In Grade 3 at Glenwood Elementary, our class performed a play for the parents of our school.  Charlotte’s Web, a literary classic, was our teacher’s selection that year.  We actually auditioned for the roles and I remember wanting to be the farmer, Fern’s father.   Maybe I thought the responsibility of running a farm or having to make the tough decision about what to do with Wilbur appealed to me.  I don’t remember.  And so I learned my lines well and acted out an excerpt from the play in front of a very eager group of about 25 Grade 3 judges in Miss Vander Paw’s classroom.  Apparently, the class thought I performed well, too, and so to my joy and the chagrin of one or two other candidates, I was chosen to play the role of the farmer.

The story of Charlotte’s Web is a fascinating one because on the one hand, we like bacon and pork chops and on the other hand, many of us also think pigs are cute. I just finished lunch and ate macaroni with bacon pieces in it.  Absolutely delicious. I have also seen pictures of my wife as a teenager feeding a baby bottle to a baby pig.  Charlotte’s Web fills us with tension and joy all at the same time.  Charlotte’s Web is the first story in my childhood (that would be the 70’s) in which a pig who was specifically bred to become somebody’s lunch, defies the odds and becomes a pet instead.  The pig’s name is Wilbur.  Because of an ingenious spider named Charlotte, he is no longer viewed as a piece of meat but as an important part of the family.  For those of us who have acted in the play, read the book, or seen the movie, we feel guilty about eating pork for about a day or two and then our guilty thoughts are buried deep beneath the smell and taste of barbecued pork chops, dished out alongside dad’s German potato salad.

Who knew that about 30 years later, I would grow up, get married, and move with my wife and our four children to Mae Sot, Thailand, to work with Burmese migrants who have fled across the border to avoid the political turmoil and the extreme poverty.  And who knew that just yesterday I would become part of a story that had too many connections to my Grade 3 play for me to ignore.

At lunch yesterday with our staff (at a restaurant that serves beef, pork, chicken, and fish incidentally…) I was listening to one of our Burmese employees talk about a Burmese school with a boarding house where she had volunteered recently as a nurse.  She was telling us that no wild animal is safe on the school property because it will wind up on the dinner plate if caught.  She pointed out that this particular school does not have a rat infestation problem because well, the rats have all been caught by human rat traps and cooked over the fire.  My North American sensibilities caught up with me immediately and I cringed.  Why rats?  Our employee simply stated that the high school students rarely get meat and so they resort to eating these diseased rodents.  We’d do the same in North America if we had to.  The students get vegetables and rice but it is not enough and so desperation sets in. If that’s not bad enough, there was another twist to the story.

On the school grounds, there lives a dog.  I know this dog because I have visited this school often and have participated in meetings and celebration events and I have seen him…and heard him.  When the student body sings, he howls.  And not just a little bit.  He howls alongside in his tenor voice for entire songs.  It seems that he has forgotten his place as a dog and feels he is part of the family.

In fact, he’s so much part of the school family that my employee stood before the student body a few months ago and instructed the students that while it was okay to eat the rats that sneak across the school property, the dog is absolutely off-limits.  They may not eat the dog.  In fact, she threatened them that if they ate the dog, she would quit volunteering as a nurse at their school. I could almost hear the words “humble” and “radiant” in the distance.  And so his life has been spared…at least thus far.   I’m not sure he knows his good fortune but perhaps one day, as miraculously as the relationship between Wilbur and Charlotte, he will be able to look my employee in the face and say “Thank-you for saving my life.  You are my Charlotte.”

What makes this story a bit uncomfortable is that in the original story, Wilbur was one of many pigs that could be served up for dinner.  At this school boarding house, the dog was the only convenient meat available.  The next option was rats.  It would be like eating Templeton, the overweight and selfish singing rat in the same story.  What a tasty treat he would be after he returned from the smorgasbord at the fair.   While I am indeed grateful that the canine is safe I cannot help but wonder “Well, what can the students eat instead?”  Surely, we are not satisfied that the dog is safe and that rats are a better option.  We are brought face to face with the mind-numbing logic of poverty.  “We’ll eat whatever we can to stay alive.”  My mind screams out “The dog should not have to be defended and the rats should be used for slingshot practice.” “Where’s the beef, the pork, the chicken, and the fish?”  At this point, there is no solution.  Little money and few donors.  The dog remains a pet for the moment and the rats are sautéed.

If Charlotte’s Web had been written in Mae Sot with this particular school as a backdrop, I’m wondering if  Fern’s father would have bowed to her wishes to keep Wilbur alive.  I’m thinking that Fern wouldn’t have fought so hard herself.  The other option was eating Templeton.  Unfortunately, neither choice would have made a satisfying ending.  But is there really any other option…