Winnie's house part 2

(continued from previous post)

Then they plucked all the feathers out. Some left little feather stubble that the boy helper began to pick out with the aid of his teeth. I almost fainted. Then the mom came over with a knife and sliced the bird open. Crack went the rib cage and 'oh no' went my gag reflex. Here's the lungs. Here's the heart. Here's the liver. Here are the intestines, but they aren't for humans, so we give them to the dog. After this, I asked, "oh, is that for the dog, or for humans?" at the appearance of every new organ with what I hope was not a too hopeful tone. The crop. Dogs. The feet. Dogs. The gullet. Humans.

Okay, right now, go look at pictures of a chicken gullet. Find one whole, then one split open with food in it, then one split open and cleaned. Now imagine how you would feel if the mother announced that the guest gets the gullet. It's considered the best part, and it would be really rude not to give it to the guest. I immediately tried the humility (oh, there's no need for that. I really couldn't) card, but she insisted that she wanted me to have it. With a tad more vehemence, I changed my game plan to the old, "if I may be so bold, do you mind if I request the breast meat? It's actually my favourite, and I miss it" approach, which went over well, and Winnie ended up with the gullet, which she loves. I mean, I'm not not a picky eater to start with, so there was no way on earth I could have eaten the gullet. I knew I was being rude, but you guys honestly, I just could. not.

The chipati was great though, and after lunch we went out to a beautiful rock looking over the hilly farm. Oh, excuse me, shamba. For some reason, nobody uses the English word, and often they'll even correct me if I say farm. I picked an orange right off the tree and we ate that and some sugar cane. I tried to slice the skin off but I was so afraid of the giant knife and cutting my fingers off that I mostly just whacked the air near the cane that I was holding, giving the skin more of a chance of being removed by wind erosion than anything else. So good ol Winnie took over. Oh also, the boy followed me around most places all day. I guess I was shocked my lots of many things that he considers pedestrian, so he would catch my eye and do every thing with a flourish. So then I felt like I should exaggerate my alarm to reward him for his efforts. When he reached into the chicken cage, head first, to fill their food bucket, for example, I did a giant OH MY! face that he loved. But then he would also do this like peel a banana, or water a plant, and I'd still have to keep up the act of being intrigued and amazed at everything he did. I didn't want to let him down, you know? So now he'll go to school and be like, "okay, so not but muzungos eat rice every day, but some of them have never seen water come out of a tap and they don't know what cows are." Speaking of cows, they had 4 but only one had a name, so chose the most bovine names I could think of: two girls and one boy, so Justin, Mya, and Chantal. Oh and speaking of things that are actually alarming, the boy's mom came to get him, and her hands were full, so she carried machete with her ear and shoulder, tucked into her neck, and if she were using it to make a phone call. It was terrifying to me.

We were sent home with left over chipati and lots of vegetables. We've had arrow root for breakfast every day this week! The best!