After almost all two hours of milling about the dimly-lit house waiting for the tide to come in so we could make our exit, I was going a little stir crazy. I looked around to make sure none of my students were watching and I slipped out the front door. I figured I could steal a few minutes; after all, how many more times in my life in am I going to be sitting around an Indonesian village with idle time on my hands? Besides, I wasn’t planning on wandering far. Less than a 50 meters down the dirt road –more of a path really- I came upon several women in a rickety road-side stall selling something hot. It smelled good. I had some Indonesia money on me and I decided to go for it. Somehow in the midst of all my pantomiming, we miscommunicated. I ended up with five of whatever it was they were selling. They better be good. They certainly were hot.
Turns out I should have bought more. They were a yellow cake batter bread-y thing with crushed nuts in the center. Think: a sweet pancake lightly smeared with crunchy peanut butter and then folded in half. Mine was gone by the time I got back to the house. Inside, I walked around like deacon on communion morning and broke off and fed a piece to each of my student. They all seemed to enjoy it.
Taking a chance paid off. It kind of makes up for those times my curiosity has gotten the better of me and I have bought something off a street vendor only to take one bight and then threw the rest away. Buying food from a street vendor in third world countries is always a risk, but it’s worth it because every once in a while you get a hot, sweet pancake with crunchy peanut butter in the middle.
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