The cows stomach looked very familiar. I had actually never seen the stomach of a cow before, so I definitely recognized this one. The last time I had seen it a young man from the village was emptying it of chewed cud. Not rinsing it. Not washing it. Using his fingers to pick out 80 percent of the cud. The entire thing folded up on itself like a rubbery blanket, creamy in colour, with a vague green tinge that was the cut. And the surface isn't smooth. It is covered by rubbery little protrutions, each about the thickness and size of a match head.
The man next to me cut off a piece as big as his tongue and chewed it happily.
Well, this is what we came for, so I followed suit.
Man, it tasted terrible. It was rubbery, and grizzly and tasted just like the cud it had held a few hours earlier. And bitter. Very, terribly, disgsutingly bitter.
And the texture made it even worse. You couldn't crunch it down, or swallow it whole. This needed work, it needed chewing. A lot of chewing. Flavour releasing chewing.
When I finally swallowed it I was asked how it was.
"Terrible" I answered, "bitter and disgusting"
This was sign language everyone understood. Much laughter.
Then, just to save face and keep up my side, I cut off another piece and repeated the whole procedure. This was "pudding", and there were two courses still to come.
After the funeral ceremony had ended, the food was brought in. The women and young men formed a line from the giant black cooking pots, and each plate was passed from hand to hand, until it reached a lap.
You were expected to have your own clasp knife, and there were some spoons to share out when required.
The first plate arrived. I thought it was the only one, so made the mistake of eating it all. I was pretty full. Take a metal plate. Fill half with rice, and half with a samp & mielie mix. Build up a bed about as thick as your thumb. Then ladle on some stewed meat, two or three chunks. Then, take a coffee mug of warm animal fat and pour it over everything. This wasn't too bad if you drained off most of the fat. I had some mutton and beef. Nothing scary. The man next to me had what looked like a thick white piece of rubber on his plate. I asked where this was from and he indicated the back of the neck. I assumed it was a tendon of some sort. Anyway, I tried this and it tasted just like it looked.
This was followed by a steaming cup of tea and a doorstopper of Xhosa bread. Women would arrive out of teh talking, laughing jostling crowd and drop plates on your lap. Dogs were trying their luck and every now and then, through the noise, you would hear a yelp as one took too big a liberty.
Once the tea was finished, a man came around and placed branches of leaves at our feet. About a bunch for a group of four of five men. You all formed a rough circle around this. This was the plate for your next course. Another man came past and piled raw meat onto the leaves. We got some liver, intestines, and strips of steak. The youngster amonst the group then took this off to braai (BBQ).
While he was gone, another man came past and put a large metal plate at our feet with more cuts of meat. This was actaully the best tasting of the lot. It had stewed for far longer and the meat was much more tender. I was so full though I didn't really enjoy it. I was just surviving. making sure I kept up with the rest.
You basically reached down, grabbed a big bit of meat in your hands, and cut pieces off with your clasp knife and put directly into your mouth.
Just as I finished this, and thought I could do no more, the raw meat returned having been braaied. It was very over done. Very. Anyway, amonst lots of back slapping and instructions to "eat" "eat" I set to. The liver was pretty good. The intestine was completly crap. It was white on the outside, and about the size of a pork sausage. Inside was a different story. It had runny, cooked shit in it. Literally. It tasted and smelled pretty bad, I won't lie. But I fought through it to much laughter and smirking.
That is when the stomach arrived.
But there was more to come. The stomach was followed by three of four big bones being dropped onto out plate of leaves. We hacked off what meat was visible and then the bones were cracked open and yellow morrow ladled out with the flat of your knife.
I was so overloaded by this stage. Buut this meat was the most rubbery of all, and each mouthfull had a fine grating of course pieces of bone that you had to spit out afterwards.
I finally said no to the half litre of sour porridge that was the last course.
I burped cows stomache for about two days.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Burying the coffin
We then all washed ourselves and cleaned up from the cutting up of the meat, we headed through the mielie fields and back to the gravesite to continue digging. When I arrived the Incubator vehicle was just leaving having dropped the coffin at the gravesite.
This was a much more sombre affair than the day before.
