The Big Market

I've never read the Tennessee Williams play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", nor have I seen the movie. And although I am sure it's not really about a furry little kitty, I can now say that I have heard a cat on a hot tin roof- One just flew by my window in pursuit of another and did it ever make a racket attempting to run on the tin roof below me!!!

But on to this day's adventures...
After finishing up Science and History this morning, I went with Raulene (our cook) to the big market to get ingrediants to make sauces for the rice we eat every day for lunch. I've been a couple times now, but every time I seem to see more than before. You can get everything from fruits and veggies to meat. You can get your hair and nails done, buy material to make dresses, purchase used plastic bottles (it's the African way of recycling!), or buy back your hub cabs that were stolen off your car. I was on this little venture with Raulene so I could practice my French... yes, from the cook who loves to play jokes on people and tries to get them a little riled. (Really, she does- she loves to make Hadassah cry.) Not the greatest person to learn a language from as I am easily confused. But Becky gave her strict instructions to speak slowly to me and not try to intentionally confuse me. So, I spent the morning following her around repeating all these French words for foods that I've never seen before in my life and look all the same to me. She was very kind and didn't get too angry when I refused to stick my finger in the communal peanut butter bowl to taste the gritty stuff. So there I was merrily following her along on her quest for leafy greans and spices when I suddenly realize we are surrounded by caged chickens... and even though I completely tolerated the nasty slabs of meat in the market with flies covering them, and saw the little bitty goat heads still covered in fur and was more stalwart than I imagined I could be... the live chickens were my undoing, and I couldn't fool Raulene who saw my teary eyes behind my sunglasses. She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the side of the road where she looked all concerned and jabbered away in incomprehensible French. Her worried look only seemed to make things worse, but I tried hard to smile and tell her to "go get her poulet." She finally left my side after declaring to all around I was crying over the chickens and returned a few moments later meatless. I thought we would come back for it, but we never did, and I was so worried that my few tears had somehow dampered her agenda... but I should have known better. Instead of bringing back live chickens as she had planned, she just asked the guy to bring them by all prepared. I know I'm overly sensitive about this, but it's so different from going in the grocery store and it's all done for you. Just watching people buy the birds and carry them around by their feet- oh, it just seems so horribly cruel. You can be sure my lunch that afternoon was purely vegetarian. (For all my intentions to eat vegetarian while here, they have been brutally cast aside by Becky who from the beginning when I first announced it, started shoving meat in front of me. And not wanting to offend her, I complied...) After coming back from the market, Raulene promptly enlightened Becky of her chicken-less state, and Becky informed me it was her goal to desensitize me in case I was ever caught in a time of war and had to kill chickens to survive. However, that afternoon as Nadia was reading to Becky, her story just happened to be about good old Daniel Webster who when he was a little boy in New "Hamster" (as Nadia would say) used his great oratory skills to liberate a woodchuck who was about to be killed. He and his brother had caught the little creature, and when a disagreement arose as to how to dispose of him, their father, the county judge, decided they should act as lawyers representing each side, and he would be their judge. Daniel's plea to free the woodchuck won out and it was his first case in what became a very successful career as a lawyer and statesman. And Becky finally conceded that maybe it's not such a bad thing I'm overly sensitive, and I agreed that I could use a little desensitizaiton- just not over live animals.
Hmmm... who knew I could write so much about chickens? But Gloria, if you're reading this, I still don't intend to pluck feathers, and will avoid war at all costs just so I don't have to chop any chicken heads off. (Although, I'm pretty sure if I got caught in any war out here, there wouldn't be an overabundance of chickens waiting to die.) And Lizbeth, if you're reading this, since I know how much you love my little history lessons (hehe :), here's Daniel Webster's plea for the woodchuck- just for you! :)

"God made the woodchuck. He made him to live in the bright sunlight and the pure air. He made him to enjoy the free fields and the green woods. The woodchuck has a right to his life, for God gave it to him...
"The woodchuck is not a fierce animal like the wolf or the fox. He lives in quiet and peace. A hole in the side of a hill, and a little food, is all he wants. He has harmed nothing but a few plants, which he ate to keep himself alive. He has a right to life, to food, to liberty; and we have no right to say he shall not have them.
"Look at his soft, pleading eyes. See him tremble with fear. He cannot speak for himself, and this is the only way in which he can plead for the life that is so sweet to him. Shall we be so cruel as to kill him? Shall we be so selfish as to take from him the life that God gave him?"