Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Blood and Balls
Lidet is the Eritrean equivalent of Christmas. Most of the Christians in the country ignore 25th December but at Lidet the whole country is on the move as people visit their families for a full day of feasting. The date of Lidet is controversial this year. The Orthodox church says it falls on Wednesday 7th January while the Catholic church claims it is on the next day. The disagreement is something to do with 2004 being a leap year, so I'm told. It's a stroke of luck, because it means we have a two day holiday. Isak was brought up in the Coptic tradition so he will be celebrating on the 7th. I'm invited.
At any feast day, there should be meat. So in every compound there is a goat, sheep or -- for the rich -- cow tethered, awaiting its fate. Isak has bought a goat for 350 nfa and it's tethered calmly in his compound, unaware of its fate.
Prior to coming to Eritrea I had not eaten more than a couple of plates of meat in about 5 years. The meat here is, as far as I can tell, organic (livestock graze wherever they wander) and definitely free-range (they wander a lot: in and out of compounds, over roundabouts, through the school yard ... ), so I made the decision fairly early on to go back to eating meat to get a regular, easy source of protein. That decision has led to this moment ...
The clinical processing of meat in Britain means that very few meat eaters have ever seen an animal being slaughtered. In Eritrea, everybody has. I believe that I shouldn't eat meat unless I am prepared to be honest about the whole process. So I ask Isak if I can watch him kill the goat. If I can't watch then I will give up meat again.
Tuesday 6th and I'm round at Isak and Bared's for coffee. When I arrive, Isak is wearing a mischievous grin. "We're slaughtering the goat tonight". I rush back to fetch my camera.
Isak lays a piece of cloth on the sand of the yard. With the help of a couple of his neighbour's teeenage boys he pins the goat on its side on the cloth. One of the boys fetches a bucket. The goat is completely silent. It barely resists, just tensing against the pulling and shoving it receives. The neighbour's goat stands stiffly behind their balcony wall, peering nervously around it at the scene.
When the bucket is in place, Isak picks up a big kitchen knife and pulls back the goat's muzzle to expose its long neck. The goat snorts and its eyes start to roll but still it doesn't complain.
With a sawing motion, Isak starts to cut the goat's throat, just under the jaw bone. With the first cut, deep into the windpipe, the goat finally lets out a cry. But it isn't a goat-like cry. My heart leaps into my throat when the goat lets out a shout that sounds like a deep, gruff, very human "NO!".
The bucket catches the blood as Isak cuts into the spinal cord and the goat's life ebbs away. Its kicks get weaker but its eyes are still bright. I imagine I can see a kind of sad acceptance in them. Before the knife is completely through the goat's throat, Isak starts to cut into the skin around one of its ankles but I ask him to wait -- the goat is obviously still alive and aware of what is happening. He smiles and waits patiently until its eyes finally cloud over. I'm surprised at how long it takes to die.
I feel a strange mix of emotions. None of the revulsion I had been expecting. Instead, I am fascinated by the process of the slaughter and the reaction of the goat. I want to catch each detail of the moment and I take quite a few photographs. When the goat is dying, regret and elation chase each other across my mind. It's thrilling: an electric sense of power and vitality. The goat is dying and I am very much alive. It is easy to understand the belief that the killer takes on the power of the victim. While the goat lies dying, I feel invigorated. But I also feel sadness and compassion for the goat. It is an animal as I am; more like me than the insects I have avoided killing and the scorpion I couldn't avoid killing. I don't know if I believe in the idea of a soul but, as it's life ends, it appears very much as if the goat has a soul that is preparing to depart. I seem to see expressions running across its face; first fear, then comprehension, a flicker of fight then sad resignation, finally the light behind its eyes dims. But all of this might just be my subjectivisation in observing a complex system shutting down. Whichever it is, it is the same process that I myself will go through one day.
Isak and the boys helping him are excited and animated. Babies and toddlers belonging to the neighbours walk or crawl around the compound, stopping to watch occasionally out of mild curiosity. Barhed teases that I'm taking so many photos of the butchering but I haven't taken any of her as she prepares injera. I feel slightly ridiculous heaping so much meaning onto the event when small children barely give it a passing glance. Perhaps it is a privilege to reflect in this way, perhaps it's a superfluous luxury.
