My Shapala

There are some things that you will remember till you die. I'm not talking about the cliche's like when your children were born, your wedding, or watching the moon landing. I'm talking about those odd events that only happen to you that make for great stories. They won't always be on the tip of your tongue, but as soon as someone mentions it you can recall every single detail in an instant as if it happened yesterday. Ask me sometime about the time I tried sailing across the Hood Canal. Or running from the police after swimming in the Montlake Cut. Or my brother nearly dying from getting electrocuted. That last one is a funny story. If it sounds like a sad memory, I posit that it depends if my brother is telling the story or I am.

For the kids here, a lot of the stories they love to tell happen to revolve around food. I think in the same way that Americans value their vacations and traveling to all sorts of different places and bringing back photos and souvenirs of new and exotic places, so some extent that is the parallel to people's food experiences. All you have to do is mention, "Hey, you remember that one time you ate ______," and their whole face will light up and they'll tell you everything you never wanted to know.

When you live most of your life only eating three or four different dishes (and probably only two at a time depending on what food is in season), what stands out is the new exciting exotic foods that you probably only get once or twice a year or maybe once in your lifetime. In that way it's like a family retreat you take once a year, or the time you visited Disneyland, or places you'll go that you've only read about.

Ask about the time several kids that got invited along to the dessert potluck at the Missionary Fellowship and it was an endless table of brownies, cookies, cakes, and sweets.

Or those that won a contest and TJ took them out for chicken dinner and, as luck would have it, the happy hour special meant that each one got to feast on a half chicken.

Or ask the boy that Victor once took to an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet: Yogurt, omelets, bacon, sausage, milk, cheeses, imported fruits, the whole works.

Or when TJ picked up a group of kids after school one day in the truck, drove them to town, bought a gallon of ice cream, whipped out spoons, and said, "Let's hurry up before it melts!"

One such boy that had an experience he will never forget was Muaprato. One day last month Victor's brother came to town and a few of the boys talked him into to springing for a car wash. Let's just say that he left a very gratuitous gratuity (yes, the redundancy is redundant). Most of the boys pocketed the money to slowly over time buy snacks and the like. Some bought a few pairs of flip flops, the preferred style of footwear here. Muaprato decided to eat his money.

He didn't literally eat it, of course. I found it strangely funny that, whereas most people in America say that they "spend money", most people here say that they "eat money." Even if they are buying a radio or a t-shirt, the expression remains the same. If you ask what they ate with the money, they just say, "Oh, a new hat, a pair of sandals, a backpack."

But what Muaprato decided to eat was actually food. A lot of it, in fact. This is a boy who is thirteen years old, the size of somebody ten years old, and behaves like he's six years old. I have had folks stop by the orphanage to chat and notice him. On at least three occasions, some version of the following exchange has occurred. My friend will ask, "Oh, how long ago did that boy arrive?" To which I will respond, "Which boy is that?" And then the friend responds, "The one that runs around everywhere making noises like a motorcycle. The one that was eating a crayon, stopped, and then said, 'I like the yellow one better.' The one that tried to to a back-flip and landed on his stomach and hasn't gotten up. The one that ripped off his shirt, ran from one end of the orphanage to the other screaming 'Gonna take a shower! Gonna take a shower!' The one that ripped off his shirt, ran from one end of the orphanage to the other screaming, 'Gonna pee! Gonna pee!' " I then hold my head in my hand and say that he's been here for about seven years.

After Muaprato received his cut of the car washing deal, he asked if he could go down to the market and get a new pair of flip flops. We sent an older, more responsible boy to accompany him.

That night we had chicken for dinner. Muaprato gave his plate away didn't eat a single bite. The next day he stayed home from school sick. The third day, after coming home from school sporting his new flip flops, he was playing in Victor and Christina's house and had to keep leaving to use the bathroom. When Christina asked his friends what the problem, they said he had diarrhea because the cook was doing a bad job and it made him sick.

If you remember from our chickendebacle, the kids are not always the most honest at stating how or why they get stomach aches. In this case, his friends were covering for him. So we got his friends together and Muaprato and asked him what he spent his money on. "Snacks," is what he said. While it was the correct answer, it was not very specific. We asked him to detail exactly what he ate. His face lit up, his demeanor suddenly because very animated, and he accounted for exactly everything he bought as well as the prices he bought if for. He started detailing what he bought.

Three donuts, fryebread, two hush puppies, a chocolate bar, suckers, bread and hard candy.

Just to recap, he ate bread and hard candy. Not bread....and...hard candy. He actually put the suckers in the bread to encounter as he ate. Everybody started laughing, realizing that after eating all this it probably gave his a stomach ache.

But the boy that went with him said he left out one important detail. At being called out, Muaprato put his head down and got embarrased. It turns out that what he left out was buying shapala.

I don't know how to translate shapala. I don't even know how to write it, I'm just guessing. I don't even think other places have it. It's basically dried cowhide, but not leather, but not jerky, and people eat it. Like I said I don't even know where to begin. The whole room busted out laughing.

You see, shapala is something that people sell, and people eat, but the big joke is that people don't actually eat it. In that way, it's kind of like lutefisk. . It's there, and people eat it, but people don't really eat it, or eat a lot of it. If you're Scandinavian, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not Scandinavian, well, too bad for you.

Hearing that he ate shapala, and everything else made him sick going on three days, caused everybody present to erupt into laughter, even Muaprato himself. Then as the story spread, the laughter spread. It will not be a meal that he lives down anytime soon.