A Tribute to Henny Penny

When I was a little girl, I used to chase the chickens around at my mamaw's house. Sometimes, I would catch them and hold them upside down for a few minutes. When I would release them, they couldn't walk very straight. It was very entertaining. Please don't think I'm mean. I never hurt them :) One day, I found a chicken who would let me hold her. Every time I went to my mamaw's house, I'd find her, hold her, pet her, and carry her around. I named her Henny Penny. Something happened and she died...I think some kind of disease or something. Anyways, I thought of her this past week.

I'm not a huge meat eater in this place, especially if I have to buy it and cook it for myself. On the occassion I do buy meat, I go to a place where the meat is stored in a cooler and the guy just takes what I want out and gives it to me. However, one day I went to a different meat place because it was raining and I didn't want to walk to the other place.

This meat store has a cage of live chickens outside. Hanging in the doorway are a couple of dead, skinned chickens and goats. I ducked under them, and asked the meat guy for a chicken. I was thinking he would get me one of the ones hanging in the doorway, but I was wrong. The guy went outside and chose a chicken from the cage. He brought her in and asked if she was good. I said yes and he plopped her down on the scale. She was blinking her eyes...2 kg. Ok. So the guy took her around back and she began to make an awful noise...and then, she was quiet. When he brought her back, she had no feathers, no head, no skin, no liver.....but she was warm and her heart was still beating.

What to do? I took her home, washed her, and put her in a pot of boiling water...beating heart and all.

And then, I had a barbeque chicken sandwich. Thanks to Granny for her barbeque recipe. And thanks to the bakery for the bread. A quote from my roomie, "I like that lady's buns!"

haha.

A Rickshaw Ride

Sometimes I forget that my every day life isn't so normal. I forgot to post something like this when I first came, and after a short while I didn't think about posting "normal" things. I live in a big city, and if I want to go somewhere in the city, I have to either (1) walk (2) ride the overcrowded bus that I don't know the routes because the script on the bus is not in English or in the language I'm learning (3) ride my bike or (4) take a rickshaw.

To catch an auto, first you must stand at the road and stick out your right hand. Palm facing down, bend your fingers towards towards your palm. If an auto is empty, and wants a customer, the driver will pull up beside you. You tell him where you want to go, and if you're lucky, he'll want to take you. If you're even luckier, when settling on a price, he'll be honest. If you're the luckiest, he'll just go by meter...that is if he hasn't tampered with the meter to make it go to fast, therefore, making the price too costly. Did I mention that 'meter' is the law?

Somedays, finding an auto that will go and won't cheat you is impossible. Somedays, the first one that pulls up is your man. You have to choose your limits. Will you give in and just be cheated? Will you yell? Will you just walk (even if it's 3 miles to where you want to go)? Will you tell the man you know that he's cheating you, that he's a liar? Will you cry?

I'll admit, I've responded in all of these ways. Sometimes my response isn't always the best response, but I'm learning to live here, and I'm very thankful for grace.

Sometimes, when you're riding in an auto and you pull up to a stoplight, the auto might turn off the engine (supposedly to save gas). Sometimes, drivers know how long the light is and will get out and go to the store to get some beedis (like cigarettes), or candy, or a newspaper, or whatever, or to go pee on the sidewalk.

One thing that's for sure....no two rides are the same. Sometimes you see really fun things like kids going home from school or people working or camels or people carrying strange things on their motorcycles. Guaranteed is the bumpyness (I think I made that word up) and your level of pollution intake.

Fourth National Flower Festival

So maybe it was a contest, or a show, or something, but I'm really growing fond of alliteration. And...it seemed more like a festival to me because it was way more than just flowers. I mean, there were:

Beautiful, prize winning flowers...




fruits and vegetables...

plants and trees....

pots for sale...

picnics...

ice cream...

monkeys in the trees....

I mean..people having fun

roasted corn...

coconuts(who knew there are so many kinds!)....

vegetable men...

rocks and a temple...



things to buy...


friends...

sleeping babies...

gossip....

fountains...

families...

police...

bikes...

the REALLY HUGE tree!...

and movie stars...wait, that's just me, and my roomie, and one of the many people who followed us around throughout the day trying to take our picture/be in a picture with us/generally, just stalk us.

And then, as we were leaving.....my roomie fell into the swamps of despair. Well, ok, it was a mud puddle...but it ate her shoe and she had to dig it out. Gross. and Hilarious.