The Old Gaol Slaughter

One day in January, a message arrived: "You are cordially invited to the chicken slaughter at the Old Gaol as decapitator general. 6pm sharp." I was invited to slaughter a chicken.

The background to this began in northern Ghana in 2007. A village woman gave my co-intern Leemor and me the gift of a white chicken. We had to decide what to do with the chicken, and had a conversation about how people have become increasingly disconnected from what we eat. Most of us buy our food in shops, where meat appears in shiny packages and fruits and vegetables are organized into neat piles. Many people have never eaten something they have killed or planted themselves. What is meat? When you buy it, you give little thought to the life cycle of the animal or how it was slaughtered. Living with Leemor that year increased my awareness of how meat is prepared, since she ate only kosher foods. In Milan, I used to shop at a fantastic gastronomy shop called "Buzzi", whose owner said he bought his salami from a place that slaughtered the pigs on Saturday because the animals were more relaxed and so the meat was sweeter.

Leemor and I never got to slaughter our white chicken. Through a series of mishaps, we lost the chicken to a local boy who had promised to take care of it overnight then slaughter and cook it with us the next day. Since then, I have had the desire to eat meat that I have slaughtered myself. Some would call this morbid, but should I have the right to eat meat if I can't face the animal?

One night last September while drinking at the Old Gaol, this subject somehow came up. A few days later, Emily showed up at my door with a chicken for me! However, the chicken was young and had to grow up. I couldn't take care of it in my apartment (although I tried for a few nights), so I gave it to someone to raise for me in the township, where it is currently still growing fat.

Four months later, some friends decided (for me) that this was going to be the night. They bought a chicken and instructed me to show up at the Old Gaol. When I arrived, I was presented with an ax and a drawing on top of a tree stump to practise my aim. After a few practice swings, we went to get the chicken.

Killing a chicken is not as easy as you'd think. Facing the chicken on the chopping block, I suddenly trembled with anxiety and adrenaline as I realized I was going to take its life. I pushed myself to go through with it. The ax was heavy and the neck area was surprisingly small, so I needed both force and precision. The first blow lacked both. Luckily, the second and third blows succeeded. The chicken landed on the ground, its legs moving futilely in the air for a few seconds. It was dead, and my heart pounded with relief.

We plucked the chicken by plunging it into a pail of hot water and cleaned its insides. It was fascinating to see how the animal was made up; there was a sachet of uneaten maize in its throat and a cluster of underdeveloped eggs in its belly (which could be eaten and had whites and yolk just like mature eggs). I thought of how we humans are so similar; we also have a throat, stomach, liver, intestines. We fried the insides, and the boys fired up a braai for the meat. The running chicken became a drumstick in my plate. Thus the circle of one small life.