khanum buang and airborne keys

sdf
This post could, alternatively, be entitled:

I am somewhat frustrated today and need to rant for a few paragraphs

**please scroll to the end to skip the rant and read my brief comments on delicious khanum buang**

The gremlins in grade 5 made off with my keys (house key, office key, desk key) today in class. Tossing them back and forth (while I sat with one of the especially inept students explaining to him how to spell his own name. i am not joking.) the keep-away game got out of hand and the last I saw of my keys was a glint of silver as they sailed out the open 4th story window. I spoke with my supervisor about this little incident, and she told me the same thing she says when anyone voices a concern: "Oh iss hokay, iss hokay, iss hokay, iss hokay, hokay, hokay, hokay" repeated again and again over the top of me while i'm attempting to explain to her the issue at hand. I get the same response when I explain to her how these children tell me that they're going to "bing gun at school. keeell teeechas" or say "fauk you teeecha. go to hell" to the filipino teachers... "Oh, hokay, hokay, hokay, hokay, hokay." They're just children, she tells me, "don't worry, maybe they say sorry.." hmmmm. say sorry? superb solution. i'll be waiting in my office for an apology.

Aside from the beastly children, my day was just fine...

• The school van forgot to come to my street this morning (it's not entirely uncommon for them to forget whole neighborhoods sometimes) so I was a half an hour late to school and drenched with sweat from the 45 block walk in the 90 degree, 80% humidity weather. nice.

• My supervisor informed me at lunch today yesterday that the district-wide speech competition for my kids will be held on Wednesday of next week. Yesterday was also the first time I had been given information about speech topics, speech length, format etc. and I am now confronted with the task of preparing these children to stand in front of hundreds of people a week from now and humiliate themselves terribly. These kids can't even prepare a 30 second speech about their family and pets, let alone a five minute speech about global warming or rice. (yup. "rice" is one of the topics.) half of them struggle with the question, "How are you?"

• Today, as always, my kitchen was infested with ants and other fascinating insect comrades who kept me company as I cooked dinner. Crawling across my feet and up my legs (and a couple into my ears, i think), they were particularly profuse today, as the screen on the open kitchen window fell out at some point last night, welcoming all sorts of neighborhood critters inside.
  

• The brightest spot in my day (aside from the literally blinding sun beating into the stifling un-air-conditioned classrooms) was remembering that my lovely sister is coming to visit me in one week!
  

**The rant is now complete!**

I will now return to my regularly scheduled, predominantly positive, food-related posts...


The day before yesterday I made a purchase that I've been meaning to make for ages. There are vendors everywhere, selling these miniature treats which look like tiny hard-shell tacos filled with sour cream and topped with lemon zest. this is not what they are, as it turns out. They are, of course, Khanum Buang! Wonderful little slightly crisp, paper thin pancakes topped with a dense, creamy filling which I could only describe as something between uncooked meringue and marshmallow fluff but with a strong sweet flavor of coconut, and then sprinkled with... ?? I think it's something called "golden threads." I'll report back after further research.

a happy surprise!
khanum buang. not sour cream lemon tacos

sdf