This little piggy...

It all started when somebody realized it was time to start thinking about Thanksgiving.  Putting together a classic Turkey Day feast is a challenge in Kenya - the main obstacle being the main course.  Needless to say, plastic wrapped Butterball deliciousness complete with temperature pin are, well, nowhere to be found.  There are, however, if you look hard enough, plenty of real live birds walking around with no U.S. President to grant them clemency at the last minute.

I think you can see where this is going.

Yup.  You'll soon be reading about how Voldemort (The Gobbler?  We're still working on names.), our newest compound resident, will be roasty-toasty and on his way toward providing us with holiday nourishment.

Well, not this post.  But all this talk about our upcoming holiday got us thinking - mostly about other animals we could turn into food.  And that turned into a pig roast.

With this pig:

Oink!

Cute, no?  (Say no - you'll be happier if you find him ugly.)

We kept him at a friend's house out of respect for some of our vegetarian colleagues.  That morning, we went for the slaughter.  A man named Amos came, took a look at the chef's knives we had brought, laughed, and broke out his panga (machete).  After that it all happened pretty quickly.  They hog tied his back legs and secured the rope to a tree trunk.  Someone grabbed his mouth and ears and pulled him out taught.  Then one big hack, some sawing, a few more quick cuts and the head was tossed away.  They dragged the body over to some banana leaves where it twitched for the next twenty minutes or so.  (By twitched, I mean thrashed.  It was pretty gnarly.)

At this point, I regained a level of self-awareness I hadn't entirely recognized having lost.  I was about 15 feet further back than where I started at the first hack.

After that, the headless body was shaved, gutted, and dismembered.

And subsequently devoured.

De-lish.