Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING
plastic tablecloth had transformed into an al fresco mirage....The
group stepped off the bus, shed their jackets, and stretched. The air
was warm. Moff and Rupert headed for the nearest clump of trees.
The others sat at the tables. Bennie took out a sketch pad, Wendy
had her soft leather journal with its nearly pristine lined pages, and
Roxanne looked through the viewfinder of her omnipresent digital
camcorder. What luck that they had come upon this rustic eatery
(which even the locals eschewed with authentic disdain). What luck
for the cook (promoted to “chef” by Wendy) and his waitress wife.
They had not seen a hapless customer in three days.
“What shall we order?” Bennie asked the group.
“No dog!” cried Esmé.
“How about snake?” joked Rupert.
“You don’t suppose they eat cats?” Heidi added, and shuddered at
the thought.
Miss Rong conveyed this message in Mandarin to the chef: “They
don’t wish to eat dog, but want to know if you serve the famous Yun­
nan dish Dragon Meets Lion.” The cook sadly informed her they
had had no deliveries of fresh snake or cat recently. But, his wife
interjected, they would gladly serve their finest. That turned out to
be a bit of something that resembled pork, and might have been
chicken, rice twice reheated, and all of it invisibly sprinkled with
cockroach legs coated with little microbes that feed off human intes­
tinal lining. This plat du jour was washed down with plentiful bot­
tles of warm beer and cola.
Harry Bailley drank three local ales and ate nothing. Dear friend
that he is, I know he is quite the fussy eater, who prefers Languedoc
with this peasant dish, Sancerre with that, and it should be this vin­
tage, served at that temperature. Beer was already a concession for
him, let alone a lukewarm bottle that was not Guinness stout. Hav­
ing drunk three, he was in urgent need of a loo. He was slightly ine­
briated, and because the restroom was unlit, he nearly fell into the
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