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Published: June 26th 2009
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Crickets
What's that massive pile of brown stuff? Why, fried crickets, of course. I am back in Phnom Penh!
My research is all done. Sixteen interviews in total. Look at me, doing more than the bare minimum! I’ve had most of the write up done for a while, but was waiting to return to the relative civilisation of Phnom Penh, joyous land of internet access, to look some stuff up online and fill in the gaps. Now I have no excuse not to get it done so I’m aiming to finish tomorrow. I will need to move to a better guest house though. The two dollar room I am in has only one plug socket, meaning I must make the difficult choice between computer or fan; the two can not operate simultaneously. I fear I am starting to damage the laptop with my own sweat.
So I have much to tell you, but I am not faffing about with this journal until my write-up is finished. For now I will allow myself just this one little story about eating unspeakably huge spiders.
I hitched a lift back from Kampong Thom in the TPO car with Dr S, the exec director, and his friend whose name escapes me. Impressed at my prolific
consumption of fried crickets, they decided to introduce me to another local delicacy.
We stopped for lunch at a town famed for its tasty spiders. Brilliant. (Un)fortunately, when we arrived there didn’t seem to be any arachnids for sale. Misinterpreting my visible relief as disappointment, Dr S despatched a random street child to go obtain some. The kid reappeared 10 minutes later with the goods. Awesome.
I picked up the bag.
The spiders were moving.
I dropped the bag.
Dr S, slightly annoyed, explained to the child that he meant COOKED spiders. The live ones were put in the car. For later. We went to a food stall and sat down to eat. After a while, the fried spiders appeared. At arms length, I picked the bag up with a chopstick and shook it. Once bitten, twice shy.
Dr S was amused.
Are you arachnophobic, Jenny? I explain that I might be a little bit, just the tiniest bit arachnophobic. Not really phobic. Just arachnoadverse, maybe.
But eating one will help cure your fear of spiders. Desensitisation therapy. SODDING psychiatrists.
Dr S dropped one on my plate.
I
looked at it.
It looked at me.
Dr S, his friend and a fairly large crowd of random Cambodians were waiting for my response. There was a long pause. I wondered whether it would display a lack of cultural sensitivity to scream and run away. Probably. Taking a deep breath, I speared it with a fork and tentatively nibbled one leg. It was actually really tasty. Crispy, too. I bit the legs off one by one, leaving just the big hairy head and body. People were still watching expectantly. Without the legs it didn’t really look so bad, so I popped it in my mouth, thinking to myself, just pretend it’s a nice tasty cricket…
Just pretend it’s a tasty cricket.
You know you’ve been in Cambodia too long when you are trying to coax yourself into eating a spider the size of a kitten by pretending it’s something more palatable… like a massive fried cricket. Brilliant.
The live ones came back with us in the car, crawling around in their plastic bag on the seat next to me.
I made Dr S take this shot of his friend holding one of the live
spiders. I refused to touch it, or go near enough with the camera to take a photo. They were trying to get me to hold one and I nearly… very nearly did. It possibly would have gone some way towards curing me of my fear, but I didn’t want to cause an embarrassing scene in front of the NGO director and there was still the very real danger I would have started doing that thing where I swear uncontrollably, flail my limbs around and cry. Too risky.
I’m making progress though. Gone are the days when I refused to set foot in the shed.
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Lyndsey
non-member comment
Ha....
My words to you, my culturally-accepting, extremely arachnophobic friend, are these: 'I am impressed'. x