The men again each took a turn at digging. But this time there was no banter or teasing like there had been the day before. The starkness of the coffin, right there, only meters away, was like a mirror refelcting yor realities and fears. About your own tangibility, and that of you rown children. And yet, standing there looking around me at these men of various ages who had all grown up together, I became aware that they all shared an incredible sense of belonging, of family, of tribe. To me there was an strong sense of bonded togetherness that I have never seen before. There was such a strong sense of community, that as an outsider was so apparent to me.
Looking over at the small white coffin, it was as though they were all here to look after on of their own. To make sure his journey was completed. Thye had all taken the time to come and do this, knowing that it would be done for them when it was their turn.
And even for the child's family, it was not something they had to face alone. They were surrounded by such a strong sense of community, they were central to their entire communities focus.
Once the grave was deep enough, a maternal uncle of the young boy opened the coffin and showed his face to two elders. They then gently covered his face, first with what looked like a white paper towel, and then they gently closed a blanket over his face and reclosed the coffin.
On of the elders then spoke for a few minutes, but I was unable to understand what they were saying.
Once the coffin was laid in the grave a bag was brought forward with the child’s sleeping mat, blanket and a full set of clothes. The sleeping mat and the blanket were gently spread over the coffin, and then each item of clothing was sliced with a knife, and then placed alongside the coffin. On top of this lengths of wood were laid to form a covering to protect them all from the earth.
Then all of the men helped shovel in the soil until all that remained was a mound of earth indicating the grave. While the last of the soil was being shovelled in the child’s shoes and belt were also cut and thrown into the grave.
Into the mound they planted several aloes to indicate the site of the grave to community members who were not present and who might like to visit the grave at a future date.
While all this was happening the women were gathered in two groups and sat about 50 meters way up hill on the grass. They never spoke or made any sound that I was aware of from where I was standing. They were dressed colourfully, wrapped in blankets and with their heads wrapped in scarves.
The men then left the gravesite and moved up the hill past the women and back towards the marquee where the funeral service and feast would take place. We all filed back into the tent where we washed our hands and had tea and a thick doorstopper of Xhosa bread.
This was a much more sombre affair than the day before.
The men again each took a turn at digging. But this time there was no banter or teasing like there had been the day before. The starkness of the coffin, right there, only meters away, was like a mirror refelcting yor realities and fears. About your own tangibility, and that of you rown children. And yet, standing there looking around me at these men of various ages who had all grown up together, I became aware that they all shared an incredible sense of belonging, of family, of tribe. To me there was an strong sense of bonded togetherness that I have never seen before. There was such a strong sense of community, that as an outsider was so apparent to me.
Looking over at the small white coffin, it was as though they were all here to look after on of their own. To make sure his journey was completed. Thye had all taken the time to come and do this, knowing that it would be done for them when it was their turn.
And even for the child's family, it was not something they had to face alone. They were surrounded by such a strong sense of community, they were central to their entire communities focus.
Once the grave was deep enough, a maternal uncle of the young boy opened the coffin and showed his face to two elders. They then gently covered his face, first with what looked like a white paper towel, and then they gently closed a blanket over his face and reclosed the coffin.
On of the elders then spoke for a few minutes, but I was unable to understand what they were saying.
Once the coffin was laid in the grave a bag was brought forward with the child’s sleeping mat, blanket and a full set of clothes. The sleeping mat and the blanket were gently spread over the coffin, and then each item of clothing was sliced with a knife, and then placed alongside the coffin. On top of this lengths of wood were laid to form a covering to protect them all from the earth.
Then all of the men helped shovel in the soil until all that remained was a mound of earth indicating the grave. While the last of the soil was being shovelled in the child’s shoes and belt were also cut and thrown into the grave.
Into the mound they planted several aloes to indicate the site of the grave to community members who were not present and who might like to visit the grave at a future date.
While all this was happening the women were gathered in two groups and sat about 50 meters way up hill on the grass. They never spoke or made any sound that I was aware of from where I was standing. They were dressed colourfully, wrapped in blankets and with their heads wrapped in scarves.
The men then left the gravesite and moved up the hill past the women and back towards the marquee where the funeral service and feast would take place. We all filed back into the tent where we washed our hands and had tea and a thick doorstopper of Xhosa bread.
