Be careful who your friends are
We arrived at the countryside late Friday afternoon and were set free to explore until dinnertime. Kami and I headed out, excited to have dirt instead of concrete below our feet. On the way we encountered Seth and Mark at the entrance sign. Kami foolishly suggested that Seth climb to the top of the sign.
Never one to turn down a challenge, Seth began to examine the sign for some sort of grip to climb up. It took him awhile, but he was eventually successful.
Leaving the boys to be boys, Kami and I began to wind our way through fields and eventually up a dirt road that seemed to head up the “mountain.” We stumbled upon three houses, one set after the other. The first appeared to be in the possession of a herd of chickens.
At the next, we met a sweet lady quite happy to tolerate my poor Chinese and engage in conversation. She invited us to come to the third house.
The house that eventually earned the nickname “Donkey Condo.”
While Kami and I made friends with the herd of about fifteen donkeys, the woman called to her husband, “Come out! We have visitors!”
He strolled out with a friendly grin and told us a bit about the donkeys, who were all apparently about 9 months old.
Soon after, Kami and I bid the sweet couple farewell, as dinnertime was fast approaching.
We sat down at the dinner table and told the rest of the team about our donkey discovery. Food began to be piled on the table, and we began our feast.
And about five minutes into the meal, our host (one of the vice presidents of the school) proudly announced that the plate of meat before him was donkey meat.
Moral of the story: Be careful who you make friends with. A moral obviously not learned by one of the Russian teachers, who we discovered the next day on our hike is quite the donkey whisperer.
Did you try it? I know it’d be a little weird to see the donkeys and then eat them. However, I had donkey in the south of China and it was one of the tastiest meats I had all the years I was there.