Now they are skinning the goat. It is hanging by its back legs from the centre of a tall stepladder, and Isak and the boys are cutting around the ankles then down the back legs and along the belly. As they cut, they pull hard on the skin. It's a very physical, exhausting process. The skin doesn't come away easily. They use their weight to tug at it, sometimes lifting a foot and bracing it against the body to give some leverage. When they do this, it looks almost as if they are trying to step inside the skin, adding to my swirling impressions of power and magic as goat hair drifts in the air like fallout. In my naivety, and slightly hallucinatory state of mind, I am surprised that the goat's body remains intact as the skin is removed. I think I expected the innards to come flowing out, but the translucent membrane around the body holds everything in.
Now it is no longer a goat. It is meat: muscles, bones and tendons and a bag of tubes and sponges. The head -- still attached and intact -- is no longer the focal point, no longer the centre of a soul or system: it is an ornament.
Another bucket is placed under the corpse as Isak cuts into the membrane. Now the internal organs come flowing out. One of the boys takes the bucket away and sets to work cleaning the intestines and stomach. He picks up one end of the intestine and squeezes slowly along it, compacting the contents until they eventually emerge in a slop at the other end, then pouring water down the tube and repeating the process. What comes out is unmistakeable: half-processed food, and shit.
Meanwhile, Isak is at work on the meat and bones. He pulls the carcass apart piece by piece. It's strange that after all I've seen I still squirm at the "crack" made by the ribs as he wrenches them one by one from the spine. Sometimes Isak cannot quite get a grip on the slippery ribs so he leans forward and clenches his teeth around the bone to tear it away. An incredibly bestial act.
Finally, all that remains of the goat is the muscle, bones and head, and two huge testicles hanging from their cords halfway down the body. "They're a lot more impressive than mine!", I say. Isak laughs.
The slaughter over, we move inside for jebena. While we're drinking and talking, Isak takes the intestines and starts to plait them. He ties a knot, makes a loop, then pulls the rest of the tube through and repeats the process. Throughout the coffee he continues to weave until he has several metres of plaited gut in his bowl.
The coffee over, Barhed chops up some onions, tomatoes and garlic into a fine puree then pours in the whole bowl of blood from the goat. Cooked, the blood turns grey and loses most of its liquid so that when it is tipped out onto injera it is the consistency of scrambled egg. It is salty and earthy and rich.
Now comes the delicacy. Barhed places the charcoal stove in the middle and Isak leaves the room. He comes back and places something on the charcoal. Two things: the testicles. They are pure white rugby balls, about three or four inches long. They spit and crackle as they cook in the charcoal. When I try one, the burnt charcoal crisp and tang gives way to a texture like firm hard-boiled egg-white and a distinctly eggy taste. There is an edge of musk to the taste as well.
When I'm back in my bed at the end of the evening, I dream of blood and fur and bone. And that defiant shout of "NO!".
Next day is Lidet. I arrive in time for breakfast: Dlot -- fried intestines -- with injera. They are chewy and a bit tasteless but I smile my way through them. Then some coffee, followed by sewa made from dates. The date sewa is delicious: a sweet, clear yellow beer that is just mildly alcoholic. We also have some traditional sewa, made by a neighbour. Sitting and talking with Isak, Barhed and the various people who turn up throughout the day, and playing with baby Esrom. The remains of the goat are hanging by the window, drying.
As the afternoon turns we eat more dlot, then zigni -- boiled meat in a spicy sauce. The zigni is delicious, with a strong chilli heat. More date sewa, more traditional sewa, and even a touch of araki. Barhed's father turns up for lunch. He doesn't eat much food because he has just come from another meal, but his consumption of date sewa is prodigious. He doesn't even try to speak Tigrinya with me, instead he uses exclusively mime. This makes it very difficult for me to understand what he is saying, and Isak is none the wiser as to what his eccentric gestures might mean. I'm trying hard not to laugh as he mugs wildly. We are talking about his stick -- the stick that most Tigrinya and Tigre men carry -- and I think he promises to make me one. I think.
As the evening approaches, Isak suggests he and I go for a walk. I know what that means, and sure enough we don't get any further than the local bar. It's run by Elen, who has returned from living in Germany. I'm quite pleased that I can hold a fair conversation in German with her daughter when we arrive. After six beers each I can no longer understand a word she says. But Isak and I have had an excellent evening and we make our way back to more zigni then, finally, bed.
