Hagen Randomness

So I posted this on Sjoerd's blog yesterday but figure I should give my regular readership the random updates too...

Before Sjoerd left for the Madang Medical Symposium on Tuesday, he rang me on my office extension to let me know a lovely young Croatian man was in town who would like to be entertained for the evening. No, Sjoerd is not my pimp, he just thought I might be interested in meeting Davor because, like me, he’s a journalist. Unlike me, he takes some rather professional photographs for National Geographic publications (see: www.davorrostuhar.com). So just before I left the hospital for lunch, Sjoerd introduced us. Davor was indeed lovely. He quickly explained how he and a good friend Mare had just returned from trekking through the north west of Papua New Guinea and were desperately in need of a good meal. That’s when he said, “I have a strange request. Can my friend and I come to your house and make pancakes this evening?” Pancakes with some fresh faces? How could I refuse?
So Davor and Mare met me after work, laden with ingredients for a big cookup - and a cardboard box. That’s when things got interesting. What was in the box, you ask? Only this…



So you can imagine my amusement when Davor said,
“I have another strange proposition for you…”
The Croatians had met some street mangis (boys) near the hospital who sold them this fabulously large green python, which was now fast asleep and being swiftly carried to Hotel Poroman where I live. Apparently, they wanted to cook it. But not before we made friends with it first…



I felt terrible killing it later in my kitchen. And the meat was rather tough, so I can honestly say I preferred it alive. But Davor got some pretty funny pictures of me swinging my hefty bushknife to break the backbone in several places. Luckily he didn’t photograph me beating its head to a pulp with a heavy stone vase…

So, I think I can officially say I’ve crossed that one off the list. No more eating snakes for Jo.

But on the upside, the pancakes were delicious and it was lovely to have some new company (no offense, Sjoerd-o!)