Chicken shit
Our house is close to the capital’s cathedral, a big church in local red brick. Yesterday evening the President went to Mass, just about the time we left. Members of the Presidential Guard had sealed off the roads around and towards the cathedral and stood guard. We met two of them near our house as we went out. Their behaviour, slowly walking up to the Several people who did not have the privilege of diplomatic license plates as we do were harassed by them and were made to pay their way out.
M. and T. went to their playmates this afternoon while I was off to a friend’s house to watch Holland play the Serbs (Robben was awesome!). When they came home they told us how at their friends’ place they had seen a couple of chicken butchered which they subsequently had for lunch. They seemed not in the least bothered by the experience, and had found the sights of headless chicken running around aimlessly, or the cook pulling out the intestines, thus splattering himself with chicken shit, quite hilarious. A., ever the educator, seized the occasion to explain the Dutch expression ‘als een kip zonder kop rondlopen’. They found that very funny too.
The children are looking forward to leaving for Holland next week, and so is A. I am much less looking forward to being without them obviously, but on the bright side I’ll be able to devote more time to study without any feelings of guilt. I am doing what I can right now, but I am starting to get behind. It really requires a solid 15-20 hours of concentrated reading and writing a week, full stop. First written assignment, a 2500-word essay, due in two weeks time. But it’s fascinating: most of the material is on developing countries, so it’s all highly applicable. Italy under Mussolini can be counted as a developmental state, and the most successful developing countries over the past three decades (China, Thailand, South Korea, Botswana, Singapore, and others) have had powerful, dedicated and talented bureaucracies and ample state intervention in their economies, and have not been particularly tender as regards human rights. Food for thought…. Next week: the ins and outs of the Chinese imperial bureaucracy, among much else, yummy!
Sammy the dog is doing fine, getting something of an education, and seems quite at ease with people around him. He’s started eating meat.
M. and T. went to their playmates this afternoon while I was off to a friend’s house to watch Holland play the Serbs (Robben was awesome!). When they came home they told us how at their friends’ place they had seen a couple of chicken butchered which they subsequently had for lunch. They seemed not in the least bothered by the experience, and had found the sights of headless chicken running around aimlessly, or the cook pulling out the intestines, thus splattering himself with chicken shit, quite hilarious. A., ever the educator, seized the occasion to explain the Dutch expression ‘als een kip zonder kop rondlopen’. They found that very funny too.
The children are looking forward to leaving for Holland next week, and so is A. I am much less looking forward to being without them obviously, but on the bright side I’ll be able to devote more time to study without any feelings of guilt. I am doing what I can right now, but I am starting to get behind. It really requires a solid 15-20 hours of concentrated reading and writing a week, full stop. First written assignment, a 2500-word essay, due in two weeks time. But it’s fascinating: most of the material is on developing countries, so it’s all highly applicable. Italy under Mussolini can be counted as a developmental state, and the most successful developing countries over the past three decades (China, Thailand, South Korea, Botswana, Singapore, and others) have had powerful, dedicated and talented bureaucracies and ample state intervention in their economies, and have not been particularly tender as regards human rights. Food for thought…. Next week: the ins and outs of the Chinese imperial bureaucracy, among much else, yummy!
Sammy the dog is doing fine, getting something of an education, and seems quite at ease with people around him. He’s started eating meat.
posted by Emilian at Monday, June 12, 2006
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