Clockwork

It's May. Do you know what that means? Yes, it means that I have fewer than four weeks left in Ben Tre. But that's not what I'm talking about. It's the rainy season again. And just like that, with the turn of a calendar page, it has been raining every day. Now I have to re-remember that I should spend the afternoon inside or plastic clad unless I want to get stuck somewhere waiting for the rains to pass.

Perhaps Trang had been missing me, because on Wednesday night, when I got back to Ben Tre, she immediately asked me out to dinner. Actually, she had invited me to brunch first, but I was still in HCMC at the time. I was ready to suggest that we have pho, but she had an ace up her sleeve. After months of being promised it and with time running out, Trang decided to take me to have some black chicken. Not blackened chicken. Black-skinned chicken. Also known as gà ác, also known as silkies. They look like this when they're alive, and they look like this under all of those silky feathers. In a soup, they look like this:

It turns out the broth was black, too

That one was just to ease you in. Ready for the big reveal?

This might have been one of the most mind-over-matter meals I've had in Vietnam, even more so than the embryonic duck eggs, though the first time I had those I had the advantage that it was practically pitch dark. However, once I put it in my mouth, what do you know, it just tasted like chicken. The whole chicken was folded up into the bowl; the chickens are pretty small. It fell apart very easily, and under the skin it also looked just like chicken. I ate the whole thing, from head to talons, and picked clean quite the bone pile. It felt like I was making my very own owl pellet. Had I been enjoying the meal in the privacy of my own home, I might have felt little compunction to resist the urge to reconstruct the skeleton after the meal. But, instead, it was time for dessert.

Just to prove to me that I have only scratched the surface of local cuisine, Trang took me to try yet another new dish for dessert. It was another chè bưởi, which you may identify as a member of the set of those desserts I generally don't like but used to be called upon to eat. Luckily, this one fell into the 'not so bad' category. It consisted of coconut milk, a dash of durian, a sprinkling of peanuts (which I transferred to Trang's cup in accordance with both of our preferences), and the spongy white part of a pomelo (bưởi) peel. The durian was minimal enough to not be offensive, and the rest of it was fine. Unremarkable, but something new, and I think the latter was the point. Trang informed me that apparently the process of preparing the inner peel for this dish is long, difficult, and usually kept a secret by those who know it. On the way home she added two more 'cakes' to the list of things that are not cakes: bánh xà phòng (a bar of soap) and bánh răng (a gear, literally a toothed cake). I also had an exciting moment when I was talking to Trang about the phrase 'greased lightning', and when she didn't understand I was able to tap into my Vietnamese vocabulary to make it clear.

chè bưởi

My Thursdays are now free because this class ended at the end of May. That means I am now only teaching on Monday and Friday mornings, and doing English clubs on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. I would have had a long, boring day, but my friends came to the rescue. Trang and I went out for breakfast, to have the bun bo hue we were both craving. In the afternoon I got a text from a student, saying that she wanted to meet me later because she had a gift for me. What could it be? We met at 330 and she presented me with a plastic bag with something green inside. It was a pineapple that she had brought me from her home garden. It was huge. 

I added my shoe for scale

After receiving my sizable gift, I was invited out for drinks. It was an interesting mix of four senior girls, one of their brothers, and two freshman guys. As we were leaving campus, gray clouds started billowing in, and with them came a wind that swept the road clean and swept that road dust into our eyes. We made it to the cafe just as it started to pour. Luckily, we weren't in a hurry, and we had plenty of conversation to keep us entertained until the rain abated.

I taught one class this morning and was gearing up for the second when I found out that the students had requested that there be no class and the professor had acquiesced. I had plans to go out with Thuy, Trang's sister, for lunch. We met around eleven and she took me across the bridge to here favorite restaurant in My Tho. Last time we met, we went there for their famous fried chicken. I intended to order the same thing, but Thuy convinced me to try a new dish: chicken in tamarind sauce. It was amazing! I could have eaten the sauce by the spoonful. I briefly tried to eat the glazed chicken with chopsticks, but I quickly abandoned decorum and dug in. I drizzled the remaining sauce and caramelized onions all over my rice.

I saw two motorbikes with crates of doggies. I suspect they were
on their way to someone's dinner plate.

This adorable pup was safe, though.