Goat Slaughtering

Goat Slaughtering: (some of the contents of this blog may not be suitable for small children. Parents are advised to read it before sharing with children.)
On Monday a friend (Joseph) from the program invited me over to his house and mentioned that his father was planning on slaughtering a goat. I looked forward to having something to do while the power was out all day and wanted to reciprocate his willingness to come visit me.
After a short walk through featureless brush, we arrived on his family’s compound. Joseph’s house was next to his father’s, within the same thorny fence. His house was made of mud and wood with a tin roof. It was a bedroom only, maybe 4 meters long by 2.5 meters wide. It was everything that you’d imagine a “mud-hut” to be from its looks but was remarkably a home. It felt like a place to live, a home like any other. I was again surprised to see him turn on a radio as I hadn’t noticed his small solar panel powering a radio and feeding a battery. Joseph is able to run a tv for 2 days on his battery fed by a solar panel he bought for ~$50. Here our program was crippled because of no power but Joseph could go about his normal routine.
After visiting with some of his 14 brothers and sisters (from two moms), it was time to slaughter a goat. I had seen goats killed before but had never really been part of it and I was pretty apprehensive. I realized how removed from death we are in the States and how it is abhorrent to me. I’ll spare you the details but to see a person take an animal’s life was distressing, even as I knew that the same had happened to many animals to feed me in the past. After my initial hesitance to participate, I decided I had to at least seem interested to not offend the family that was inviting me to celebrate with them. I helped skin the goat which I did with moderate success. Then came the removal of each and every part, all used for one purpose or another. Every part was thrown into a pot, heated over a small wood fire they built under an acacia. Joseph was very proud that nothing got wasted. Even the vertebrae, once cleaned of meat, were stuck onto the end of a stick to make a soup stir-er….this just amazed me.
Throughout the process I was confronted with various stretching decisions. Should I drink blood (thankfully Joseph refused for me), eat raw kidneys (I said I’d probably throw them up even if I liked them), eat cooked heart and liver (I did), and Maasai “soup” (water, boiled fat and the essence of various tree branches)? On a deeper level, I was challenged to rethink whether the things I have been taught as “right” or “wrong” are cultural, moral, or traditional. Why don’t we eat raw kidneys? I’m not sure really. I’m sure a doctor could tell you why, but at the same time I see these Maasai who have a life expectancy in the 60s without a hospital in sight. Part of the conclusion I came to was that our culture enforces strict sanitary regulations to overcome the anonymity of the food supply. When I buy a steak from Wegman’s the only assurance I have that it isn’t from rabies-infested road-kill is that the FDA has checked it and zapped the bad things out of it. When you literally know not only the goat you eat but its parents, you don’t need as many controls because you know exactly where it came from, exactly its health, and exactly what you are eating.
At the end, Joseph walked me home and gave me a beautiful hunk of meat which I later cooked “oloshumpai” (white-man) style with a chili-sauce over rice. I felt like I was able to honor Joseph and deepen our friendship through the day’s events. While I often was uncomfortable or down-right queasy with what I was seeing, these are the things that help me grow. I was blessed to have Joseph, who understands me relatively well, to help me navigate the various cultural expectations and norms. Having somebody to talk through what I was feeling helped me cope with what I was seeing. In the end, I praise God for knowing a little more about life, being a little less sure about what I know, and a being little richer for it.