The next day I feel very ill. I have diarrhea and stomach cramps, and perhaps a mild hangover. I spend most of the day curled up on my bed, missing an appointment for more Lidet celebrations at a teacher's house, and an evening of coffee and food at Isak's. I am still sick right up until Friday afternoon, when it clears up, fortunately because Jo is coming over the next day. The goat's revenge.
At any feast day, there should be meat. So in every compound there is a goat, sheep or -- for the rich -- cow tethered, awaiting its fate. Isak has bought a goat for 350 nfa and it's tethered calmly in his compound, unaware of its fate.
Prior to coming to Eritrea I had not eaten more than a couple of plates of meat in about 5 years. The meat here is, as far as I can tell, organic (livestock graze wherever they wander) and definitely free-range (they wander a lot: in and out of compounds, over roundabouts, through the school yard ... ), so I made the decision fairly early on to go back to eating meat to get a regular, easy source of protein. That decision has led to this moment ...
The clinical processing of meat in Britain means that very few meat eaters have ever seen an animal being slaughtered. In Eritrea, everybody has. I believe that I shouldn't eat meat unless I am prepared to be honest about the whole process. So I ask Isak if I can watch him kill the goat. If I can't watch then I will give up meat again.
Tuesday 6th and I'm round at Isak and Bared's for coffee. When I arrive, Isak is wearing a mischievous grin. "We're slaughtering the goat tonight". I rush back to fetch my camera.
Isak lays a piece of cloth on the sand of the yard. With the help of a couple of his neighbour's teeenage boys he pins the goat on its side on the cloth. One of the boys fetches a bucket. The goat is completely silent. It barely resists, just tensing against the pulling and shoving it receives. The neighbour's goat stands stiffly behind their balcony wall, peering nervously around it at the scene.
When the bucket is in place, Isak picks up a big kitchen knife and pulls back the goat's muzzle to expose its long neck. The goat snorts and its eyes start to roll but still it doesn't complain.
With a sawing motion, Isak starts to cut the goat's throat, just under the jaw bone. With the first cut, deep into the windpipe, the goat finally lets out a cry. But it isn't a goat-like cry. My heart leaps into my throat when the goat lets out a shout that sounds like a deep, gruff, very human "NO!".
The bucket catches the blood as Isak cuts into the spinal cord and the goat's life ebbs away. Its kicks get weaker but its eyes are still bright. I imagine I can see a kind of sad acceptance in them. Before the knife is completely through the goat's throat, Isak starts to cut into the skin around one of its ankles but I ask him to wait -- the goat is obviously still alive and aware of what is happening. He smiles and waits patiently until its eyes finally cloud over. I'm surprised at how long it takes to die.
I feel a strange mix of emotions. None of the revulsion I had been expecting. Instead, I am fascinated by the process of the slaughter and the reaction of the goat. I want to catch each detail of the moment and I take quite a few photographs. When the goat is dying, regret and elation chase each other across my mind. It's thrilling: an electric sense of power and vitality. The goat is dying and I am very much alive. It is easy to understand the belief that the killer takes on the power of the victim. While the goat lies dying, I feel invigorated. But I also feel sadness and compassion for the goat. It is an animal as I am; more like me than the insects I have avoided killing and the scorpion I couldn't avoid killing. I don't know if I believe in the idea of a soul but, as it's life ends, it appears very much as if the goat has a soul that is preparing to depart. I seem to see expressions running across its face; first fear, then comprehension, a flicker of fight then sad resignation, finally the light behind its eyes dims. But all of this might just be my subjectivisation in observing a complex system shutting down. Whichever it is, it is the same process that I myself will go through one day.
Isak and the boys helping him are excited and animated. Babies and toddlers belonging to the neighbours walk or crawl around the compound, stopping to watch occasionally out of mild curiosity. Barhed teases that I'm taking so many photos of the butchering but I haven't taken any of her as she prepares injera. I feel slightly ridiculous heaping so much meaning onto the event when small children barely give it a passing glance. Perhaps it is a privilege to reflect in this way, perhaps it's a superfluous luxury.
Now they are skinning the goat. It is hanging by its back legs from the centre of a tall stepladder, and Isak and the boys are cutting around the ankles then down the back legs and along the belly. As they cut, they pull hard on the skin. It's a very physical, exhausting process. The skin doesn't come away easily. They use their weight to tug at it, sometimes lifting a foot and bracing it against the body to give some leverage. When they do this, it looks almost as if they are trying to step inside the skin, adding to my swirling impressions of power and magic as goat hair drifts in the air like fallout. In my naivety, and slightly hallucinatory state of mind, I am surprised that the goat's body remains intact as the skin is removed. I think I expected the innards to come flowing out, but the translucent membrane around the body holds everything in.
