Interesting week this week. First off we celebrated a friend’s birthday and headed out to one of the dance clubs. At the end of the night I got to learn a new dance. This one is older, from 1992, but it still gets a big reaction on the dance floor.
First take a tissue and hold it with you thumb and fore finger. Then commence waving the tissue with one hand moving only the wrist in a flicking motion. Form a type of conga line that moves in a circle. Proceed to have individuals jump into the middle of the circle to do a quick solo dance. Do this for roughly 30 minutes. There you have the whole dance (can’t remember the name at the moment). The waving of the tissue, I came to find out later, is to chase off bad spirits. I originally thought it was a competition to see who could hold out the longest before using the tissue to wipe off sweat.
In other events, I have no idea what I’m doing in one of my new schools. The administration hasn’t given my internal goals of any sort so I have no idea what to prepare my students for. That ordeal is at my Monday school. My Tuesday school I am a “co-teacher” with a local hired/paid teacher. I thought that I would be assisting that teacher with the class. I went to work this morning expecting not to be in charge only to find myself in charge. So an impromptu lesson commenced (p.s. I have a bit of a cold or something so I’m afraid that my students will all sound “stuffed up” on any words I thought today). I go to my third school on Thursdays and will sport my white lab coat for the first time in two days.
Sunday night was very interesting for me. It was a cross between a biology class, a lesson on what to do with gifts from friends in West Africa, and a murder/dinner. First the gift; my friend from Peace Corp was given a gift from a business partner in her village. It was a small white and gray rabbit (we all know where this is going). Let the learning begin, this was not meant to be a pet, it was of course meant to be dinner. One issue we had was that no one knew how to prepare a live rabbit for dinner other than making it dead (and how could we kill him, he was so cute).
As none of us knew how and had never before skinned a rabbit we were stuck and one member of the group threatened to cook beef instead. We couldn’t have that this rabbit was meant to be dinner and dinner he would BE! So I went on youtube to find out how to skin, gut, and butcher a rabbit. So with my 10 minute crash course on preparing rabbit for dinner we had some leverage in the negotiations for what to do about dinner. The hook went like this “I brought someone who can skin the rabbit if someone else will kill it” my friend reported making me sound like some sort of expert. With hesitancy the murder stepped forward.
So many choices for how to kill “pot-roast” (should have named him stew it would have been more befitting his fate). I’ll spare you the details but needless to say he ended up dead, the murder was on the balcony using a glove and some precise pressure. So my turn came to act like I knew what was doing. Again I’ll spare you the details but I cut that sucker up pretty good and he was tasty mixed up with some veggies and spice. No one got sick (other than the guy that got malaria, but that’s not because of the food) so I would say that I did a pretty good job at guessing how to skin and gut Thumper.
Any way I am enjoying learning all kinds of new things during my stay. I believe the next item on the menu is hedgehog, I’ll keep you updated.
Peace,
Ben
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<===Blarf *turning purple... *seeing stars... *dizzy... I shall hide my kitties when you visit
ReplyDeleteSo why did you choke the bunny rabbit to death? You should've just snapped its neck. More humane. Also, I can imagine that skinning a rabbit is pretty much like skinning a cat, and I've done that before (Anatomy & Physiology in high school). Did you pretty much carve it like a chicken? I bet fluffy was yummy though. That would be considered "raw animal product" (non-poultry or comminuted meat), so I would ensure a minimum temp of 145F for 15 seconds.
ReplyDeleteJust remind me to keep my cats away from you when you come to visit! ;-)
Miss ya!
AJ
or 63 degrees Celsius for 15 seconds... ;-)
ReplyDeleteculture is culture with the rabbit I guess. However, I think you need to stay away from cute little rabbits.
ReplyDeletethis story reminds of a missing goat in Mwanza. I went to a neighbors house to eat, and realize all too late that their goat was missing. I don't know how I didn't gag throughout the meal ( if you have never eaten raw goat, then you don't know what you are missing." but I did learn never to eat without first asking what I was eating.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, I have been sharing your blogs with my students. Their reactions have been amazing. they reacted to your malaria pill story by saying, "then dont take the pills." I told them about my reaction to Larium and they had a great laugh. They also have asked how to get into the dog mafia business and whether or not you had a video of the tissue dance. Thank you for continuing to share you adventures
WE MISS YOU! Glad to hear you're doing well.
ReplyDelete