lost on Earth

Day five of the rice diet. I decided to cut from 7 to 5 days because I noticed that when walking down the street in the heat I would become lightheaded and wobbly. I think that the refugees are better able to cope with eating almost no protein because their bodies have learned better how to store proteins and fats, where as mine just rebels and lashes out against all of these sly starches that are securing themselves to my thighs, my waist, and my upper arms.

I also though it would be good to cut it short on behalf of Blaise, who in the last five days has gone from a happy, smiling, perpetually singing Frenchman to a wrecked empty husk of a man, who pokes forlornly at his rice and lets out long sighs at every meal.

In any case, I had to cut it short because on Friday Kham Chuen and three other OPC staff members (Usa the Thai language teacher, Dao, the other teacher, and Seng Murng our new intern) asked to take us out to lunch to celebrate the first victory in one of the projects we are working on with the IRC. We were first given a light vegetable broth with tofu, mushrooms, cabbage, and bean noodles, and then a heavier, tangy seafood broth with a different kind of mushroom, oysters, squid, and fish-balls. After that they placed two plates of sizzling pork with basil leaves in front of us, heavily seasoned with fish sauce, soyu, and chili peppers. While everyone else talked around the table Blaise and I quietly focused on tasting things again for the first time. We hardly said a word. After everyone had left the two of us let out a cheer outside the restaurant, spent some minutes jumping up and down and talking about how absurdly excited we were, and immediately went to a different restaurant to eat something else!