Day 228… Tuesday 7th November
Visited Lonely’s mum and sister. Sat in the shade as it was another very hot day. Had a delicious lunch of smoked fish, Nshima and eggplant. Allen got to kill a chicken. I will leave him to explain that one! Visited the Radisson Blu for drinks by the Zambezi river at sunset. Mosquitoes out in the force. Dinner at Olga’s where we were staying that night. Said our goodbyes to Lonely. Rob is continuing on with us until Gaborone.
Allen’s perspective…
Across the thousands of miles travelled around Africa we have seen many live chickens being held aloft by the side of the road for sale, shortly to become someone’s dinner. Live meat is very much required in large parts of the world where people cannot afford or have access to any form of refrigeration, and every day there are millions of people around the world killing chickens, goats, cows, etc to feed themselves and their families, As a keen meat eater myself I, like many others, are now very detached from the very animals I eat. it seemed only right that I to do this at least once. Lonely’s mother Febby was incredibly kind enough to show me how to do this.
Interestingly, Lonely’s sister keeps several chickens specifically for dispatching and eating, but also does buy ready prepared chicken from the shops. So after one chicken was selected she was brought over to us and Febby instructed me how to hold the chicken properly. I won’t go into details, especially since there is a video linked below which if interested you can watch. Suffice to say it was not gross or disgusting but instead absolutely fascinating. Although I did get covered in blood which did require some effort in scrubbing.
I can see how after a few goes at this it would become a quick and easy part of everyday life. Vegans in the west may be appalled by this, but killings chickens is just a normal part of peoples lives all around the world and it shows no sign or stopping anytime soon.