The Other White Meat

If you’ve been following my blog, you know it’s hot here… WAY. TOO. HOT.

A few days ago, I looked at my thermometer, and it said 120 degrees. I saw it and laughed in a fit of hysterical incredulity. No way, right? It was officially only four degrees from being too hot for my thermometer to handle, and it was closer to boiling point than to zero… woah.

I was sitting at school a few days later watching this EPIC brush fire. It started two nights ago, and is still spewing ash into my house and backyard. Some teachers and I were speculating as to how it started, and some thought that someone had started the fire with a cigarette. One teacher spoke of a tree, which, when it gets hot enough, spontaneously combusts. He is convinced that the 120 degree day caused a tree to self-immolate, and in turn caused the massive destruction of the few trees we have left in the Gambia, and lots of cattle grazing areas.

The first full day of the fire, the village was eerily empty, and a fast moving parade of small boys was exiting to the bush. I asked someone where they were going and they said to hunt.

So, remember Bambi? That sad and scary scene where the fire starts a stampede of terrified creatures? I don’t know about you, but I really felt for those animals. Their strife was my strife.

If the typical Gambian had direction Bambi, it would’ve been a quite different movie. As soon as the fire started there would be a picture of a huge group of men turning to look off into the distance with a killer’s gleam in their eye, and then scattering to their respective compounds. As soon as they dispersed, there would be a montage of different men gathering their slingshots, sharpening their machetes, gathering stones, and riling up their dogs to join the hunt. The montage would probably be played over by The Eye of the Tiger, or We Will Rock You, or some other equally manly composition.

Then the killing would begin. The same frightened animals would be shown, but in this version, you would sympathize with the hunters. You would rejoice with every homeless animal killed for its meat.

As soon as the forest fire began, one of the teacher’s eyes widened and mouth started watering. With this massive exodus of all beasts large and small, he knew some lucky hunter would bag a bush pig.

Muslims are not allowed to eat pork. So, the few Christians in this predominantly Muslim country are consistently hungering for what they can rarely have. This particular teacher was particularly lucky, because some non-Muslim dog caught and killed a baby bush pig, and an opportunistic Muslim hunter found a buyer for it quickly.

The teacher, knowing that I am a non-Muslim, came to my house to invite me to partake in this succulent other white meat.

You have never, ever seen a more beastly display of table manners (that’s a misnomer, no one eats on or at a table here), until you se a Christian in a Muslim country get a hold of a forbidden meat that he constantly craves. (I say this now, but when I finally get back to a Chipotle in two years, I think it will be a similarly disgusting display of gluttony).

Five Christians gathered around a giant plate, onto which was dumped the puzzle pieces of an entire baby pig. Still scalding to the touch, they tore in.

Numerous times they uttered phrases of disbelief. “It’s a baby pig!”
“It’s bones are still soft!” they cheered.
“You can even eat the bones!” they joyously discovered.
I stuck around for about twenty minutes, and in that time, four men ate an entire pig, bones and all.

At the end, all that remained of the poor piglet were two shoulder blades, a few vertebrae, and the juices stewed away from the now-vanished creature.

Over the meal, the men talked about what a shame this forest fire is, but I could tell they were internally thanking their non-Muslim god for bringing them a juicy, succulent, bone-crunchingly delicious piece of forbidden meat.