Funeral Second Day - Butchering the cow and the sheep
The next morning, just as I was about to leave the cottage to get to the grave site to finish digging, there was a knock on the door. It was another one of the men from the village who through sign language indicated that I should come with him as they were slaughtering a cow for the funeral feast. Unfortunately I arrived there just after the cow had been killed. I was really interested to see how it was done as Dave had told me that the villagers stabbed the cow at a spot on its spine just behind the head and that the cow simply collapsed without any noise or stress.
This really interested me as I do eat meat, and my decision to do so is based on five points:
How the animal lived (in this case the cow lived very happily and roamed freely and did all the things cows are meant to do)
How the animal died (quickly, humanely, painlessly and stress free – and close to where it lived, avoiding three days on a cattle truck without food and water)
How organic the animal is (that my meat is not pumped full of chemicals)
To minimise and eliminate any waste (eat everything, or give to somebody who will)
Never take more than you need (when fishing or foraging never take more than you need to)
So my idea is to acknowledge that I do eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy (and wear leather), then the least I can do is to try and follow some sort of humane guidelines. The five above are what I have set for myself, and I try to follow them wherever possible.
A sixth point would be – Never, ever eat McDonald's or KFC or anything similar.
Anyway, back to my morning.
When I arrived the cow was already dead. The deal was as follows:
Lie the cow on its back on the grass.
Skin it so that the skin forms a carpet under the carcass.
On the ground alongside the carcass place a sheet of corrugated metal roofing.
Cut of the legs and pass them to your friends who are waiting to cut the meat into pieces.
Slice off as much meat as you can until you are left with the sealed body cavity inside the ribs and the spine.
Use an axe to cut through the ribs.
Open the body cavity and extract everything, right down to the gall bladder, the intestines and the stomach.
Wash nothing.
Pick out shit and cud with your fingers till moderately clean.
After the cow we butchered a sheep. Here I was on more solid footing as I have killed my fair share of sheep when I worked for a sheep shearing team in Australia. I managed to get involved here and actually get my hands bloodied.
As before it felt appropriate to me to at least be prepared to kill whatever it is I was planning on eating.
This really interested me as I do eat meat, and my decision to do so is based on five points:
How the animal lived (in this case the cow lived very happily and roamed freely and did all the things cows are meant to do)
How the animal died (quickly, humanely, painlessly and stress free – and close to where it lived, avoiding three days on a cattle truck without food and water)
How organic the animal is (that my meat is not pumped full of chemicals)
To minimise and eliminate any waste (eat everything, or give to somebody who will)
Never take more than you need (when fishing or foraging never take more than you need to)
So my idea is to acknowledge that I do eat meat, fish, eggs, dairy (and wear leather), then the least I can do is to try and follow some sort of humane guidelines. The five above are what I have set for myself, and I try to follow them wherever possible.
A sixth point would be – Never, ever eat McDonald's or KFC or anything similar.
Anyway, back to my morning.
When I arrived the cow was already dead. The deal was as follows:
Lie the cow on its back on the grass.
Skin it so that the skin forms a carpet under the carcass.
On the ground alongside the carcass place a sheet of corrugated metal roofing.
Cut of the legs and pass them to your friends who are waiting to cut the meat into pieces.
Slice off as much meat as you can until you are left with the sealed body cavity inside the ribs and the spine.
Use an axe to cut through the ribs.
Open the body cavity and extract everything, right down to the gall bladder, the intestines and the stomach.
Wash nothing.
Pick out shit and cud with your fingers till moderately clean.
After the cow we butchered a sheep. Here I was on more solid footing as I have killed my fair share of sheep when I worked for a sheep shearing team in Australia. I managed to get involved here and actually get my hands bloodied.
As before it felt appropriate to me to at least be prepared to kill whatever it is I was planning on eating.
Day one of the Funeral
I have so much to write and need to find time this evening to get things down. What a change in mindset and culture. We have had an incredibly full few days as Sonja has mentioned. I am not sure quite where to start.
Maybe with the very sad picture of a father crying. For about 10 minutes he was sitting two chairs away from me at his sons funeral, before he went to sit with the family at the front of the gathering. But while he was next to me I noticed he was simply leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face resting on his hands. And he was quietly crying.
