It was one stagiaire’s birthday last Thursday and she wanted to celebrate by killing, cooking and eating a chicken. None of us had ever actually killed a chicken, let alone defeather it before cooking it, but that didn’t stop us. We forgot to designate one person to buy the chicken, which resulted with us having two chickens to kill. Even better. Before entering PC, I had always thought of killing a chicken as a sort of right of passage for all PVCs. Well, the birthday girl ended up being a lot more scared of killing the chicken than I think she had thought she would be. After about 10 minutes of her screaming that she couldn’t do it, another stagiaire volunteered to do the first chicken. You know that saying “run around like a chicken with its head cut off”? Well, it’s actually true. The chicken’s body was still jerking around for a few minutes after its head was cut off. Definitely a strange thing to see happen. The birthday girl eventually went through with it and killed the second chicken. Good thing we had two chickens! I helped defeather them and we ate it with stir fry.
This was all good preparation for our 4th of July celebration plans. Our big idea was to roast a pig. One stagiaire’s family helped him kill and gut the pig and then brought it over to our training house on Sunday. I don’t know how much a pig costs back home, but we paid 30,000 CFA ( ̃$60) for it. The guys dug a hole in the ground and lined it with stones. The plan was to put the pig in the hole, cover it with charcoal and then bury it and let it cook over night. Someone saw it done like this on TV – how hard could it be, right?
Another girl and I attempted to make tortilla chips. We had another person making the salsa and the vegetarians were making bean burgers. We wanted to make corn tortilla chips, but couldn’t find any corn flour–an oddity because the Togolese staple, pâte, which they eat 2-3 a day is made with farine de mais. The marché sells to corn kernels and then everyone grinds it into flour at home. You’d think someone would get the idea to sell already ground corn flour... So instead we used regular flour, added salt, oil and water, and fried up small pieces in a frying pan. It took forever but turned out wonderfully. They weren’t crisp, more like pita bread, but everyone thought that they were delicious. Togolese make an oil with palm trees called huile rouge, and it gave the chips a fun and patriotic red color. And just as we were finishing up the rest of the food, the guys dug up the pig.
It turned out that the coals hadn’t been evenly placed around the pig and the part that hadn’t been cooked had begun to rot. At this point, most people lost their appetite for pork, but some were more determined. The guard stepped in and helped the guys cook it using more charcoal and placing it strategically. After another hour or so, they took out the pig, brought it into the kitchen and began to carve it. There were three piles–cooked, rotted, and good but could be cooked some more. One guy brought some homemade BBQ sauce from South Carolina and it went perfectly with the pork, although I was only able to have a few pieces. Not sure if I was full from munching on all the other food or if I had a mental block, but I at least tried it. There was a lot of meat left over so we offered it to the guard and the (non-Muslim) formateurs. Overall, the day was a success. It was fun and turned into a great story. I titled this post “lord of the flies” and, if you’ve read that book, my 4th of July was eerily similar.
*Shout out to all those who were at my parent’s house for the 4th. I just received what you guys wrote to me and I loved it. It was nice to hear from everyone and it made it seem like I received a stack of letters that day. Thanks!
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