The strange incident of the chicken skin in the evening-time

I have a confession to make: I don't always finish my dinner.

Food is important here. While I won't get into all the particulars of Philippine food culture now, suffice it to say that a meal is not a meal without rice (breakfast included), to turn down an offer of food is a potentially grievous insult, and to let a guest go hungry on of the worst offences imaginable. It's serious business.

That said, I eat my meals alone, so I have a bit of flexibility. My host mom calls me to the kitchen with a series of increasingly loud "Mangaon ta!"s as I scramble to get downstairs, and they sit in the living room and watch TV as I eat.

A typical dinner is a whole fried flying fish, a small plate of sliced carrots (for my benefit alone, as they've noticed I like my veggies), some ramen, and a heaping plate of rice. Things get increasingly atypical from there, and though I'm not a picky eater by Western standards, there are certain animals parts and quantities of things I can't bring myself to eat unless I'm being watched. Chicharron with hair still attached, fish heads, and any kind of entrails are among them. This is where eating alone has distinct benefits, but it doesn't solve the problem entirely. I still don't want to offend my host mom by leaving things untouched. The solution isn't a glamorous one, but let's just say I've begun to take advantage of the scrawny, small-boned stray cats that hang around the back of the house. From where I sit at the table, I can toss little bits of head and stomach out the door to the outdoor kitchen where they sit waiting.

Occasionally, however, the door will be closed. This does not deter one intrepid fellow, who has figured out how to climb from outside up to a foot-tall gap between the wall and ceiling on the other side of the kitchen. From his perch, he can look down to where I sit at the kitchen table and howl. He has learned that if he howls long and loudly enough, I will eventually finish my meal, walk across the room, and toss something up through the gap.

A couple days ago I had chicken adobo for dinner, which is really very delicious but I had a bunch of bones and some particularly unappetizing pieces of skin left over. So across the room I went, and first looking around to make sure I wouldn't be caught in the act, began donating them to the gap. The bones made it up just fine, but one large, slippery piece of skin wobbled a bit on the launch and instead of going through the gap hit the wall six inches below with a smack. Where it stayed. Utterly plastered, with no intention of moving, and completely out of reach.

Oh, no.

Wide-eyed, I looked around again. I briefly considered leaving it there, but I didn't think even my very old host mother could fail to notice a very large piece of skin stuck to her sea foam green kitchen wall. I didn't much care for the idea of explaining how it got there either.

Frantically, I jumped for it, but it was just out of reach. Then, trying to be quiet, I quickly rummaged through the drying rack and found a long, dangerous looking utensil. Reaching upward I jumped again. And as I'm jumping, just before I do manage to hit the skin and send it sailing across the room to land with a greasy smack on the floor, I have one of these moments where I really wish my family could see me.

Here I am, alone in a dingy, mosquito-filled kitchen on some jungle island near the equator, the sound of a TV crackling in the background as I, wearing my baggy turquoise nylon shorts and wielding a pronged kitchen tool, fling myself upward at a piece of skin on the wall. Yes, dear family, this is what I have become since you last saw me six months ago.

After the skin lands I run over and collect it before sending it sailing, successfully this time, up through the gap. Then I wash up, fill my Nalgene from the jug, and head up to my room, turn on an electric fan so old and powerful I swear it's made from a WWII propeller, and spend some time with Lisbeth Salander under my mosquito net before I fall asleep.