Now it is no longer a goat. It is meat: muscles, bones and tendons and a bag of tubes and sponges. The head -- still attached and intact -- is no longer the focal point, no longer the centre of a soul or system: it is an ornament.
Another bucket is placed under the corpse as Isak cuts into the membrane. Now the internal organs come flowing out. One of the boys takes the bucket away and sets to work cleaning the intestines and stomach. He picks up one end of the intestine and squeezes slowly along it, compacting the contents until they eventually emerge in a slop at the other end, then pouring water down the tube and repeating the process. What comes out is unmistakeable: half-processed food, and shit.
Meanwhile, Isak is at work on the meat and bones. He pulls the carcass apart piece by piece. It's strange that after all I've seen I still squirm at the "crack" made by the ribs as he wrenches them one by one from the spine. Sometimes Isak cannot quite get a grip on the slippery ribs so he leans forward and clenches his teeth around the bone to tear it away. An incredibly bestial act.
Finally, all that remains of the goat is the muscle, bones and head, and two huge testicles hanging from their cords halfway down the body. "They're a lot more impressive than mine!", I say. Isak laughs.
The slaughter over, we move inside for jebena. While we're drinking and talking, Isak takes the intestines and starts to plait them. He ties a knot, makes a loop, then pulls the rest of the tube through and repeats the process. Throughout the coffee he continues to weave until he has several metres of plaited gut in his bowl.
The coffee over, Barhed chops up some onions, tomatoes and garlic into a fine puree then pours in the whole bowl of blood from the goat. Cooked, the blood turns grey and loses most of its liquid so that when it is tipped out onto injera it is the consistency of scrambled egg. It is salty and earthy and rich.
Now comes the delicacy. Barhed places the charcoal stove in the middle and Isak leaves the room. He comes back and places something on the charcoal. Two things: the testicles. They are pure white rugby balls, about three or four inches long. They spit and crackle as they cook in the charcoal. When I try one, the burnt charcoal crisp and tang gives way to a texture like firm hard-boiled egg-white and a distinctly eggy taste. There is an edge of musk to the taste as well.
When I'm back in my bed at the end of the evening, I dream of blood and fur and bone. And that defiant shout of "NO!".
Next day is Lidet. I arrive in time for breakfast: Dlot -- fried intestines -- with injera. They are chewy and a bit tasteless but I smile my way through them. Then some coffee, followed by sewa made from dates. The date sewa is delicious: a sweet, clear yellow beer that is just mildly alcoholic. We also have some traditional sewa, made by a neighbour. Sitting and talking with Isak, Barhed and the various people who turn up throughout the day, and playing with baby Esrom. The remains of the goat are hanging by the window, drying.
As the afternoon turns we eat more dlot, then zigni -- boiled meat in a spicy sauce. The zigni is delicious, with a strong chilli heat. More date sewa, more traditional sewa, and even a touch of araki. Barhed's father turns up for lunch. He doesn't eat much food because he has just come from another meal, but his consumption of date sewa is prodigious. He doesn't even try to speak Tigrinya with me, instead he uses exclusively mime. This makes it very difficult for me to understand what he is saying, and Isak is none the wiser as to what his eccentric gestures might mean. I'm trying hard not to laugh as he mugs wildly. We are talking about his stick -- the stick that most Tigrinya and Tigre men carry -- and I think he promises to make me one. I think.
As the evening approaches, Isak suggests he and I go for a walk. I know what that means, and sure enough we don't get any further than the local bar. It's run by Elen, who has returned from living in Germany. I'm quite pleased that I can hold a fair conversation in German with her daughter when we arrive. After six beers each I can no longer understand a word she says. But Isak and I have had an excellent evening and we make our way back to more zigni then, finally, bed.
The next day I feel very ill. I have diarrhea and stomach cramps, and perhaps a mild hangover. I spend most of the day curled up on my bed, missing an appointment for more Lidet celebrations at a teacher's house, and an evening of coffee and food at Isak's. I am still sick right up until Friday afternoon, when it clears up, fortunately because Jo is coming over the next day. The goat's revenge.
Comments:
Post a Comment
