Standing over the campfire with beads of sweat forming across my forehead, I was thankful for the setting sun providing instant relief behind the Acacia trees. Somehow the sun seemed to set faster in the Serengeti than back home. Thieving baboons circled cautiously around the perimeter of my tent and fire; most likely waiting for me to turn my back long enough to steal my precious stash of avocados. A rarity food item that I purchase in bulk when at the market in Lamadi.
I was cooking rice and yams over the campfire stove for dinner; just as I had for the past eight days. At this point, my Tanzanian friend and I were growing tired of starchy food, and craved more protein. Our diet for over a week while filming in the areas surrounding the Serengeti had consisted of yams, bananas, occasional avocados, rice, and ugali (a traditional cornmeal dough staple in Tanzania). As I was taking the rice off of the campfire, my friend came running down the dirt road cradling a live chicken in his arms.
“I bought hen! I bought you hen! I bought us a hen!” He proclaimed rushing towards me. My Swahili was very basic at the time, and while my friend continued to help me learn Swahili, he always made an effort to communicate in English.
Earlier this afternoon, before he left for the market, he promised to buy us meat to cook for tomorrow. I had envisioned him buying cuts of chicken or goat from the butcher for a barbeque. Without thinking, I had assumed the local butcher’s shop would be a separate person than the farmer who cared for the free-range chickens and goats. In this moment I realized that I was wrong. The Tanzanian equivalent of buying meat was not the same as my Western means of purchasing cuts from a butcher.
Running towards me in a cloud of dust, he exclaimed, “Kuku! Kuku! Kuku!” The word for chicken in Swahili, Kuku, was surprisingly enough one of the first words I had learned.
I don’t have the best Poker face, so my shock must have been extremely noticeable as he elaborated, “We will cook the hen tomorrow morning to eat for lunch and dinner.”
I was not delusional to the way meat appears on my plate. I grew up in a farming town, and was vegetarian for years because of it. I understand the natural cycle of life. However, the close personal proximity of killing a live chicken to eat for the next day was new for me. Even though I knew we needed more nutrition than rice to make it through the next 12 days, I couldn’t bear the thought of killing this chicken.
The hen’s wings were flapping in a fit of stress, and my heart hurt knowing her fate. Before my friend could place the chicken on the dusty ground near the shrubs, I rushed over to cradle her. To his amusement, I sat down to eat my rice dinner with the hen on my lap. As we sat by the fire scraping up the last of the rice from the tin pot, I felt the chicken’s heartbeat slow down to a calm state. She wasn’t the only one who felt calmer; sitting with her on my lap had given me a release from the week’s constant anxiety. I looked deep into the chicken’s eyes, and I knew what needed to be done in order for me to make peace with her being my dinner for tomorrow.
“He shook his head laughing as we retreated to our separate tents, he with a book in his hands, and me with a hen in my arms.”
I brushed my teeth and washed my face with the hen tucked under my left arm. She didn’t seem to mind that I had splashed a little bit of water on her feathers from the water spicket by the outhouse. My friend insisted that we leave the chicken in the car to protect her from the Serengeti’s night predators currently on the prowl around us. I had a different plan.
He shook his head laughing as we retreated to our separate tents, he with a book in his hands, and me with a hen in my arms. That night I fell asleep with the chicken at my feet inside my tent. I had woken up a few times to pet her throughout the night; hoping to provide her with the most love I could on her last day.
I knew I was a contradiction, sleeping next to my dinner, but it was important to me that the hen remained stress free. As we awoke the next morning, I begrudgingly handed the peaceful hen over to the village cook who had offered to prepare the chicken for us.
“Please do it quickly,” I said. “I don’t want her to feel pain or be scared.”
At first I assumed the cook found this request to be absurd, but he kindly invited me to take part in a Swahili prayer of gratitude for the life and nourishment of the hen. He assured me that she would feel no pain. After the prayer he cradled her and walked off. I couldn’t be around when she died, so I laced up my running shoes and went out along the outskirts of the National Park. Trying to make peace with this very first-hand experience of killing a feathered friend.
People around the world care for their livestock for years, and then have to kill them for food. As that thought crossed my mind, I realized that I might not have the right skill set to be a cattle, goat, or chicken farmer.
“Five hours later and I was faced with a choice: To eat my friend or not?”
Five hours later and I was faced with a choice: To eat my friend or not?
Subsisting on 1000 calories or less a day for over a week, swayed me to decide on the first choice. It wasn’t an easy decision, but the cycle of life left me with a deeper appreciation for eating local, ethically, and sustainably. A practice that I have brought home with me since my time in the Serengeti. I’m not a vegetarian, but when I eat meat I continue to know my source and research farmers.
However, it is still extremely difficult for me to eat “Kuku” to this day.
