Julie Kierski

Pork = Delicious

After I got married and moved far away from my mother’s amazing food, I started cooking more. I love Korean food so one of the first dishes I tried making was kim chi ji gae. The stew came out okay, but the meat was tough, tasteless, and not so good at all. My mother told me I had to cook the meat slower and longer. My best friend laughed when I told her I used beef in the ji gae. Pork, she said, was more delicious in kim chi ji gae. The next time, I used nice, fatty pieces of pork and ended up with delicious stew.

Pigs = Disgustingly Foul

I’ve always heard that pigs are dirty animals. You can never quite understand until you see them in person.

Pigs dig through trash and eat just about anything. They are often covered in mud and probably poop too. They squeal bloody murder on their way to being slaughtered. And they smell like rotting garbage times ten.

In our training village, Prey San Dyke, I somehow managed to get pig feces splattered onmy feet. I thought maybe it was just mud, but our host mother quite calmly informed me it was pig poop. Upon closer inspection, I was able to see some corn kernels in the brown gunk. She graciously helped me scrape it off my ankle, wash my feet, nad clean my sandals.

Now, we’re living in a town which is quite urban by many standards - paved roads, running water, electricity, and even some street lights. But if you veer off the paved roads, you’ll find yourself in some gorgeous scenery with rice fields. It’s a nice mixture of semi-urban and semi-rural.

I thought I would be free of the farm animals in the town. But a house very close to us raises many pigs and chickens. The pigs wander the streets by themselves and often go by our house. No more contact  yet with pig poop. I just keep my eyes on the road and make sure I don’t ride through any piles of cow, horse, or pig droppings.