Food has for sure been the big theame in my life over the past week and a half. Last week i went into the out house to find two chickens sitting in the corner. I knew that they were going to be killed for eating probably that day. i had been told by Peace Corps that we were all recomended to learn how to kill a chicken. I suspected this was my day. However, Nothing happened. And the next day the two chickens were still in the out house. i thought it was a little strange to have to do my businesss in front of an animal I would eventualy kill. But there was not much choice. Later in the day one of my other coleagues said that there was also a chicken waiting for her to kill it but that her family was waiting for the weekend. I then realized that Peace Corps had asked all the families to teach us all how to kill chickens this weekend. But the very next day (Thurseday) the mother of my house came walking out of the kitchen with a knife and a bucket of hot watter. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was going to kill the chickens. At this point I realized that I almost missed my oportunity. So I asked if I could help and learn how to kill a chicken. She asked me if I was scared and I said no. So we went outside and took the chickens out of the out house. She killed the first one and showed me how to do it. Then it was my turn. I was a little nervious but I felt that it was somthing I should know how to do and that since I have been a meat eater all my life I should experience the process of killing an animal that I would eat. So I knelt down next to the chicken and asked myself one last time if I thought that this was an ok thing to do. Is there a concious complex life inside there? Was my vegetarian father, high school teachers and friends right? Nope, I looked at that thing in the eyes as it dumbly sat there and randomly jutted its head around and realized that there really was not a whole lot going on in there. So I grabbed it by the wingsand placed them under my left foot. I pulled out its legs and held them down with my right foot, I streched out its kneck with my left hand and I sawed its kneck off with a very blunt serated knife with my right hand. Then I waited for the pulsing to stop and that was that. Not going to lie, it was pretty grose. But my only regret is that I wish I had a sharp knife to use. That would have been better, but thats just no how they do it in Mozambique (pernouncee as I recently found out , Mozambikeee)
I got sick last weekend. There has been a cold that has been going around the peace corps trainees. I spent the whole weekend on the front porch of my house studying verb congigations for a test that was on monday, and watching the local kids run around yelling randomly and getting very dirty and then getting my newly hand washed pants very dirty by huging my legs. (not cool, it takes a very long time for me to hand wash a pair of pants) But in the end I got a good score on my test which has ben a great relief for me as i really weant to become very good at portugese and language learning has been a big chalenge for me in the past. I cant even spell in english.
On tuesday my language group and I (4 people total) made a mexican/american meal for each of out home stay mothers. We made guacamole (its avacado season now) Pico de gallo, pinto beans and fried green pepers with onions. it was soooooooo good to eat guacomole again. our house mothers tought us how to plucj and gut a chicken after one of my coleages had his first oportunity killing a chicken (he had some difficulty at first so his homestay mothergrabed his hand and killed the chicken with him)
On Thursday and friday All 29 PC trainees learned how to do permagardening (permanent gardening) whcich is a techneaque used to create high producing vegtables gardens in small areas. It was origonaly designed for people living with HIV/AIDs so they could have a strong healthy diet easily accesable to them. The gist of it is that you dig very deep and fill in the land with soft soil mixed with compost so you can plant lots of plants closer together and you can reenergise the land with the compost over and over again to the soil never gets depleated. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoied the oportunity to get outside and do some gardening work.
Great account of having to learn to kill a chicken. I had a similar experience here in the states with a neighbor friend who needed my help doing the deed. In my case the knife was pretty sharp, but it still took some work to get through the neck.
ReplyDeleteIt's rainy here in New York, and it's nice to be reading about a land that is perhaps more sunny than this one. I wonder, too, if you have a camera with you? It would be great to see pictures. If you don't, maybe I can send you one?