QUOTE : Just as I prepared to stand and bow, a woman appeared with a miniature coffee cup in her hand. <br />She offered it to me. <br />As I took it, I noticed two things: <br />Bugs crawling on the ground and the men approving of me by snapping their fingers.<br />I bowed and took a sip of the coffee and almost fainted.<br />I had a cockroach on my tongue.<br />I looked at the peoples' faces and I could not spit it out.<br />My grandmother would have pushed away the grave's dirt and traveled by willpower to show me her face of abject disappointment.<br />I could not bear that.<br />I opened my throat and drank the cup dry.<br />I counted four cockroaches.