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Chemicals and carcasses
Entry 17 of 22 | show all | print this entry |
Selamat Siang,
What a week!
After the Java trip and arriving home at 1.00 am it was simply delightful to find myself in school a scant six hours later... The nightmare of classes interrupted briefly by moments of calm swung into motion regardless of my minds fragile state and as usual was surprised by my body's endurance limits and how easily they could be smashed and ignored... Clearly I must be developing some sort of ulcer as a coping mechanism.
Anyway with the backdrop of exhaustion some more science kit arrived... The internal organs! Yay! Raw offal in a country as hot as hell's front porch! Bring it all in;
20 goat hearts, check,
20 pig kidneys, check,
2 cow hearts, check,
20 pig livers, check,
10 pig testes, check,
20 bull eyeballs, check,
2 cow skulls, check,
Variety of miscellaneous cow bones, check,
1 full digestive system from oesophagus to anus, (not asked for but helpfully provided by the butcher who has clearly never heard of BSE or the many health and hygiene laws which govern the UK and interestingly Bali as well... But he does do a killer discount on steak though!), check,
10 dead rabbits, check... um... is that box moving? Oh... I see.
10 live, baby, fluffy, white, pet rabbits waiting patiently for their necks to be snapped by me, check,
Crowd of irate students and teachers outside demanding to know what the rabbits are for, check.
Needless to say I was not about to kill baby, white, rabbits for dissection! They were far too small to be useful visually and the fur was far too long and would mat into the gore etc... So had to arrange for them to be sent back. Thank God! The uproar from the kids! You'd swear I was performing illegal drug trials on the reception classes. Loser's! Honest to god, I am sick to death of the organism racism that is displayed by humans... If you are genuinely a veggy then fine, you don't think I should kill animals... I'm still going to but I totally respect your right to an opinion, (even though you are still killing organisms to survive). The rest of you meat eating freaks! How dare you be annoyed at the murder of a cute, fluffy, white, rabbit and then tuck into a chicken burger. How dare you judge me for utilising a teaching tool valued the world over since the time of Leonardo and then comment on how the council isn't doing enough about the rats! Hypocritical knob-jockeys the lot of you! Anyway is all mute anyway as there are no wild rabbits in Bali! Bizarre but true - apparently. They use the white ones for the rabbit satay sold in the warungs... Aren't other cultures fascinating?
Cue the market owner refusing to take them back... fuck-a-duck, what am I going to do with ten, live, rabbits? Oh apparently 3 of them died over night so now it's seven! Apparently rabbits die very fast here due to the humidity which doesn't agree with their digestive systems... understanding a little more how the plague of rabbits seen in other countries has not occurred here! Still working on this problem... Will let you know how it turns out!
Poor Saurma, my set upon assistant, spent the rest of the day washing the organs, bagging them and putting them in the freezer - which is now kind of full... I carried on teaching, delighted in general by the delivery. Little did I know the horror Saurma had prepared for me that evening.
I finish my lessons and get ready for the next challenge. I approach Ms Jenny... The canteen owner and mother of a pupil in year 8... Cunningly I convince her to let me boil the cows skulls etc in her pots... And for the next three exhausting hours I labour over steaming bowls of sewage smelling water... scraping and turning... scraping and turning... scraping and turning... Yeuch! Then finally hauling the partly de-fleshed carcasses over to the science room to be washed and soaked in cold water overnight. It is now seven pm and as I open the prep room door I am met by a stench so awful I actually recoil - yes that overly dramatic reflex action seen in Hollywood movies is in fact real!
It takes seconds to size up that Saurma has gone home leaving the livers out in a bowl of water. They have therefore swollen to twice their original size, falling out all over the prep room dripping blood everywhere... I dump the bones and look at the time... I have three minutes to get off site before the guards lock the doors and fall asleep... Extremely tired I shrug my shoulders and leave... Knowing that tomorrow will be another hard, hard, day of explaining. I love Saurma, she puts up with my excessive demands really, very patiently... but for goodness sake! Who leaves raw live out in water in Bali?!? Moronic is what it is. She could at least have come and told me! Very cross but considering how unreasonable I am I chalk it up as karma and throw the livers away the next day! The science room and adjacent rooms smell so badly that komodo dragon like lizards have gathered around the doors... After chasing them away, (something which becomes a fun new strategy game over the course of the week, stop the river lizards stealing my bones, yay for the wonderous diversity and ingenuity of life!) I open all doors and windows and turn the ac and fans onto full. The room still stinks worse than Gordon Browns attempts at leadership. Cue the next three days of disaster management and excuses to staff who are put out by the, cough, slight lingering smell. God! You try to do a good thing for people!! Try to help the kids by getting them to hack up internal organs and this is the thanks you get! Hmmm... possibly a teeny bit in the wrong... Feel like I am... But for the life of me can't see where...
Finally on Friday a new order - this time of electrical equipment arrives... amongst the very useful lamp switches, (cut off actual lamps and stuffed in a bag... cough) and the actually correct items are 50 adaptor plugs... Actual massive adaptor plugs?? The kind not seen in Britain for many years. A short time later I am in the office asking Mr Aris why I have these and what possible use could I have for them?
He explains patiently and slightly condescendingly that I ordered them... don't I remember? I spent all that time last Tuesday, explaining what I wanted to him?? Breathing in and counting to ten I try to remember that although this man has, this week, delivered me ten live rabbits, he is not a complete and total waste of human skin and is in fact a diligent hard-working man. That despite that fact that one out of every two items he brings me are almost 'faulty towers' in their misinterpreted genius, he is not deliberately trying to sabotage me and is attempting to help. A momentary vision of what would have happened to the pyramids of Giza, had they been fortunate enough to have Mr. Aris ordering stone for them, flashes through my mind.
Thought processes processed and calm re-established I smile and unravel with him what has happened, arrange for them to be sent back and the correct equipment, (electrical jacks!!) to be delivered. I turn to leave and he adds as a throw away remark, 'oh and Kimia Farma called - the prices have gone up on all your items so they haven't ordered them yet they need a new order, which Mr. Ian will have to approve again'
I met with kimia farma last week and they gave me their prices... on receiving my order they have raised their prices by a considerable amount and will not be delivering on Monday as previously discussed... (much of my planning for next week depends on these items and getting Mr. Ian to approve them usually takes about three to four weeks... if you are lucky!)
The last, wafer thin thread of patience snaps. In a calm voice I ask Mr. Aris to phone Kimia Farma. He does. I then explain in a very patient and diplomatic style to the jumped up, little, owner of a drug store, that this is not very fair and enquire how I can place an order with a company which has no set price list, no ethics and who think honour is a brand of cleaning detergent? Finally I ensure they understand the importance of filling my order as speedily as possible and request a delivery date for my goods? Half an hour later I hang up the phone, hand it back to Mr. Aris and stand up to leave the office. I suddenly become aware that Mr. Aris is staring at me, as are the rest of the finance team in the office. Apparently you could hear my shouting in reception. No doubt I will have my wrist slapped over this as well... Ooops. Kimia farma call back five minutes later to inform me that the order has been processed and will be with me next week... I manage to accept their apologies with good grace, although I do rip an order sheet into little pieces as I say 'terima kasih' through gritted teeth.
Loving you all into little tiny pieces, (so I can sneak you back in my luggage disguised as legitimate trade items)
Ixxx
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