Pubic Hair and the Runs

There are a lot of papaya trees at the school. It is the beginning of papaya season and two huge papayas are ripe on the tree outside of the kitchen. Both are over a foot and a half long. The students get one for me and we share the tree ripened fruit. I’ve never had such fresh papaya before. It is delicious and I eat more than my fair share despite the previous warnings of So and Ramsey that the fruit is a laxative. They restrain themselves to one slice. I have four large slices since I have eaten a lot of papaya before and it doesn’t seem to have this laxative effect on me.

This is a picture of Wen really high up on a tamarind tree. The Lao people like how sour the fruit is and eat it dipped into….of course….chilli sauce.

When naming children in the West, most cultures look for names that will have a positive meaning or at least will help their child avoid teasing by their peers. No such protective ideas have evolved in Laos. Besides giving their children unfathomable English names like Rambo, George Bush, ABC, and OB (as in obstetrics), they also give their children Lao names which have the literal meaning of Fatty, Bad Luck, Vagina, Balls, Small Balls, Sweaty Balls, Pubic Hair etc… These aren’t even nicknames, they are given names. So says that it shows affection and familiarity. It’s difficult for me to imagine naming my child Vagina or Pubic Hair.

I am about to go to sleep but my tummy feels funny. I wonder if all my confidence of not getting into intestinal trouble has jinxed me. Gurgle gurgle blub blub goes my liquidy guts and I make a run to the compost toilet just in time. Then I remember my greedy ingestion of the papaya. Ramsey says that the papaya I ate today was probably the ripest and freshest I’d ever eaten and I had way too much….eh…lesson learned…well, at least papaya runs are better than parasite runs.