So what's the deal with the wiggly rice?

I've had a few people make speculations about the wiggly rice, and they've been fairly accurate, but there's a little more to the story.

First of all, in no way do I want to say anything bad about the food that was given to us while we were in Ghana. We were given quite a lot of chicken and rice, but mainly that was because we're sensitive Americans with puny stomachs that can't handle the local stuff. As Pastor Dennis so eloquently put it, the local stuff would "make your nose cry." So I was grateful for the relatively predictable chicken and rice. (As a side note, when I did eat the local food, while a little spicy for this VERY white American girl, it was delicious.)

So Friday afternoon, we met at the Dagba Hotel for lunch. This is where our Ghanaian teammates from Accra were staying and it was where Dzodze Baptist Church was having its first worship service later that night. We got our styrofoam containers of chicken and rice and sat under a big shade tree to get out of the sun. After being out in the sun all morning (it had rained pretty hard and then the sun came out so it was a bit muggy,) I was more thirsty than hungry, so I didn't feel like eating much. Then I noticed a little worm on my arm. I wasn't sure what it was or where it had come from, so I flicked it off and tried to forget about it. Then I noticed another one on my skirt. Again, I flicked it off.

Then someone else mentioned a little worm. Then another. We realized there was some sort of worm falling out of the trees. Someone thought they were maggots, but I didn't think maggots fell from trees, so I'm not sure. Anyway, having any sort of wormy thing fall from the trees when I'm trying to eat lunch makes me not a very happy person. So then I had an epiphany. It has become my new motto for life and it's one I hope to live by all of my days: Don't eat the wiggly rice. Make sure that all of your food is stationary before you take a bite.

I think that when you have a blog, any entry you make should be profound in some sense. As if the reader should be better off having read it. Whether or not that is true in your case I don't know. If you plan to live your life safely within the confines of the US or other developed countries, you might feel as if you would have been better off having NOT read this entry. Thinking about the possibility of maybe accidentally eating some sort of squirmy larva is hardly entertainment all by itself. However, if you are called by God to venture out of your comfort zone, or maybe you like to visit strange and exotic places, and you end up in some foreign land under a shade tree, you will be thankful for this entry and might even make it your own motto for life: Don't eat the wiggly rice.