At that moment my heart broke and really went out to this man whose name I don't even know.
Until then being part of the whole funeral had been interesting and I had been observing it like one would a documentary. But suddenly it was real. And this man was weeping quietly next to me for his eight year old son who had drowned in the river the week before.
I went out quite early in the morning on about our third day there to collect some drift wood to hang from the rafters in the kitchen area. We put brass hooks into the wood and hang utensils from them. As I was walking along the beach, one of the villagers appeared on the edge of the bush and waved me over. Through mainly sign language and his broken English I gathered we had to go now to dig the grave for the young boy who had drowned.
We walked for about 20 minutes to the edge of a bushy area. There were already about a dozen village men there and everybody was talking and taking a turn at digging. The mood was not very sombre and the men were generally engaging in what seemed to be lighthearted banter and teasing each others digging skills. We all had a go at digging and made reasonable progress, even though the ground was quite hard. There was quite a lot of light rain and after this became a bit more heavy and frequent it was decided that we would finish the grave the next morning at 07h30.
We all headed up through the fields along paths past mielie fields (corn) and clusters of huts, heading to the family homestead of the young boy who had died. About 500 meters from the huts we stopped. The family had left two big containers of water for washing our hands, which we did before heading over to their homestead for tea.
We sat under the eaves of the huts sheltered from the rain by the overhanging thatch. Everybody had a smoke and a chat. Bloody hell, I missed my pipe. I was inhaling the aroma of rough tobacco rolled in whatever paper was on hand (generally newspaper or pages that looked suspiciously as though they came from school exercise books), and the smell was pure Africa and seemed perfectly suited to the misty rain and the huts around us on the rolling green hills.
When I started getting looks from a caucus of men I thought I was going to be politely asked to leave. And when I got beckoned over I thought this was definitely the case. However, all they wanted to know as if we could use my bakkie (pick-up) to go and fetch a big marquee in the village as they were worried about the weather for the funeral the next day. I explained that it was not a 4x4 and was certain to get stuck in the mud, but was happy to give it a go if we could bring about six strong men along to push when required.
My bakkie must have thought it had died and gone to bakkie-heaven. We spent the next hour slipping and slithering our way through mad, river beds, and charging through bushes. We got stuck a lot, and each time everybody would clamber out and push and bounce, and shout, and laugh, and shove our way clear. We arrived at a homestead, packed the bakkie to the hilt with tent poles, pegs, chairs and a massive marquee. The trip back was just as hairy and at one stage i had to charge up a very muddy hill about six times before I finally made it up. I thought my steering had snapped, because I could quite seriously twist my steering wheel through 360 degrees and not impact our direction in the slightest. We finally unloaded the tent amongst lots of hearty back slapping and reinacting of the ride.
Once the tent was up, we all sat inside and got served tea by the women. It was weak, milky and had about three heaped spoons of sugar added to each tin mug. Delicious. Then two women came in with a big bucket and a lot of tin and plastic bowls. We were each served a big bowl of a white milky looking mixture. The form was to again take two or three big heaped spoons of sugar and sprinkle this over the surface of the bowl. It was an incredibly sour mixture. I think it was made from mielie (corn) meal and water and allowed to go sour. The sugar made the first half litre okay, but the second half litre I really struggled to get down.
Then it was time to head back to our hut and try to make a bit of progress before the day ended.
On the way I passed a group of women heading up the hill carrying water on their heads. This is quite a steep hill. You walk up about 50 meters in height over a 500 meter distance. It is enough to make your legs aware that you are doing it, and your calves ache. Anyway, heading the group was my gorgeous wife. Her shorts were replaced with an ankle length skirt, and around her head she had a scarf very professionally wrapped. On her head was a 15 kilogram load of water. It was her third trip of five.
It left me wondering who had worked harder. I think driving the bakkie and putting up the large tent put me way out in the lead, and I beat her 5 kilometer carrying of water up steep hills, and washing countless bowls in cold water to serve us.
Anyway, later a blog about the day of the funeral and the slaughtering of the bull and the raw bulls stomach.
Yummy.
