Week 69: The Chicken Killing

In honor of Thanksgiving my landlady gave me a chicken. Now there was some confusion on what this meant. In my mind my land lady was being very generous and killing and cooking a chicken for me. In her mind, she was giving me a chicken as plain as that, and I, as a good village daughter, would know what to do. My city roots shone through in this moment and I was a bit helpless. Lucky for me in Botswana one is never alone and a friend came over to do the dirty work of killing, plucking the feathers, etc. Prior to coming to Botswana I was a vegetarian for seven years and thus was very out of my element. However, I watched the whole process and from “farm to table” (my front yard to my plastic plate on my lap) I think it took 2 hours. Although the whole experience has pushed me back to my vegetarian roots, it was the sentiment that will stay with me and I could not feel more loved than I do by those around me.