This youngster, who lives with her family in a single room in one of the many temporary Building Construction Workers corrugated iron shanty-towns, gets more opportunities to learn essential skills than most of the more well-off kids
After a single introductory lesson from Na, she is shucking and eating snails like a Pro.
This is a good skill to have as, especially up-country, snails are plentiful and free or nearly so and so the ability to consume them may make the difference between an adequate diet and starvation.
Snails are easy to handle:
1. Buy a bag of fresh, live snails from the mobile grocer or, better still, wander down to the closest ricefield and grab a few handfuls from the waters edge.
2. Rinse a couple of times in clean water.
3. Boil or steam for 10 minutes or so.
4. Serve in the shell, and provide a bamboo skewer to each eater for prising the animal out of its shell.
5. Provide a generous bowl of fresh and very spicy chilli sauce for dipping the animal in on its last journey...between shell and mouth.