Maybe with the very sad picture of a father crying. For about 10 minutes he was sitting two chairs away from me at his sons funeral, before he went to sit with the family at the front of the gathering. But while he was next to me I noticed he was simply leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his face resting on his hands. And he was quietly crying.
At that moment my heart broke and really went out to this man whose name I don't even know.
Until then being part of the whole funeral had been interesting and I had been observing it like one would a documentary. But suddenly it was real. And this man was weeping quietly next to me for his eight year old son who had drowned in the river the week before.
I went out quite early in the morning on about our third day there to collect some drift wood to hang from the rafters in the kitchen area. We put brass hooks into the wood and hang utensils from them. As I was walking along the beach, one of the villagers appeared on the edge of the bush and waved me over. Through mainly sign language and his broken English I gathered we had to go now to dig the grave for the young boy who had drowned.
We walked for about 20 minutes to the edge of a bushy area. There were already about a dozen village men there and everybody was talking and taking a turn at digging. The mood was not very sombre and the men were generally engaging in what seemed to be lighthearted banter and teasing each others digging skills. We all had a go at digging and made reasonable progress, even though the ground was quite hard. There was quite a lot of light rain and after this became a bit more heavy and frequent it was decided that we would finish the grave the next morning at 07h30.
We all headed up through the fields along paths past mielie fields (corn) and clusters of huts, heading to the family homestead of the young boy who had died. About 500 meters from the huts we stopped. The family had left two big containers of water for washing our hands, which we did before heading over to their homestead for tea.
We sat under the eaves of the huts sheltered from the rain by the overhanging thatch. Everybody had a smoke and a chat. Bloody hell, I missed my pipe. I was inhaling the aroma of rough tobacco rolled in whatever paper was on hand (generally newspaper or pages that looked suspiciously as though they came from school exercise books), and the smell was pure Africa and seemed perfectly suited to the misty rain and the huts around us on the rolling green hills.
When I started getting looks from a caucus of men I thought I was going to be politely asked to leave. And when I got beckoned over I thought this was definitely the case. However, all they wanted to know as if we could use my bakkie (pick-up) to go and fetch a big marquee in the village as they were worried about the weather for the funeral the next day. I explained that it was not a 4x4 and was certain to get stuck in the mud, but was happy to give it a go if we could bring about six strong men along to push when required.
My bakkie must have thought it had died and gone to bakkie-heaven. We spent the next hour slipping and slithering our way through mad, river beds, and charging through bushes. We got stuck a lot, and each time everybody would clamber out and push and bounce, and shout, and laugh, and shove our way clear. We arrived at a homestead, packed the bakkie to the hilt with tent poles, pegs, chairs and a massive marquee. The trip back was just as hairy and at one stage i had to charge up a very muddy hill about six times before I finally made it up. I thought my steering had snapped, because I could quite seriously twist my steering wheel through 360 degrees and not impact our direction in the slightest. We finally unloaded the tent amongst lots of hearty back slapping and reinacting of the ride.
Once the tent was up, we all sat inside and got served tea by the women. It was weak, milky and had about three heaped spoons of sugar added to each tin mug. Delicious. Then two women came in with a big bucket and a lot of tin and plastic bowls. We were each served a big bowl of a white milky looking mixture. The form was to again take two or three big heaped spoons of sugar and sprinkle this over the surface of the bowl. It was an incredibly sour mixture. I think it was made from mielie (corn) meal and water and allowed to go sour. The sugar made the first half litre okay, but the second half litre I really struggled to get down.
Then it was time to head back to our hut and try to make a bit of progress before the day ended.
On the way I passed a group of women heading up the hill carrying water on their heads. This is quite a steep hill. You walk up about 50 meters in height over a 500 meter distance. It is enough to make your legs aware that you are doing it, and your calves ache. Anyway, heading the group was my gorgeous wife. Her shorts were replaced with an ankle length skirt, and around her head she had a scarf very professionally wrapped. On her head was a 15 kilogram load of water. It was her third trip of five.
It left me wondering who had worked harder. I think driving the bakkie and putting up the large tent put me way out in the lead, and I beat her 5 kilometer carrying of water up steep hills, and washing countless bowls in cold water to serve us.
Anyway, later a blog about the day of the funeral and the slaughtering of the bull and the raw bulls stomach.
Yummy.
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